UKDA-store

UKDA-store is a self-archiving system hosted by the UK Data Archive (UKDA). Its focus is the storage and sharing of primary research data from the social and behavioural sciences.

Research data and output sharing is an important part of publicly funded research, and research funders are increasingly implementing formal data sharing polices.

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) was one of the first UK funding bodies to initiate a data sharing policy and fund an archive to house research data generated as a result of its research support. These data are currently made available via the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS). The fact that a rich and diverse stock of social and economic data is now available to the wider community is a testament to this forward thinking.

Access UKDA-store: store.data-archive.ac.uk

Contributors are required to register in order to contribute materials. Once registered they can upload a range of digital objects to the repository including statistical data, databases, word documents and audio-visual materials.

Contributors can assign permissions to individuals and/or groups to enable access to their materials in the repository. They can also request that their data be formally lodged with the UKDA, in which case a formal evaluation process of the curation and preservation needs pertaining to the data collection will take place.

While the UKDA-store system can hold all kinds of digital objects from numeric and textual datasets to technical and research reports, it can also link to other kinds of outputs, such as academic publications held in existing repositories. In this respect, UKDA-store is complementary to the ESRC's existing publications repository, ESRC Society Today which holds primary publications arising from ESRC funding, and will allow research data and publications to be intrinsically linked although held in a distributed environment.

UKDA-store uses a state-of-the-art Open Source repository system based on FEDORA to allow contributors to manage their data and research outputs. The benefit to users searching for a range of research outputs is that the system allows linking between research funding information, research outputs, publications and archived data sources.

To ensure that no potentially disclosive, copyrighted or suspect/damaged data are placed within the system, all uploaded data are subjected to a set of provisional checks to ensure they are virus free, readable and free from rights and disclosure problems.

The initial phase of UKDA-store is geared towards ESRC award holders, who are required to offer data outputs for sharing through ESDS under the terms of their award contract. However, the long-term plan is to extend the system to other social scientists creating primary research data and related outputs.

It is important to realise that data sharing and long-term digital preservation require planning and a managed approach throughout the data life-cycle. In particular, issues such as informed consent, disclosure risk and adequate data documentation need to be addressed early on in the data creation process.

UKDA is able to provide advice and guidance in best practice with regard to preparing data for sharing and preservation to those creating data collections.

UKDA-store can be used by anyone interested in social science data. While most data collections are completely open, some are temporarily closed or embargoed and may require permission from the original data creators or owners.

Access is administered via the online UKDA-store system and is a simple process. Users must agree to terms and conditions and importantly, should cite data materials they have used.