For students – data management stages
Stage 1. Fill in data processing description.
- It is important that you identify your data types as different data types might have different data management requirements.
- Follow Arcada's guidelines if you are handling sensitive or confidential data or data that require an Ethical review.
Stage 2. Inform your research participants/informants/respondents/subjects about data collection.
- If you plan to save and store the personal data for later and shared use in research other than completing this thesis/assignment of yours (e.g., for a scientific publication), provide this information to your research participants.
Stage 3. Store and back up data securely during research in data storage services provided and maintained by Arcada (see Data storage, backup and transferal).
Stage 4. Erase all data no later than 12 months after you have submitted your thesis.
- If you plan to save, store, reuse, or share your data for research purposes other than this thesis/course assignment (e.g. for a scientific publication), discuss this with your supervisor.
For researchers and doctoral students – data management stages
- Researchers can follow the research data management flowchart to complete various RDM tasks:
- Or follow the 5 data management stages described below during their research planning, active research and results sharing phases:
(1) Before data collection (during research planning phase)
Stage 1. Write and continuously update a data management plan (DMP).
- Use DMPTuuli to write and update your data management plan.
- Note that if your study involves personal data, follow the procedures specified here.
Stage 2. Ethical review
For medical research involving human subjects, the researcher must request an ethical review from the regional medical ethics committee. Ethical review must be requested if the research is covered by the scope of the Medical Research Act, which means that the research must meet the following three conditions:
- the criteria for scientific research are met:
- the study is described in a research plan,
- the purpose is to increase knowledge through the employment of a scientific method, and
- the results of the study are intended to be published for everyone’s benefit in a publishing channel approved by the scientific community.
- the purpose of the study is to increase knowledge of health, the causes, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases or the nature of diseases in general.
- the study involves intervention in the physical or psychological integrity of a person (or human embryo or human fetus). Read more about ethical review.
Ethical review within the human sciences is not regulated by law, but is based on the guidelines drawn up by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity, which Arcada has committed itself to following: The ethical principles of research with human participants and ethical review in the human sciences in Finland. Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK guidelines 2019 (PDF).
A researcher within the human sciences has to make an ethical review request if:
- participation in the research deviates from the principle of informed consent.
- the research involves intervention in the physical integrity of the research participants.
- the research involves minors under the age of 15 who participate without the separate consent of their guardian or without the guardian being informed.
- the research participants will be subjected to exceptionally strong stimuli.
- the research involves the risk of causing mental harm that exceeds the limits of normal daily life to the research participants.
- the research could pose a threat to the safety of the research participants, or their family members, or the researcher.
For more information about ethical reviews in the human sciences, see the instructions above.
Arcada is a member of The Human Sciences Ethics Committee of the Helsinki Region Universities of Applied Sciences. The committee is in charge of carrying out ethical reviews of human science research at post-Bachelor’s degree level. At the Bachelor’s level, the supervisor is responsible for ensuring that students consider ethical guidelines when conducting research for their thesis. More information about the committee can be found on Metropolia’s website. Learn more about ethical review here.
Links:
(2) Data collection and analysis (during active research phase)
Stage 3. You need to ask for consent from research participants if you collect personal data from them or if the personal data are received from a source other than the research participants. See Collecting personal data in the section Data collection and organizing.
- Use the consent form template to inform your research participants. Modify if needed.
Stage 4. Organize data, store, back up, and transfer data securely during research.
- Organize your data in open and standard data formats, and tidy data's naming conventions, version control strategy and folder structures. See Data organization (CSC).
- Use data storage services provided and maintained by Arcada or CSC for data storage, backup and transferal. See Data storage, backup and transferal.
(3) After data collection (sharing results)
Stage 5. Describe and publish the metadata of your data. It is recommended to use Fairdata Qvain metadata tool offered by the Ministry of Education and maintained by CSC. See Metadata and data documentation.
Research data are to be archived and opened in national or international repositories when possible. See Data publishing and preservation.
Define an appropriate access type (open, embargoed or restricted) to research data based on the feature of the data, your research process, need for the protection of trade secrets and other confidential data, and intellectual property agreements, as well as funders’ and publishers’ requirements.
Data with personal information can only be opened anonymized. Read more about how to anonymize data on Anonymisation and Personal Data by Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD).