Plan your data management

Research data are any recorded information and materials necessary to support or validate a research project’s observations, findings or outputs, regardless of format.

Data include a range of information, physical or digital, quantitative or qualitative, such as survey data, transcripts, experimental measurements, models, images, audio-visual data, samples, artefacts, field or lab notes. The data you collect or create will vary across the different stages of the research, for example:

• raw data arising from the research
• datasets generated from raw data
• subsets of data presented in your primary publication.

Using secondary data? Find out more in the section below.

The Principal Investigator (PI) is responsible for managing research data in line with Edge Hill’s policy. This includes

• following data protection, ethics, and other regulatory requirements
• depositing the data in an appropriate repository and
• if Edge Hill Figshare is not the repository used, putting a metadata record in Figshare.

If you are collaborating with others, ensure you clarify and document data ownership and data management responsibilities. This could be in your DMP or in a collaboration agreement.

If the PI is not an Edge Hill staff member or student, the lead Edge Hill researcher should put a metadata record in Figshare linking to the data.

All research with human participants and/or collection of personal data requires ethical approval. At Edge Hill, use of secondary data that is personal data also needs approval.

Demonstrate that you have considered ethical issues and planned accordingly. You must get consent from your participants to participate in the research and, if you are collecting personal data, to process their personal data. You should also obtain consent to preserve, reuse and share data. Inform participants of how you will do this and how you will protect their identity if required.

Familiarise yourself with your responsibilities under data protection legislation.

UK data protection legislation requires transparency about the personal data you collect, the purpose of collecting them and how you will process and safeguard them. You also have a duty of confidentiality when handling personal data.

Outline how you will store, protect and ensure confidentiality of personal data in your DMP. You should only keep personal or confidential data in their original form for as long as they are required. The original data should be securely disposed of following anonymisation or a reasonable retention period. For example, delete original audio files and notes when you have transcribed your interviews.

In the case of other sensitive or confidential data that are not personal data, consider relevant legislation and what you might need to put in place to ensure confidentiality. For example, data that could be combined with other data to identify people or data indicating locations of protected animals or plant species.

You may want to use data already created by others, such as existing research studies, surveys, experiments, patient data; or archives and public records; or social media.

Remember, under Edge Hill’s ethics policy, you must obtain ethics approval for use of secondary data that are personal data.

Find out more about sources of secondary data, including NHS and social media data, further down this page and via the links below.

Consider relevant institutional policies or funder terms and conditions on copyright and IP rights. There may be restrictions on your use of your research results or use of secondary data.

Interview data: Copyright applies to interviews in research. Individual interviewees have legal rights over recordings of themselves and copyright in the ‘words’ of their particular interview. When obtaining consent, you need to obtain permission to use participants’ words and inform them of what you will use their data for and how you will share the data.

Copyright and secondary data: You need to consider copyright and establish the terms of use that apply to your use of secondary data.

You must seek and obtain copyright permissions before reproducing data or sharing/archiving data.

IP rights: who owns your data?

Note, if you are an employee of the University, the research data you generate is normally owned by the University.

If you are part of a collaborative project or funded by a third party, check who will own the results of the project. Ownership of any results and rights of use should be set out in a collaboration or sponsorship agreement. Contact the Research Office for support.

Failure to clarify copyright and IP rights may result in serious limitations being placed on your research, its dissemination, any future research, and any associated profit or credit (e.g. patents/royalties).

All research activity incurs costs. These include your time in managing data, storage of data during the project and longer-term preservation. They may be funded by Edge Hill or by an external funder.

The University provides Figshare as a digital research data repository. Most preservation needs are likely to be covered by this. But it may be more appropriate to store your data in a subject or disciplinary repository. Re3Data is a registry of research data repositories.

Many funders will allow you to claim some or all data management costs. Wherever possible, you should include these costs in your funding application.

You must follow the policies and requirements of your funder and/or publisher. The links below provide information about the requirements of funders and publishers.

Other stakeholders in the project may have their own data management policies with which you will need to comply, such as organisations supplying research participants.