Sharing experiences
Dealing with complex data issues
Sharing data is generally a simple task but sometimes complex issues can arise that need to be thought through carefully.
View our short videos made with some of our key depositing organisations, including Natcen, DECC and ISER and the academics who collect the Skills and Employment Survey series.
Our staff have advised many hundreds of depositors from government departments to academics on how to prepare and, where necessary, protect data. While we provide detailed guidelines for data producers on many of the key issues surrounding data preparation, we appreciate that some of the same questions crop up time and time again. These tend to involve challenges such as gaining consent, exceptionally sensitive data and uncertainty about ‘how much’ anonymisation to do.
Case studies
To point to successful archiving of these kinds of collections, we have brought together some case studies from researchers that show how they tackled archiving their data.
Various issues have been encountered, and successfully overcome, including:
The data life-cycle of an archived qualitative study used for teaching
NHS administrative data linked to national longitudinal cohort studies
Rapid data sharing during a pandemic
Assigning the appropriate level of protection to longitudinal survey data
Balancing teens’ privacy with desire to share data
Dealing with sensitive data
Negotiating complex anonymisation requirements
Addressing the challenges of retrospective consent
Balancing confidentiality with the usefulness of data
Where archiving has not been planned from the project’s inception
Archiving complex data ten years after the research
The researchers
Thank you to these researchers for their efforts in making their data shareable.
HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP): Repurposing inspection data for research: the HMIP survey journey
Sarah Nettleton: Being a Doctor: a Sociological Analysis, 2005-2006.
The Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS): NHS administrative data linked to national longitudinal cohort studies.
Understanding Society: Rapid data sharing during a pandemic – COVID-19 study.
Dr Lisa Calderwood: Assigning the appropriate level of protection to longitudinal survey data – Next Steps.
Sheila Henderson et al: Inventing Adulthoods: the Showcase Archive.
Jane Seymour: Consent for data sharing in sensitive qualitative research: burden or benefit?
Jane Elliott: Depositing the Social Participation and Identity Sub-Sample, 2007-2010.
Maggie Mort: Health and Social Consequences of the Foot and Mouth Disease Epidemic in North Cumbria.
Karon Gush: Understanding Couples’ Experiences of Job Loss in Recessionary Britain.
Bethany Morgan-Brett: Negotiating Midlife: Exploring the Subjective Experience of Ageing, 2006-2008.
Pat Caplan: Concepts of Healthy Eating Food Research: Phases I and II.
Training
We run a programme of regular training workshops covering key areas of preparing and sharing research data.
Contact us
If you would like to discuss any of these issues further, email the Collections Development team or telephone: +44 (0)1206 872143.
