Selecting research data for preservation
Digital preservation is intended for data that have long-term value to the organization or nationally. Organizations assess themselves which research data needs to be preserved. In addition to the fact that the original use of the content should be research, the assessment should consider, for example:
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- Reuse of the data
- Resources that have been spent on producing data
- The data has been produced as part of research that would be difficult, expensive or impossible to replicate
- The data is otherwise of national or organizational significance.
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The Ministry of Education and Culture (Minedu) grants access to DPS for Research Data and makes preservation agreement on the organization’s request. The preservation agreement determines the set of data (also called purpose of use) to which access is granted, as well as the capacity reserved for it from the DPS.
In order to succeed, Digital Preservation Services define the conditions associated with the preservation of data. The organization must take care of, among other things:
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- Metadata are sufficient and guarantee comprehensibility.
- The File Formats specification ensures that the formats used are sufficiently transparent to ensure digital preservation and comprehensibility of data content.
- There are no ethical or legal problems with the research data, such as unresolved copyright or identifiability issues.
- The data must follow Metadata Requirements and Preparing Content for Digital Preservation DPS support helps with the preparation, packaging and transfer of data.
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Becoming a partner organization with the DPS
- The organization assesses the content as suitable for digital preservation.
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- If necessary, the organization can contact DPS support preparing the request for preservation agreement
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- A representative of the organization, acting as a DPS contract liaison, sends a request for preservation to the Ministry of Education and Culture for access to the DPS using the Webropol form (in Finnish). The request includes:
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- name of the organization
- contract liason’s name and contact information
- name of the data set for which access is sought
- whether the content is significant to the organization or nationally
- assessment of the capacity needs for the entire content (TT)
- estimate of the timeframe for transferring the entire data set to DPS
- estimate of capacity needed over the next 2-3 years (TT)
- more information on the data, including justification for responses above
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- Minedu makes a decision on access to the DPS for Research Data and the decision to preserve the content. Minedu notifies the organization and CSC of the decision.
- The organization may contact DPS support to begin preparing the data.
- A CSC representative will contact the organization’s DPS contract liaison to enter into the DPS for Research Data service contract. Parties will enter into a contract.
- The organization may begin the preservation of the material that has received the preservation agreement with the assistance of DPS support.
Webropol form for preservation agreement request (in Finnish)
New preservation agreements are sought with the process above, with the exception that the DPS contract referred to in paragraph 5 is not concluded again, but new preservation agreements are attached to the previously concluded contract.
Webropol form for preservation agreement request (in Finnish)
More information about DPS for Research Data service contract and service privacy
Digital Preservation dataset management
Organizations can manage their datasets’ digital preservation process via https://manage.fairdata.fi/ (PAS hallintaliittymä). For access and management rights, please contact pas-support (a) csc.fi.
Contact
Support requests regarding the DPS to pas-support@csc.fi.