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Libraries Home1.2 Challenges for management and preservation
Data management and data preservation are two different activities. Data management is done by a research team during the active part of the life of the data. Data preservation needs to be addressed at all phases, but especially by data librarians or archivists, after the data has become inactive. Problems regarding the management and preservation of data, even if they are only potential issues, need to be addressed in the planning stages of the research process. Solutions or potential alternatives should be documented accordingly.
Examples of potential challenges for the management and preservation of datsets include confidentiality issues surrounding the data, ensuring there is consent from respondents allowing for secondary use, copyright of secondary data used and preserving unusual data formats.
Confidentiality
- Ensuring respondent confidentiality is a major concern when looking at whether to preserve datasets in perpetuity.
- Restricted access or anonymization of data can protect research subjects while still providing access.
- For more information, see Corti, et al. "Confidentiality and Informed Consent: Issues for Consideration in the Preservation of and Provision of Access to Qualitative Data Archives." In Forum: Qualitative Social Research 1(3).
Consent
- See the UO's Office for the Protection of Human Subjects for a general overview of protecting human subjects throughout the research process.
- Subjects should be made aware of what will happen to the data after the research project closes. If you intend to archive data that involved human subject participation and would like to provide access to it in the future, your informed consent forms should not include the provision that you will not share the data beyond the research team.
- The informed consent forms and Institutional Review Board (IRB) application and subsequent correspondence should be linked to the research data by core documentation. This way, the research data can be managed responsibly and adhere to what the subjects agreed to.
- Access to legacy data can be problematic. It is best to obtain consent for further use of data during fieldwork.
Copyright
- Copyright can be a potential barrier to the preservation and subsequent access of data sets that use secondary data that falls under copyright protection.
- UO Office of Technology Transfer has a website called Copyright Principles in Action that provides resources and FAQs on a wide variety of issues surrounding copyright.
Unusual data types
- Review data types for sustainability and interoperability before conducting fieldwork.
- Review archival guidelines to see if the chosen data formats are viable for the life of the data. Contact the Electronic Records Archivist with questions.
Last Modified: 03/11/2008