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Research Data Management

Ethical and legal compliance

Research data management involves various legal and ethical considerations throughout the life cycle of the datasets. These influence the ways in which you can collect, store, and process research data, who can use the data and for what purpose. Please pay attention to ethical and legal considerations throughout the research process, starting from the data collection planning stage.

In the data management plan, you must show that you are familiar with the legislation related to processing data and take ethical considerations into account. The plan must include a description of the necessary measures to be taken and the risks data processing entails.

  • Make it clear if you are using any types of confidential data, such as personal data, sensitive biodiversity data, trade secrets, or military records.
  • Indicate that you understand the significance of information security in research data management and comply with the information security guidelines of the University of Lapland.
  • Prior to starting research and data collection you must find out whether your research requires an ethical review.
  • Also, check if you need a research permission.
  • Pay particular attention to ethical questions when conducting research in Indigenous Studies. Familiarise yourself with the Ethical guidelines for research involving the Sámi people in Finland and CARE principles. From the perspective of research data management, careful processing of personal data, for example, is an act that protects the rights of minorities.
  • Note that a DMP should not include an extensive elaboration on research ethics but its focus should be on datasets.

The principal investigator of the research project is responsible for ensuring that the research project is conducted in accordance with the guidelines of the University of Lapland. All research must be conducted accordance with the Responsible Conduct of Research issued by the The Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK).

Personal data

It is crucial for you to identify whether you are collecting or using personal data in your research. This has an affect on all the areas of research data management. Familiarise yourself with the University of Lapland's guidelines on Data protection in research. Pay particular attention to regulation on processing personal data and data protection (General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act).

When processing personal data you must always identify e.g. the data controller and the basis for processing personal data. You must also inform the research participants about personal data processing.

  • Please note that if you are conducting research independently, you are also the data controller in your research. If your research is part of a university project and you are employed by the university, the data controller is the university.
  • You can find a privacy notice model from the website Data protection in research. More document models, for example consent to take part in research, can be found on the intra page of Legal Services under the title Contract templates and Instructions. If you are not an eployee, you can get the templates from your supervisor or from the Data Protection Officer.  
  • Describe how you are going to protect the privacy of the participants and, if needed, how you are going to perform the pseudonymization or anonymization of your data. Please note that pseudonymization or anonymization does not mean that you will not be processing personal data.

If you have questions related to data protection, please contact the University’s Data Protection Officer by email at: tietosuoja(at)ulapland.fi.

Rights

The rights and responsibilities regarding research data should be agreed on as early as possible. The University of Lapland’s Data Policy requires ownership, user rights, terms of use, and authorship of research datasets should be agreed on as early as possible.

In your DMP, describe issues related to ownership and user rights, copyrights, transfer of rights, and practices regarding confidentiality of the research data. You should also consider the influence of these on opening of the data.

If you plan to open your data, we recommend obtaining a license, for example a Creative Commons license. A license ensures usability of data and sets conditions for it.

  • Viimeksi päivitetty: Jul 1, 2024 1:34 PM
  • URL: https://libguides.luc.fi/datamanagement
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