To collaborate and share data
In collaborations within and outside the university, it is important that participants can access and work with data, while working methods and storage solutions should also ensure that no unauthorized persons get access to the material.
Before you start a project with parties outside the University you should consult the legal affairs division, e.g. conserning agreements. See also Planning data management.
To meet the needs in collaborative projects you may need to contact IT-support, security division and legal affairs and other support functions at the university to find acceptable compromises. Please contact the research data support (dataoffice@uu.se) if you have any questions.
If external parties are to be given access to the university's IT services, they may need a so-called External account, or be affiliated as Other Active Personnel.
For the data stored in the service Personal Folder, you can use the myfiles/Filr service to share files and folders with others. Please note that it is not advisable to use myfiles/Filr as a continuous collaboration space with external parties. Permanent collaborations with externals need to be handled in services that are accessed through a regular authentication procedure.
When giving external parties access to files/directories, bear in mind to:
- limit the time period of access
- only share files/directories that are necessary in the current context
- be careful with how you allocate rights to files/dispatches
- review user permissions at regular intervals
Routines in collaborations
When several people in a research project work with the same data material, it is important to have a clear division of responsibilities, agreed procedures for directory names, file names and versioning of files, as well as agreements on how data and associated digital objects should be documented.
In order to avoid confusion and possible misanalysis, it is advisable to have base version of the data, which is stored as read-only. Only a few people in the research team will have full privileges to that version and they will be responsible for, for example, correcting errors, adding new variables, code and updating the related documentation. This makes it easier to troubleshoot, recreate analyses and to prepare data for archiving and publication.
Protection against unauthorized access
As important as ensuring that the right people have access to the data, it is to ensure that unauthorised persons cannot access it. A solution that gives everyone who needs access to data may not be safe enough to protect the material from unauthorized people. You can get help from the Security Division to do an information classification of the project's data in order to be able to choose a storage solution with the appropriate level of security - see Planning data management. Data containing confidential information (e.g. personal data, information concerning national security or data on biologically sensitive habitats) imposes higher security requirements than data of a less sensitive nature. Regardless of the sensitivity of the content, you are responsible for ensuring that the data has the necessary protection to prevent accidental or unauthorized access.