Before publishing data, researchers or data authors must ensure that the dataset is thoroughly prepared. Here are the key steps to follow:
Ensure the dataset is cleaned, verified for accuracy, and suitable for its intended use.
Consider any privacy, confidentiality, and security issues to determine if the dataset can be published. If necessary, anonymise or de-identify the data.
Ensure the dataset is in reusable file formats, such as open standard formats like CSV files or widely accepted proprietary formats.
Apply an appropriate license to your dataset to clarify how others can use it. Consider using licenses like Creative Commons to specify usage rights.
Make sure the dataset is accessible to a broad audience, including those with disabilities. This might involve providing alternative text for images or ensuring that data tables are screen reader-friendly.
FAIR and CARE Data
Sharing and Access Control are crucial in research data management, especially when considering the FAIR and CARE principles. By adhering to these principles, researchers can ensure their data is both useful and ethically managed, fostering trust and collaboration.
Data should be easy to find for both humans and machines.
How to achieve it?
Keep Necessary Software: Ensure you have the software needed to open and work with your data, keeping a copy if it’s not widely available.
Data should be openly accessible, with clear conditions for use.
How to achieve it?
Check Accessibility Regularly: Periodically confirm that you can open and access your data files to catch any issues early.
Data should be able to integrate with other datasets and tools.
How to achieve it?
Use Non-Proprietary Formats: Store your data in widely supported formats like .csv or .txt to ensure long-term accessibility, interoperability and flexibility.
Data should be well-documented and provided with clear licenses to ensure that it can be reused for future research.
How to achieve it?
Archive Raw Data: Always keep a copy of your raw data for future reference and validation.
Maintain Backups: Back up your data in a separate folder, ensuring compliance with any sensitivity and security concerns.
Data should be collected and used in ways that benefit the communities from which it originates.
How to achieve it?
Use data anonymisation techniques where necessary to protect the identity and privacy of individuals while still allowing for broader, community-wide benefits. Implement data access policies that promote open data sharing within ethical boundaries, while ensuring the protection of sensitive data.
Communities should have the authority to control the data that belongs or comes from them.
How to achieve it?
Enabling communities to have decision-making power over how their data is used. Ensure that communities retain the right to control access to data and decide whether it can be shared with third parties.
Researchers and organisations have a responsibility to manage data ethically and responsibly.
How to achieve it?
Data Stewardship: Take responsibility for managing the integrity, security, and accessibility of data throughout its lifecycle. This includes ensuring data is accurate, updated, and securely stored.
Addressing biases in data and ensuring that data use does not harm any individual or community.
Ethical considerations should be the priority of data management practices.
How to achieve it?
Ensure ethical data collection by obtaining informed consent from data contributors and explaining how their data will be used, shared, and protected. Data anonymisation, ensures individuals’ privacy is maintained while still enabling data to be used for broader societal benefits.