How to prepare your data deposit

Before you properly deposit your dataset, it can be useful to gather information about your data and the study that led to its collection so that you can directly copy and paste some of it into SODHA’s metadata fields.

This will help prevent loss of information, which can happen for example when a webpage with a form to be filled in remains open for a long time. You can also download a tabular file-based version of SODHA’s metadata.

If a study was conducted with a large team of researchers, this preparation phase can involve consulting your colleagues e.g. to determine who the contact person(s) will be for your dataset.

See if you can answer these questions right away or if you need to collect documents, contact coworkers, etc. beforehand:

Is it safe to share your data in their current state?

Social science data often raise privacy concerns. One way to ascertain if your data need to be reworked or if it might be too risky to publish them right away is to use the SODHA Checklist for Sharing Your Data.

What is the title of your dataset?

It can be the same as the title of the research project in the course of which this dataset was created, although it does not have to. Don’t hesitate to include the acronym of your project (e.g. ‘MADDLAIN’, ‘BELVIRMUS’, ‘SATURN’).

Who are the authors of the dataset?

If there were many contributors to the research project who can be considered authors of the dataset, obtaining the full list can help accelerate the deposit procedure. Names of a dataset’s authors appear in the automatically generated citation for this dataset, as shown here:

Is there already a description / abstract for this dataset?

If you want to provide an extensive account of the research which your dataset comes from but it has not been written yet, it might be best to write it before you begin filling in the documentation form.

Which one of SODHA’s recommended licenses is best suited for your dataset?

In accordance with our Deposit Agreement [ DE – EN – FR – NL ] and our Access and Reuse Policy [ DE – EN – FR – NL ], SODHA recommends three licenses. Licenses are texts through which authors of a dataset can relinquish their copyright over their data to various extents. This provides reuse opportunities for other researchers. At the same time, SODHA advises choosing a license which guarantees citation of a dataset’s authors. If you are not familiar with these texts, you might want to take the time to read them first to see which one is the most appropriate for your dataset.