Anonymising data

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There are a number of really helpful sources of information on anonymising research data for sharing.

Research data management policy creation

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We have a draft research data management policy progressing through various working groups and then on to committees at the University. However, we could not have reached this stage without the support of staff from the Digital Curation Centre. They gave a workshop where they advised us on the points our policy should cover and directed us to appropriate policies of other universities.

The starting point was to consider RCUK’s common principles on data and how we might align our research data management policy to these principles. We then looked at examples of research data management policies from other universities. We were particularly impressed with the University of Edinburgh’s research data management policy and this provided the starting point for our own policy. Talking through this policy and  others we realised that it was possible to separate policy statements and stakeholder responsibilities. This is exactly what the University of Oxford have done in their policy on the management of research data and records. So, we have incorporated elements of this policy too.

The Digital Curation Center

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We were very fortunate to have support from Digital Curation Centre (DCC) staff when devising some research data management training sessions, drafting our research data management policy and having a first look at data management planning. They facilitated three sessions to kick-start our research data management activities and these were well received by all in attendance.

We are hoping to arrange another event with the DCC in the autumn and we are looking forward to more enjoyable and rewarding sessions.

Incidentally, the DCC have a wealth of information and support on all matters relating to research data management. Some of my particular favourites at the moment are listed below.

  • Digital curation – if you want to understand what digital curation involves and why it is important take a look at this section of DCC’s website.
  • Data management plans – invaluable resources when writing a data management plan for a project or research funder.
  • Case studies – wondering what other people are up to? Check out these cases studies to learn about research data management in action.

RDM training

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Feedback from attendees at a recent RDM overview session in the University Library pointed to a few areas of concern:

  • Protecting future research based on data collected in a project.
  • Difficulties in sharing due to confidentiality agreements signed by participants several years ago. Participants can not be contacted retrospectively as the sensitive nature of the research demanded that personal details were not retained.
  • Computer Scientists have practices in place for dealing with data – de-duplication, compression, etc.
  • Requirement for service to support data processing and analysis – High Performance Computing.

These illustrate areas where advice and guidance would be welcomed and where there is a need to raise awareness of existing services. For example, some funders are happy for grant recipients to protect access to their research data so that they can publish the results of their research. EPSRC is one such funder, check out their research data principles (http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/about/standards/researchdata/Pages/principles.aspx). In addition, we have a High Performance Computing service at Loughborough and researchers can request time on this (http://www.lboro.ac.uk/services/it/specialist/hpc/).