5. After the research

Opening research data 

• enhances data reuse 
• advances research and innovations 
• improves research reliability 
• promotes research collaboration 
• spares resources when suitable research data is already available
• contributes to the researcher’s academic merit. 

Research data can be shared openly by 

• depositing them in a general or discipline-specific data repository 
• depositing them in an institutional data repository  
• submitting them to an open data journal. 

Opening and publishing research data typically take place after a research project has been completed, but in longer projects this may also occur during the research process. It is essential to plan data opening from the very beginning of the project; otherwise, it may later prove impossible to open the data.

Ethical and legal considerations may limit the degree to which data can be made open. For example, sensitive or confidential information, as well as trade or professional secrets, may restrict data sharing. If your research data include personal data, particular attention must be paid to data protection requirements (see Chapter 2).

If your data cannot be fully opened due to confidentiality, contractual obligations, or other restrictions, it is usually still possible to publish the metadata (that is, a description of the data). Publishing metadata increases the visibility of both the research data and the research itself, even when the data cannot be openly shared or published.

After the completion of the research, research data must be preserved for at least the required retention period to enable the verification of the research results. Once the retention period has ended, the research data must be disposed of in an appropriate and secure manner, with due consideration given to information security.

According to the guidelines of the University of Eastern Finland, research data should be retained for a minimum of five years after the completion of the research, unless longer retention is required by law or other obligations. UEF storage systems are suitable for temporary storage as long as at least one member of the research team is affiliated with UEF and has access to an active UEF user account.

When planning the retention period, it is important to consider whether the data may be reused or whether there are other reasons to retain the data for a longer period after the research has ended. If the research data contain personal data, data protection requirements must be complied with in accordance with applicable legislation. For example, according to the Data Protection Regulation, personal data may be retained only for as long as necessary for the purposes of the research. After this, the data must either be destroyed or anonymised (i.e., personal identifiers are removed). In some cases, data containing personal data may be archived if there are sufficient legal grounds for doing so (see the guidelines of the Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman). Research participants must also be informed about the processing of their personal data after the research has ended (see Chapter 2 ). 

Long-term preservation refers to the permanent safeguarding of digital information, ensuring its usability for decades or even centuries. Its purpose is to keep highly significant materials accessible and usable for future generations. Long-term preservation requires that research data remain functional and interoperable over time. This, in turn, depends on sufficiently detailed descriptive information (see Chapter 3), so that the material can be understood and reused

The preserved data must remain reusable even as file formats, software, and hardware become obsolete. For this reason, it is advisable to store data in file formats that are widely supported and software-independent, typically open and non-proprietary formats. Where necessary, materials preserved for long term must be converted to new file formats to maintain their usability.

Research data can be made available for other users to varying degrees, stored for a fixed period of time, or preserved long term in data archives or repositories. Data repositories and archives are specialised databases designed the publishing and preservation of research data. They may be general repositories that accept data from multiple scientific disciplines, or discipline-specific repositories that focus on a particular field or theme.

Repositories may allow researchers to upload data free of charge, or they may charge a fee for hosting. Researchers can choose the repository that best suits their data and discipline. In addition, many publishers provide recommendations for data repositories.

Registry of Research Data Repositories (re3data.org) can be used to search suitable data repositories filtering by research field or topic. The UEF Open Research Data page also provides help in finding a suitable repository. 

Below are two examples of commonly used data repositories for storing research data:

The Finnish Social Science Data Archive is a free-of-charge digital preservation service for research, teaching and study purposes, operating in accordance with the FAIR principles. The archive specialises in social science data. It curates the data for further use through description and anonymisation. The data are assigned persistent identifiers supporting their reuse. 

Zenodo is a free-of-charge general-purpose open data repository that can be used to store and share, for example, publications, posters, presentations, research data, images, videos, software and lectures. While persistent identifiers are assigned to data, Zenodo does not curate the data, therefore, ensuring data usability remains the responsibility of the researcher. Zenodo is maintained by CERN, and its main funders include the European Commission through OpenAIRE

Note! UEF eRepo is not a data repository, i.e. researchers cannot directly deposit their data to UEF eRepo. Instead, it collects information of research data and publications that have been deposited by UEF researchers in other repositories or services, thus increasing the visibility of their research. 

After the planned retention period, research data must be disposed of properly, with due consideration given to data security The deliberate disposal of research data is an essential component of safe research data management. For example, simply deleting a file from a hard drive does not always remove it permanently. In some cases, the file must be overwritten to ensure complete and irreversible deletion of the data. The organisation’s IT services can provide assistance in such situations.

UEF’s instructions on secure data disposal are available on the UEF Intranet under information security including links to up-to-date training materials for university personnel (requires UEF login).

When opening your research data, you need to license them, meaning the terms and rights of use, and the level openness must be defined. Creative Commons is a general licensing system that is used internationally. It provides free copyright licences that allow for easy and standardised defining of how openly online material can be used, i.e. the ways in which others may copy, distribute and use the research data. 

For open research data, the CC BY 4.0 or CC0 license are recommended, and the CC0 license is recommended for metadata. For computer software, the MIT or GLP licenses are recommended. 

Creative Commons licenses 

CC BY is the most common and flexible license. It allows others to copy, transmit, distribute, and present the original copyrighted work and modified versions of it, provided the original author is credited. The license is recommended for when you want to maximise the use and distribution of the work and ensure that the original author is properly acknowledged. In the case of the CC0 link, the original author does not have to be credited, although it is good practice to do so. 

CC BY-SA allows others to distribute and modify the work and create new works based on it, also for commercial purposes, as long as the original author is credited and the new works are licensed under the same terms.  

CC BY-NC allows others to distribute and modify the work and create new works based on it, although not for commercial purposes. The new works must also be non-commercial and the original author must be credited. Derivative works, however, do not need to be licensed under the same terms, which may lead to problems if the original author wishes to commercialise their work. 

CC BY-NC-SA allows others to distribute and modify the work and create new, non-commercial works based on it, as long as the original author is credited and the new works are licensed under similar terms. 

CC BY-ND allows the distribution of the work for commercial purposes as well, as long as the work is distributed unchanged and the original author is credited. 

CC BY-NC-ND allows others to distribute the work, as long as the original author is credited and the work is not modified in any way or used for commercial purposes. 

• Data sharing – Where and how? (Basics of Open and Responsible Science: Open Access Publishing and Research Data. UEF open learning material)
• How to License Research Data (Digital Curation Centre – DCC)
• Open research data and methods National policy and executive plan by the higher education and research community for 2021–2025. Policy component 1 (Open access to research data) and 2 (Open access to research methods and infrastructures). Responsible research series 4:2023, National Open Science Coordination, Federation of Finnish Learned Societies
• Open research data (UEF Open science website) with subsections
• Researcher’s check list for publishing data (Responsible Research)