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Research support

Publish your data

It is University policy that research data generated during your research project should be stored and made available for use in a suitable repository or archiving system and provided with persistent identifiers. Research data should be stored on the TU Research Data Repository, or a record should be created in the University's Research Portal  with a link to a suitable external repository for example when required by an external funder. 

Reasons to share your data

  • enables reproducibility of results
  • improves research integrity
  • by increasing visibility of your research outputs citations will increase
  • compliance with founder and journal policies

Sharing, archiving and publishing your data

The data repository Teesside University subscribes to is TU Research Data Repository. This repository links to the University's Research Portal and enables your datasets to be linked to your staff profile, and to any corresponding research outputs on the TeesRep section of the Portal.

TU Research Data Repository ensures that your data are shared and archived in a secure and reliable way and gives you full control over what data is shared.

TU Research Data Repository

TU Research Data Repository is the Research Data Repository that Teesside University recommends for the University's research community.  It is University policy for research data to be deposited in TU Research Data Repository, or a suitable alternative repository for example when required by an external funder.   The research data can then be linked to a corresponding research output in TeesRep.

TU Research Data Repository allows you to:

  • search datasets from 1,000s of different data repositories
  • store and share datasets following the FAIR data principles (F: Findable, A: Accessible, I: Interoperable, R: Reusable)
  • use it as a collaborative team workplace whereyou can share project data, integrate external data sources securely and prepare datasets for publication.

TU Research Data Repository allows you to make your data:

  • Open access: make your data freely available for any researcher to download from the repository
  • Apply data embargos: delay access to your data to allow you time to finish your research output, or to comply with contractual obligations from funders or other stakeholders
  • Apply access restrictions: your data may be of a sensitive nature in which case other researcher will need to request access. It would be up to you to grant that access
  • License your data: you will be required to provide a copyright license for you data to give clear guidance to other users as to what they can do with it
  • Keep your data private: if your data are highly sensitive or are a work in progress, you can restrict access to yourself and your collaborators.
The Data Protection Act 2018 applies to the processing of personal data. In the area of research this applies to any data containing direct identifiers such as name, address, National Insurance number etc.  Data protection law applies even if the research data does not contain any direct identifiers but contains information that could identify an individual indirectly such as health, social characteristics etc.

 

Personal data includes:

Name, date of birth, address, post code, phone numbers, email address, IP address, image or facial recognition data including CCTV footage, audio data, social media profile data, or online identifiers such as log in details.

Some personal data is classed as Special Categories - these are also covered by the Data Protection Act 2018.

Special Categories include:

Racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade or union membership, data concerning health (physical or mental), sex life or sexual orientation, genetic or biometric data processed to uniquely identify a person, data relating to children, criminal convictions or offences data.

Tips to ensure personal data is protected:

  • When developing your DMP you must consider data sharing and whether you need written consent to share data beyond your research. If confidentiality of audio-visual data is an issue, it is better to obtain the participant's consent to use and share the data unaltered.  If consent is not given it is at the planning stage of your research when you must consider how you will anonymise sensitive or personal data.
  • Ensure your research complies with all relevant Teesside University policies as well as any funder requirements.
  • Make sure ethical approval has been received.
  • Collect only the minimum amount of data required to carry out your research.
  • Use anonymised or pseudonymised data whenever possible.
  • Make sure you data is stored on secure drives.
  • If using laptops, tablets, smartphones, USBs or portable devices you should ensure that they are encrypted.
It is the responsibility of all researchers to anonymise or pseudonymise the personal data in their research before it is published.

 

A few resources to help anonymise your research data:

How do I deposit my research data to TU Research Data Repository?

Please download the following guide for instructions on depositing your research data:

Once you have published your dataset it will automatically be imported into the Research Portal - TeesRep.

Your datasets will be listed on your staff profile page.  

You can also search for research the datasets on TeesRep by selecting the Datasets icon.