Storage | ||
|---|---|---|
During the project | ||
During the research project data will be collected and registrations of the method have to be documented. | ||
| Active data | In which way are collections and methods organised? (Hint: Organizing files and folders) | |
| How much storage space will the data consume? | ||
| Which data formats get used (ARC, WARC, CDX, PDF, CSV, ...)? | ||
| Version Control | Which files get version controlled (sensitive data are not allowed to be that)? | |
| Which version control system is used? | ||
| Which version of the version control system is used? | ||
Durable formats | Endorsed and published by standards agencies (http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/descriptions.shtml, http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/) | |
| Publicly documented, i.e. complete authoritative specifications are available | ||
| Widely used and accepted as best practice | ||
| Data validation and authentication | Current data volume - total size in MB/GB/TB - and likely rate of growth | |
| Number of files and folders, and how they are organised | ||
| Platform - Mac/windows/Linux | ||
| Applications used to access and work with your data | ||
| Frequency of update, e.g. working data that changes daily, or data from project that needs to be retained but would not be used often | ||
| Data type(s): spreadsheets, database, documents, images, datasets, etc. | ||
| Any special security needs, e.g. personal data, commercial potential | ||
| Access control: Who needs access to which areas? Do they have access to Netarkivet? If not, where are they from and who are they, e.g. journalist, lawyers, journals etc. | ||
| Backup | Is there a backup strategy? | |
How many copies are there? | ||
| Are they placed in another place than the main data storage? | ||
| Are they placed securestored securely (for instance sensitive data)? | ||
| On which devices are they placed? | ||
| How prone is the device to writing errors? | ||
| Is there a plan for periodically 'refresh' the data (i.e. copy to a new disk, USB stick, or portable drive)? | ||
Organizing and documenting data | ||
Hvilke værktøjer anvendes (navn, version og systemkrav)? (gerne link til værktøjet) Hvilken platform og versionsnummer anvendes (windows, linux, mac)? | Per / Kulturarvscluster | |
Backup
Researchers and research administrators must have a backup strategy to recover data after loss and/or to recover data from a particular time. It may not be possible to store the data in the State and University Library. In such cases a suitable place has to be found for backup of the data. Backups of more than one copy should be performed regularly, and should be housed remotely from the main data storage. The backups should be labelled and well organised to facilitate any data restoration process.
Backup security requires further mention. If the data is sensitive then it should not be stored on a computer that is connected to the internet, and preferably not connected to any network. If the data needs to be destroyed at the end of a project then consider what level is required – a hard drive will need to be overwritten several hundred times to ensure that no data can be recovered.
The lifetime of backups should also be considered. Burned optical discs have average lifetime of two years, and five years if kept in a cool dark place.
It is a good idea to check with the IT staff to find out how often they backup, what is the maximum amount of data they can backup, and how long they keep old backups.
You may need to maintain your own backups if:
...
You should create and maintain sufficient documentation or metadata (i.e. structured information about the data) to enable research data to be identified, discovered, associated with its owners and creators, linked to other related data or publications, contextualised in time and space, and to have the quality of the data assessed and research results validated.If you poorly document your data, it will be difficult (or impossible) to find it and manage it in the longer term. Even if you (or others, in future) can find the data, its value will be diminished if it is hard to interpret. You should always ensure that protocols are agreed early in the project and adopted by all researchers consistently. | ||
Metadata standard | What metadata standard is chosen?
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Metadata and Recordkeeping
Metadata or data documentation is critical to every research project. Appropriate records must accompany all data throughout the research cycle, continuing into the inactive storage stage, and be included in the metadata.
Data documentation explains how data was created or digitized, what data means, what its content and structure is, and any manipulations that may have taken place. This ensures that data can be understood during research projects, that researchers continue to understand data in the longer term and that re-users of data are able to interpret the data. Good documentation is also vital for successful data preservation.
Metadata is typically used for resource discovery, providing searchable information that helps users to find existing data, as a bibliographic record for citation, or for online data browsing. Researchers and research administrators must plan and record a process for recording data in the Data Management Plan before data collection begins. This will make data documentation easier and reduce the likelihood that aspects of the data are forgotten later in the research project.