The Research Data Service at the University of Edinburgh provides research data support and training for staff and postgraduate students. Yet, over the last year through an Innovation Grant – we have decided to branch out and produce training materials to support our undergraduate students as well.
The result is a new handbook called ‘Data Mindfulness: Making the most of your dissertation’, along with a set of face-to-face workshops that we have delivered during the spring semester and will be delivering again this autumn. The idea behind this handbook and the workshops is to take UG students through all the stages of their dissertation journey: from choosing their question to dealing with literature and data to preserving their data after submission.
Unlike existing material for postgraduates and researchers, this handbook has been written by one of our PhD interns from the perspective of a student; and it places data management tips within the broader experience of conducting a UG dissertation. We believe this student perspective is what makes this handbook unique and particularly innovative.
Following on from our blog post on the benefits of RDM training which was posted on the 15th of November, we have scheduled our in-person training courses for the Spring 2019 semester. A description of each course and its intended audience can be found on our Training and support resources webpage, alongside details of online training offerings. Courses can usually be booked through MyEd Event Booking approximately four weeks beforehand.
Course
Dates & Times
Location
Creating a Data Management Plan
16/01/2019@10:30-12:30
Seminar Room 3, Chancellor’s Building (Little France) Map
It falls upon me to cover the ‘hot topic’ of research data and GDPR (European privacy legislation) just before a cold winter holiday break. This makes me feel like the last speaker in a session that has overrun – ‘So, I’m the only thing between you and your lunch …’ But none of this changes the fact that the General Data Protection Legislation – codified into British Law by the UK Data Protection Act, 2018 – is a very important factor for researchers working with human subjects to take into account.
This is why the topic of GDPR and data protection arose out of the case studies project that my colleagues completed this summer. This blog post introduces the last in the series of these RDM case studies: Personal data: What does GDPR mean for your research data?
Dr. Niamh Moore talks about how research has evolved to take data protection and ethics into account, focusing on the time-honoured consent form, and the need to take “a more granular approach” to consent: subjects can grant their consent to be in a study, but also to have their data shared–in the form of interview transcripts, audio or video files, diaries, etc., and can choose which of these they consent to and which they do not.
Consent remains a key for working with human subjects ethically and legally, but at the University of Edinburgh and other HEIs, the legal basis for processing research data by academic staff may not be consent, it may simply be that research is the public task of the University. This shifts consent into the ethical column, while also ensuring fair, transparent, and lawful processing as part of GDPR principles.
I was invited to contribute to the video as well, from a service provider’s perspective because our Research Data Support team advises and trains researchers on working with personal and sensitive data. One of my messages was of reassurance, that actually researchers already follow ethical norms that put them in good stead for being compliant with the Law.
Our short video brings out some examples, but we could not cover everything a researcher needs to know about the GDPR – the University of Edinburgh’s Data Protection Officer has written authoritative guidance on research and data protection legislation for our staff and students and has also created a research-specific resource on the LEARN platform. Our research data support team also offers face to face training on Working with Personal and Sensitive Data which has been updated for GDPR.
I have tried to summarise how researchers can comply with the GDPR/UK Data Protection Act, 2018 while making use of our Research Data Service in this new Quick Guide–Research Data Management and GDPR: Do’s and Don’ts. Comments are welcome on the usefulness and accuracy of this advice!
Robin Rice
Data Librarian and Head, Research Data Support
Library & University Collections
A big part of the role of the Research Data Service is to provide a mixture of online and (general/tailored) in-person training courses on Research Data Management (RDM) to all University research staff and students.
In this video, PhD student Lis talks about her experiences of accessing both our online training and attending some of our face-to-face courses. Lis emphasises how valuable both of these can be to new PhD candidates, who may well be applying RDM good practice for the first time in their career.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/ycCiXoJw1MY[/youtube]
It is interesting to see Lis reflect on how these training opportunities made her think about how she handles data on a daily basis, bringing a realisation that much of her data was sensitive and therefore needed to be safeguarded in an appropriate manner.
Our range of regularly scheduled face-to-face training courses are run through both Digital Skills and the Institute of Academic Development – these are open to all research staff and students. In addition, we also create and provide bespoke training courses for schools and research groups based on their specific needs. Online training is delivered via MANTRA and the Research Data Management MOOC which we developed in collaboration with the University of North Carolina.
In the video Lis also discusses her experiences using some RDS tools and services, such as DataStore for storing and backing-up her research data to prevent data loss, and contacting our team for timely support in writing a Data Management Plan for her project.
If you would like to learn more about any of the things Lis mentions in her interview you should visit the RDS website, or to discuss bespoke training for your school or research centre / group please contact us via data-support@ed.ac.uk.
Kerry Miller
Research Data Support Officer
Library and University Collections
The University of Edinburgh
