Sami Borg and Helena Laaksonen :

Acquisition policies for a new data archiveIASSIST2005Edinburgh, May 2005

fsd@uta.fihttp://www.fsd.uta.fi

www.fsd.uta.fi

Facts about FSD and the Finnish setting• FSD was established in 1999, at that time the

number of permanent staff members was 10• Most Finnish social scientists work at about 10

different universities, financed by the state• A great number of surveys are collected by

projects and by organizations outside the academia (so-called sector research organizations, also the third sector share is important)

• Popularity of quantitative research methods varies a lot by university and by discipline

Background • Appropriate acquisition policies support data sharing

and open access to research data• What we should achieve are better research and

science ethics, better quality of research and learning, and more efficient use of public funding

• Acquisition policies and archival development must be adjusted to the mandate, mission, and resources of the archive, and to its operational environment

• FSD has strong national mandate in national data archiving, but…

• National culture for data sharing is weak

Developments in scope and coverage• In the beginning FSD’s focus was primarily on

archiving quantitative social science data, mainly national and international surveys

• Acquisition of qualitative data started some years ago, it needs more time and support

• Now we are also trying to acquire more data from educational sciences and health sciences

• Setting documentation levels to different types of data is in process

Criteria for evaluating data sets and deciding what to archive 1• FSD has more or less the same criteria for evaluation

as, for instance, the UK Data Archive• Key evaluation criteria are linked to the scope, to

sufficient legal conditions, and to the re-use potential of the data in research and teaching

• Data depositors can (but luckily seldom do) set different types conditions on the use of their data, and depositing data is NOT mandatory

• For the moment, the basic data services are free of charge for data providers and end-users (extra services, like sending printed material, are charged)

• Only in very few cases FSD has paid the costs of preparing data for archival

Criteria for evaluating data sets and deciding what to archive 2• Emphasis has mainly been on data with wide

geographical coverage • Time series and panel data are of great interest, but

very few panel data sets has been archived so far• The present collection includes about 600 data sets,

fully documented with the DDI • Work load from updating data and metadata not yet

that heavy• We still hope to see a rapid increase on the number of

archived data sets• Basically have not yet been very selective in data

evaluation, if formal requirements have been ok

Acquisition in practice in FSD

Reality: • Researchers seldom contact us

to archive their data• The archive must be active and

persistent

From localisation to archiving 1Three stages of acquisition:1. Localisation2. Contacting the researchers3. Receiving the data & other

related material

From localisation to archiving 2

Focal points in establishing contacts:

1. ”Ok, I’ll give you my research data”

2. Making it really happen

Identifying contemporary dataSources:• Academic journals• News media• E-mail lists• Online publication catalogues of

universities• Web sites of research funding

bodies

Detective work to preserve older dataSources:• Literature• Older issues of academic journals• Most important: contacts with

experienced academics

Contacting potential depositors• Localisation everyone’s business• Establishing contacts, main

responsibility: Director, Information Officer & Senior Research Fellow, a specialist on research ethics and qualitative research

Acquiring data is a tough job 1Several contacts before receiving

the data • in an easy case: 5 – 10 e-mails &

phone calls• In a tough case: after 20 contacts,

still waiting to get the data

Acquiring data is a tough job 2• Biggest negotiation challenge

to persuade an individual researcher

• Established contacts may ease the acquisition process

• Medium-sized organisations easier than large ones

Acquiring data is a tough job 3• Recently collected datasets, with

primary analyses made and published, easier to acquire

• Moments for success:when researchers are approaching retirement age, or when they move office

Temporal coverage of FSD’s data holdings (31 Dec. 2004)

Points of time (timePrd, starting point)

 

Decade N %

1 -1979 27 5,9

2 1980 -1989 58 12,7

3 1990 -1999 235 51,5

4 2000 - 136 29,8

All 456 100

PR and information services

• Part of acquisition: making the archive known

• Promoting a new culture of data sharing within the research community

• Appeal to researchers’ own interests

Support from the funding organisations in Europe 1• In all but one country at minimum

one funding body has at least a recommendation to deposit data for archiving

• In five countries more than mere recommendations

• Ways of controlling not effective enough (except in the UK)

Support from the funding organisations in Europe 2• Only in the UK: research projects apply for

money to prepare data for archiving in most cases

• In five countries the researchers apply funds for this purpose almost never or never

• In one country they sometimes apply• In one country they seldom apply• Seven of our informants estimated: funding

would usually be given to the projects when applied for

• In three countries they would usually not get the money

1 Locate:IdentifyMonitorLocateConsult expertsReadDocument

2 Contact:PlanTimeVisitCallE-mailDocument

3 Reach agreement:InformNegotiatePersuadeAppealConvinceSellConvert

(Buy / Bribe)(Blackmail)

Sign

4 Acquire data and docs:WaitRemindHelpContactRepeatAppeal

Institutional support:Archival resourcesResearch agreementsResearch guidelinesData sharing decisionsEtc.

High pressure over data acquisition