Data management means that research materials (data) and their related descriptive information (metadata) have been created, stored and organised so that the material is kept fit for use and reliable, and that data protection and data security are ensured throughout the life cycle of the data.
On this page, you will find recommendations for data management in Karelia's RDI operations, and links to data management tools. You can also use the page as self-study material for learning about data management.
RDI projects are required to apply the data management plan by dmpTuuli tool. Open science and research requirements are discussed in an internal meeting with RDI services in the beginning of each project.
Support for data management is provided by Karelia UAS RDI Services.
A national set of services for data management, data storage, dataset metadata creation, dataset dissemination and distribution as well as digital preservation of selected research materials. Fairdata Services are organised by the Ministry of Education and Culture supplied by CSC - It Center for Science.
Other services
Data is subject to all kinds of risks from human error to natural catastrophe.
Good data management ensures the preservability, findability, accessibility, comprehensibility and reusability of research data . It benefits researchers, organisations, science, funders and the whole of society.
An increasing number of funders are requiring funding applications to include a data management plan explaining how the project will acquire and use data, what the ownership and user rights to the datasets are, how the data will be stored and how the data will be opened for other researchers during the project and after its conclusion. The management of data in RDI projects ensures that research performed at universities of applied sciences is as high-quality, influential, transparent and duplicable as possible.
Data management is necessary at all levels of the RDI process, and must be safeguarded throughout the process from start to finish. A data management plan should be done for projects as early as in the planning stage. For this purpose a dedicated tool, DMP Tuuli , has been developed for Finnish research organisations.
In Karelia projects, it is recommended that the primary storage location of research data are Karelia’s internally protected network drives (Luna-drive/Karelia PAS), the data management services provided by the Ministry of Education and Culture and CSC, or storage services agreed with project partners and secure in terms of data management. Recommendations are updated and fine-tuned when national and organisation-level RDI data management solutions are developed.
Metadata of the research is opened publicly to Karelia UAS website. The metadata input is made through the internal Reportronic software, which has an API to the public website. In the future the metadata will be transferred directly also to the national research.fi platform, but at the moment the transfer must be made manually either by the researcher or the RDI support services of Karelia UAS.
IDA is a secure research material storage service provided by the Ministry of Education and Culture for universities and for researchers funded by the Academy of Finland. IDA also enables cooperative projects between different organisations. By means of permanent identifiers, research data stored in the IDA service can be linked from publications produced in the RDI activities. IDA also offers the chance for the long-term availability (PAS) of research materials.
Please note, however, that person-sensitive data must be stored in a secure service specified in the research plan. If research data includes person-sensitive data, in principle it should not be put into open use. When considering the opening of research data, it must also be assessed whether opening the data is possible, taking into account ethical, legal and commercial provisions.
The opening of research data and open research methods are one of the most visible forms of open RDI (operations), in addition to open publication. The opening of materials increases the transparency and influence of research. When opening material for further use, a Creative Commons licence , for example, is recommended, whereby the researcher can specify the openness of the further use of the data:
When utilising open research data, the source and authors of the material must be marked on the publication in accordance with good practice.
According to the Data Management Guide published in the Open Science and Research Initiative (2014-2017), research data is defined as follows:
‘Research material’ means resources, which a researcher produces or which he/she uses during the research process. Research materials may be tangible or intangible. For material to be suitable for research, it must at least refer to the origin of the data. For example, descriptive and technical data about what the information contains must be appended to the data. Therefore, much information is added to research data about how it has been structured and coded, how it has been created and how it has been processed. This information should always be stored, for example in metadata, code-books and/or other documentation.
Together with the data, this entity forms the research material.
Typical materials are:
- survey and interview materials
- different measurement and observation materials
- other video, photographic, sound and text materials
In long-term storage, applicable file formats must be considered in order to ensure transferability and storability. File formats that can be stored are those in which the storage and comprehensibility of data content can be guaranteed in the long term. Such file formats include: Comma Separated Values (CSV), Extensible Markup Language (XML), Open Document Format (ODF) and Plain Text (unformatted text file). Transferable file formats are those that can be used generally in organisations using the national PAS solutions and in which the volume of material to be stored is great, for example Microsoft Office file formats and Portable Document Format (PDF). Further information in CSC guidelines and specifications .
It is important to pay attention to data documentation. By describing content, variables and methodologies, the usability of the data can be ensured. Metadata is descriptive information about the data, which gives fundamental information about the data properties. Metadata can also describe the factors concerning user rights. Well-described data is also more easy to find and influences the visibility of research. Further information on Finnish Social Science Data Archive’s Data Management Guidelines.
DMP Tuuli is a common data management tool developed for the use of Finnish research organisations. It facilitates the making and implementation of data management plans.
The system includes specified Karelia template (in Finnish), financier specific templates and general template for data management plans.
The opening of data materials increases the transparency and influence of research. When opening data for further use, Haaga-Helia recommends, for example, a Creative Commons licence, by which the researcher can specify the openness of the further use of the data. Find out about the licence and the alternatives that it offers:
Research data is cited in the same way as (to) other sources, articles or literature. The aim is for the original producer of the material to be credited. Citing instructions can be found both at the Finnish Social Science Data Archive website and in the writing guidelines of publishers.
Persistent identifiers (PID) unique and persistent identifiers used on the web. They
• ensure that a publication or research dataset can be found on the net even when the website or web address has changed
• enable the citing of research datasets
• enable the linking of authors, publications, and research data
• ensure the findability and reuse of publications and data
Persistent identifiers are used to identify persons, publications, and research data, for instance. Common persistent identifiers are
• Researchers: ORCID researcher ID
• Publications and research data: DOI (Digital Object Identifier) used by publishers, URN (Uniform Resource Name) used by repositories of universities and research institutions, such as Theseus, and Handle used by some open repositories.