LibGuides: Research Data Management in LUT Universities: Best Practices in LUT

Best Practices in LUT - Plan

Good research data management needs to be ensured from the beginning of the research process and the data should be findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable within a secure and trustworthy environment according to the FAIR principles.

LUT Universities recommend creating a data management plan, for example using a DMPTuuli tool and taking care of the description data (metadata) in all research projects.

Recommended services - Store

Storing the research data and metadata

If the research data cannot be opened, it must be justified in a data management plan.
Please note that taking care of the research data properly does not necessary mean opening the data..
It is a researcher's responsibility to open at least the relevant metadata.
The metadata of the research data make the dataset findable and visible.

Are there commonly used repositories in your research field that you could use? Use them, if possible.
Storing datasets during the research project can be done also to LUT Universities' workstations, network share locations or cloud services purchased by the university. More information about using them can be found from the LUT Universities Data Handling Guide (In LUT Universities Intranet, requires login).
If your data is quantitative, you can use, for example, IDA Research Data Storage Service, Zenodo or EUDAT B2DROP and B2SHARE services.
If your data is qualitative and may need anonymization LUT recommends to use, for example, Finnish Social Science Data Archive FSD.
If you have small and open datasets: store them to LUTPub's Research Data collection.

Together with national and international service providers, LUT Universities offer a research data infrastructure which includes tools and services that support the managing, finding, using and sharing of data. If the services above does not suit for your needs, please contact the LUT Academic Library for guidance.

Opening the research datasets - Open

Depending on the data repository or data archive used, find out how the dataset or a part of it can be opened. There are several practices to do it.
In IDA Storage Service the stored dataset is frozen before it is described as a dataset and openly available via Etsin.The dataset can be directly opened through IDA with all the necessary metadata and identifiers.
Also Zenodo and EUDAT service allows to define the level of openness.
The datasets stored to LUTPub are always immediately open.

Licences

When sharing the research data, it is recommended to use e.g. the Creative Commons licences as they offer a range of possibilities for defining permissions for the reuse of data. For research datasets it is recommended to use the licence that is as open as possible.

Commonly recommended licence for research datasets is CC BY 4.0.
A CC licence for metadata is CC0.

LUT Academic Library comments the DMPs

LUT Academic Library offers guidance for Data Management Plans and comments the DMP's typically during the research funding application periods. We avoid offering the ready answers and we do not write plans on behalf of the applicant but we advice on the best practices and decision making concerning the data management. In some funding applications the organisation accepts the DMP before the funding is paid. We in the library give the acceptance concerning the DMP.

Practical guidance

Always check the funder's guidance and requirements concerning the data management plan related to the current funding application.
The best file format is the doc-file, in which we can comment directly. Pdf format is not the best option.
Try to be as specific as possible, describe your choices clearly and avoid listing possible options. Avoid direct copying the best practices and examples to your plan.
Remember to update your DMP when the project goes on especially if your plans are changed or refined.
If you have made the DMP using the DMPTuuli tool use the export function and send the DMP using e-mail instead of adding library staff to as collaborators in DMPTuuli.
Send your DMP to the kirjasto@lut.fi to be commented.