Preparing data and documentation for UKDA-store

After the Acquisitions Review Committee (ARC) has recommended that you can upload your data into UKDA-store, data and documentation should be finalised following the UK Data Archive's guidance on managing and sharing data.

At this stage all legal and ethical issues must be addressed - for example you should ensure that data are appropriately anonymised and you are not sharing data that you do not have permission to share. Copyright permissions need to be cleared where relevant.

Data formats and user documentation should comply with the expectations addressed in the UK Data Archive guidance.

Make sure that data are well documented and described so that users can understand and interpret them. Data should be self-explanatory in terms of variable names, codes and abbreviations used. Standard transcription templates can be used for qualitative data, with context information in file headers. Additional documentation can be provided on how the data were collected, which methods were used to create them, the context of the research, etc. This can be in the form of separate documentation files or as publications. Documentation may include questionnaire forms, interview schedules, technical reports, lab books or methods fact sheets.

You are now ready to upload your data into UKDA-store.