At the end of a project, it is important to determine what should be deleted and what should be preserved. Furthermore, it is crucial to decide what should be made available according to the principle "as open as possible, as closed as necessary."
Use the following questions to guide you:
- What can be deleted?
- What must be preserved?
- What should be preserved?
- Which archive is suitable for the research data?
- What requirements does the archive have for metadata, format, documentation, and license?
Description and license
Regardless of where the data is archived, provenance in the form of information about where and by whom the data has been collected, described, and archived is important to include. This can be documented in a README file: See the general template for DataverseNO README File (zenodo.org).
Data to be archived must be exported to archive-friendly open formats. If significant information is lost during export, consider preserving the original format. Read more about file formats.
Licenses should be internationally recognized, machine-readable, and human-readable, and impose as few restrictions as possible on access, reuse, and redistribution of the data. Read more about licenses.
- Regardless of where the data is archived, provenance in the form of information about where and who collected, described, and archived the data is important to include. This can be documented in a README file.
- Data that is to be archived must be exported in archive-friendly open formats. When there is a possibility that information is lost in the export, you may consider preserving the original format.
- The licenses chosen should be internationally recognized, machine-readable, and human-readable, as well as impose as few restrictions as possible on access, reuse, and redistribution of the data.
How open?
In its policy for research data management, the University of Oslo (UiO) states that research data should be made openly available for further use, under the same conditions, unless there are legal, ethical, or security reasons not to do so. Read more about what "as open as possible" entails.
Data that is shared openly will also be easier for you, as a researcher, to reuse in future research, even if your employment at UiO ends.