Doctor, My Data! Data Archive Support for Large Research Projects Laurence Horton, Alexia Katsanidou GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences This paper outlines three cases studies of large collaborative research projects and the challenges they face, arguing archives play a caring role when it comes to research data management. The growing culture of data sharing fosters expectations to do so even if projects do not face such a mandate, or have not prepared a data management plan. To illustrate, we examine one retrospective case study (Tuning Educational Structures), one prospective case (German Longitudinal Election Study, 2013), and one ‘ongoing management case’, (PIREDEU). This paper illustrates the RDM care role that GESIS – particularly its Archive and Data Management Training Center – plays to ‘fill the gaps’ in support and get data to the reuse community, specifically by providing help in areas ‘around’ standard research practice, like Intellectual Property Rights and preparing datasets for re-use and long-term preservation. We conclude that data archives can play a role in securing data reuse and long-term preservation. However, archive services must be versatile, responsive units – reactive to many data situations. They should be able to provide primary care as a principal point of consultation for researchers, and secondary specialized care as either a specialist consultant or as a point of referral.

1. Doctor, My Data!
Data Archive Support for Large
Research Projects
Laurence Horton, Alexia Katsanidou
GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the
Social Sciences
IASSIST 2013, Cologne, 28 May
2013.
Thomas, Gerald, dir. Carry on Doctor.
The Rank Organisation, 1967. Film.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

2. Arguments pushing RDM
Good
science
Good politics
Data re-use

3. German funding bodies
• Federal Ministry of Education Research
• German Research Foundation (DFG)
• Smaller institutional foundations (Leibniz-
Institute)

4. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG)
• 1998: Recommendation: “Primary data as the basis for
publications shall be securely stored for ten years in a
durable form in the institution of their origin”
• 2009: Recommendation to implement discipline-
specific standards and procedures for long-term
retention and sharing of data
• 2010: Researchers applying for funding have to
provide information on which “measures will be
implemented to ensure their management, curation
and long- term preservation for future reuse”

5. GESIS’s Role
• We don’t have an institutional relationship
• We don’t have a funding mandate to serve
• We do have integrated relationships with
long standing and significant research
projects

6. • German Longitudinal Election Study
– funded 2009 to 2018 by German Society for
Electoral Studies (DGfW)
– federal and state elections in Germany
– will cover three federal elections (2009, 2013,
and 2017)

7. • Tuning Educational Structures
– comparable and compatible degrees profiles
– Started in 2000 focused on European universities.
Expanded to Latin America
– Now active in Europe, Latin America, USA, Asia,
Australia and Africa
– Funded by EC Lifelong Learning Program Education
and Culture DG
– between the University of Deusto (Spain) and
University of Groningen (Netherlands)

8. PIREDEU (Providing an Infrastructure
for Research on Electoral Democracy in
the European Union)
• Research into citizenship, political
participation, and electoral democracy in
the EU
– 13 institutions
– 2009, 2014 European Election Study

9. Typical problems
• Poorly described
• Vulnerable storage
• Problems with consent and anonymisation
• Problems with ownership

10. Approaches to RDM support
We’re never going
to be in one place:
• Retrospective
• Prospective
• Ongoing
Source: © Universal
Studios. All rights Reserved

11. Two forms of intervention
• Projects with
immediate RDM
problems that need
“treatment”
• Preventative care
– Integrated role for
archives in the
research project as
members of
research team or
consultancy basis

12. Areas on which to focus…
• RDM arguments still tied too closely to
funding requirements
• Must focus on the good science
arguments
• International cooperation/national (or
state) level problems
• What about small research projects?