We are delighted to announce a comprehensive restructuring and expansion of the UK Data Service’s Learning Hub materials for those producing data. The resources are designed to provide social science data producers and their teams with end-to-end, lifecycle support for research data management.
While designed with the UK research landscape at its core, this guidance suite offers flexible, best-practice methodologies that can be adapted by researchers, data stewards, and academic institutions worldwide.
Explore the refreshed resources
Rather than making small incremental edits, we have delivered a system-wide refresh. Materials have been streamlined, updated, and expanded to cover emerging research methods and provide step-by-step support tailored directly to how data producers work, wherever they are based.
You can explore the full range of guidance across six core sections:
Setting the groundwork for high-quality research data. This section covers core benefits of data sharing, fundamental definitions of social science data, and how the overall guidance suite supports producers across the research lifecycle.
- Key topics: Benefits of data sharing and reuse | Data lifecycle | What are social science data? | How these pages support data producers
Focusing on strategic preparation and institutional compliance. It provides practical frameworks for building Data Management Plans (DMPs), embedding the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics) principles, establishing team roles, and resourcing data activities.
- Key topics: Data planning and strategy (DMPs, FAIR/CARE, sharing strategies) | Governance, roles, and responsibilities | Collaborative research | Resourcing
Navigating complex compliance obligations when working with human participants or third-party materials. The guidance offers step-by-step clarity on UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), consent frameworks, and intellectual property.
- Key topics: Legal and contractual obligations | Ethical responsibilities
Operational guidance for active research workflows. It covers safe storage, secure team access, folder structuring, version control, in-flight anonymisation, and maintaining data integrity.
- Key topics: Storage and security | Team access | File management | Retention and disposal | Quality and integrity considerations
A detailed walkthrough for turning raw research data into publishable, highly reusable data collections. This includes selecting file formats, structuring deposit packages, applying appropriate licences, creating metadata, and conducting rigorous anonymisation across text, tabular, audio, and visual formats.
- Key topics: Preservation decisions | Technical preparation | Publishing and access | In-depth anonymisation (text, tabular, image, audio, video) | Documenting data (data-level, metadata, collection-level) | Rights, copyright and reuse licences |
Tailored support for emerging and complex data methodologies. This section addresses bespoke ethical, technical, and governance challenges associated with more complex or more novel research inputs.
- Key topics: Collections created from secondary sources | Platform and web-derived data | Synthetic data collections
Acknowledgements
We would like to extend our sincere thanks to our funder, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), for supporting this work. We are also immensely grateful to our colleagues across the UK Data Archive for their invaluable input and expertise in bringing this refreshed guidance to life.
We need your feedback
As we continue to develop and refine our resources, your input is essential in ensuring our guidance remains as practical, accessible, and responsive as possible.
We warmly welcome your thoughts, suggestions, and feedback on any of our materials. If you have comments or would like to share how you are using these resources in your work, please get in touch with our team via our website contact page. Your insights will directly help us shape future updates and training offers.