Barriers to sharing
Data produced by University of Liverpool researchers should be made as openly available as possible. However, there are circumstances where this might not be possible:
- Where rights of individual researchers or subjects would be compromised
- Where consent has not been given
- Where there is an Intellectual Property or Patent opportunity
- Where secondary data has been used and rights to share with others were not obtained
- Where data has been purchased from a commercial provider or the project itself is a collaboration with a commercial concern and there are restriction.
For advice on IP when considering funding applications, see the IP page.
To discuss an Intellectual Property Opportunity - email the Intellectual Property Service.
Options available
Embargoes
You can place the data in a repository such as the Liverpool Data Catalogue and place it under an embargo (for instance whilst investigating patent opportunities). However, you must check with your particular funder as most limit the amount of time data can embargoed. Publishers may also require data to be embargoed until related papers are published.
Anonymisation
Projects collecting personal and sensitive data should ensure all data is comprehensively anonymised before sharing can be considered. Prior to collection, you should ideally seek consent from each participant to share anonymised data.
Sometimes due to the nature of the research it can be difficult to anonymise data. There remains the possibility of discovering the identities of individuals by combining the dataset with other freely available data sources. The UK Data Archive has guidance about anonymising qualitative or quantitative data in a research setting. More detailed advice, including examples of anonymisation methods, can be found in the Code of Practice on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.
University of Liverpool researchers are required to make an ethics application to obtain approval before the start of such projects. Guidance on how to obtain consent is available from the Research Support Office. You should also consider both University and Funder policies on research ethics. Further information can be found on the research ethics webpages.
Go back and get consent
Where original consent was not gained to share anonymised data, one option would be to go back and ask for consent prior to publishing. In many cases, this might not be feasible.
Controlled access
Due to the nature of your research, it might be more appropriate to obtain consent for limited sharing between professionals. Thus, access would be restricted to specific researchers who, once their access has been authorised, would be required to sign a formal data sharing agreement.
One option would be to use a secure data repository, such as the UK Data Service Secure Lab. This service requires interested researchers to prove their credentials, sign a non-disclosure agreement and access and analyse the data without a network connection.
Whatever option is the most appropriate, details of your data should be made available to be discovered. A good way to do this is to create a record in the Liverpool Data Catalogue (see section on discovery below). Files would be stored securely and separately and access restricted. Access requests would only be granted based on instructions from, or via referral to, the data creator/depositor.
Discovery
Even if you are making your data available on a restricted basis, it is still useful to make sure people are aware of its existence. Providing a data statement within any publication resulting from your data, linking to a metadata record in the Liverpool Data Catalogue, is a good way to raise awareness.
A metadata record can be used to store essential information about the data (such as a list of authors, keywords and a readme file), and provide you with a DOI if one has not already been created elsewhere.
Further information
Need to manage your sensitive data? Use this useful decision tree from the Australian National Data Service.