One fundamental change brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic has been the way businesses and organisations have had to transform how they work and become more adaptable.
The UK Data Service has risen to this challenge, demonstrating its agility during this difficult time, to ensure the continuity of its services to users.
Its staff have been working from home since lockdown was announced, and have facilitated the running of a service, which is as close to business as usual as possible.
The Service also acted quickly in mid-March to gain early agreement from data owners for its staff to process data at home, building on the already stringent measures it operates under its ISO 27001 Information Security certification. The following week, in close consultation with data owners, the Service relaxed some of the rules around researchers needing to access data from their on-site workstations, by allowing remote access – only where data owners agreed, and where they could meet a number of additional conditions. This demonstrates the value of the Five Safes framework, where relaxing some parameters for protecting data is balanced by increasing assurances to data owners.
Early April saw the Service conduct its first online training session to enable continued delivery of its Safe Researcher Training (SRT). This training is mandatory, and is required of users who wish to access data in the UK Data Service’s Secure Lab.
“It was important to us that we work quickly to ensure that our researchers could still make their way through the Approved Researcher accreditation process in readiness to access the controlled data they need for their projects, ” said Louise Corti, Service Director for Collections Development and Data Publishing at the UK Data Service.
“We are committed to ensuring a continuity of service even under the most challenging conditions. During these unprecedented times, we are all having to adapt and we have been working hard to put in place a series of measures, so users can continue their work.”
As a digital service, the UK Data Service has been successfully delivering virtual data skills and data management training for years, so adapting its Safe Researcher Training (SRT) was straightforward. It is also using its experience of holding online workshops to convert its scheduled face-to-face workshops to online events.
Ms Corti added: “We developed and passed our abridged materials to the ONS for their comment and approval. Though not quite as interactive as the usual face-to-face delivery of the course, two presenters covered all the core pedagogical elements in three hours with a short break. Presentations were alternated with exercises, including user polls and opportunities to ask questions. Our regular face-to-face Safe Researcher Training sessions will be conducted online for the foreseeable future. The ONS have followed our lead and are also now delivering their SRT training online.”
UK Data Service resources:
- COVID-19 working updates
- free guidance and best practice
- training webinars on-demand at our You Tube channel
- future online calendar of webinar-based training courses