Data management in Social and Behavioural Sciences

Planning

Planning is imperative to deal efficiently with research data. The ICPSR guide contains best practices for data management in the social sciences.

Policy

Departments within the faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences are now developing policies on how to deal with research data.

Legal and ethical aspects

In the Social and Behavioural Sciences legal, but especially ethical aspects are usually more important than in other disciplines.

Storing data

Since it is not allowed to publish personal data, data files containing personal data must be anonymised. Moreover, research data must be stored securely, especially if they contain confidential or sensitive (personal) data.

Sharing data

Since we are increasingly working with digital data, it has become quite simple to publish datasets and to reuse datasets of others. Within the Social and Behavioural Sciences there are several data repositories and data journals available.

Support

There are various forms of support on how to deal correctly with research data