Research Data Management

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, know principles for classifying and handling data at the organization 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).

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.

Data protection

Research ethics