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Help & FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Data protection and anonymity

Do I have to remove personal information prior to transmission of the data?

Documentation

How should the documentation of research instruments be handled that are copyrighted?

Fees

What do the storage and delivery of research data cost? Who is paying?

Data producer rights

Do I hold the copyright to the research data I have produced? How is it possible to license research data?

How can instruments resp. tests developed in a research project be copyright protected respectively licensed? How can their re-usage be organised?

What can I do if I wish to access and possibly alter data I have already transmitted?

Data transmission

What data should be transmitted?

What do the data need to look like? What preparatory work needs to be done?

Usage of lesson videos

What do I have to pay attention to if I'd like to use lesson videos?

Citation

How can I receive a DOI for my research data?

What is a DOI?

Data protection and anonymity

Anonymity of data prior to transmission

Prior to transmission, please remove any immediate personal features, i.e. names and addresses of persons and organisations. We think that principally no further measures of anonymizing data are necessary. This can be decided after checking the submitted material. Information concerning anonymizing of qualitative material can be found in the partner portal: www.forschungsdaten-bildung.de.


How should the documentation of research instruments be handled that are copyrighted?

A distinction can be drawn between unlicensed instruments, openly licensed instruments, and commercial instruments (the latter being protected by copyright).

It is principally allowed to cite instruments in documentations if the instruments are not licensed or openly licensed (e.g. CC licensed), if they have already been openly published. Correct citation of the origin of the instrument is important. In the case of open license instruments, it is moreover essential to check whether usage of the instruments is tied to other conditions than citation of origin (e.g. usage for non-commercial purpose only, notification of authors when using the instruments).

It is usually not permitted to publish assessment instruments that were purchased from a publishing house and that are copyrighted. It is however possible to label a variable in the documentation (e.g. in the questionnaire or in the scale documentation) with the name of an instrument respectively construct and an item number: e.g. “SELLMO – Annäherungs-Leistungsziele: Item1“, instead of  item citation.

For further information, see the partner portal: www.forschungsdaten-bildung.de


What do the storage and delivery research data cost? Who is paying?

The FDZ Bildung does not charge any fees for storing and making available the data.   As a rule, research projects are expected to dedicate their own time and human resources to measures of documentation and processing/anonymizing of research data. It is meanwhile possible to request funding for such purposes from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Futher information is available on the partner portal: www.forschungsdaten-bildung.de


Do I hold the Copyright to the research data I have produced? How is it possible to license research data?

It is not easy and not generally possible to answer the question whether research data are  protected by copyright. Regardless, it is possible to appropriately acknowledge the achievements of a data producer with respect to archiving research data at a research data centre, both from an organizational and a contractual perspective.

The research data alliance for education issues Digital Object Identifiers (DOI, FAQ) for studies if their data have been made available for re-usage.  A dataset can thus be retrieved and cited. Subject to agreements and terms of use, data users are moreover obliged to cite re-used data in compliance with rules of good  practice in science, and thus acknowledge the data producer ‘s achievements.

If you decide in favour of transferring data to the research alliance for education, you will continue to hold the rights to the data and remain in control. You will merely grant specific rights to the alliance, subject to a contract (e.g. rights of storage, right to convert data into another format).

In case you do not submit your data to the research data alliance, but wish to ensure you will be appropriately acknowledged as a data producer in the case of re-usage, you should make sure the data are labelled with standardized and if possible open licenses (e.g. Creative Commons). These allow you to state what can and cannot be done with your data. By using a CC-BY-licence, you will commit users to citation.


How can instruments resp. tests developed in a research project be copyright protected respectively licensed? How can their re-usage be organised?

Conditions of re-usage of instruments (tests) can be defined by assignation of a respective licence.

The alliance of science organisations in Germany has issued a recommendations for the use of open licences in science (available in German), i.e. usage of CC-BY licences, which means that instruments can be re-used but authors always have to be cited.

Please note: If your instruments include externally devised materials (such as explanations of tasks via illustrations or maps), copyright of the external material needs to be considered. Usage of openly accessible material or material the authors have permitted to use is thus recommended.

 It is possible to publish instruments in the database of instruments at the research data centre for education.

Further information can be found at the partner portal: www.forschungsdaten-bildung.de


What can I do if I wish to access and possibly alter data I have already transmitted?

You can access the data you have transmitted any time. Please e-mail forschungsdaten-bildung@dipf.de.


What data should be transmitted?

One aim of archiving research data concerns the assurance of transparency of research actions and interpretability of research. The entire data material should therefore be transmitted for storage. For instance, not only transcripts should be sent but also the raw material,e.g. audio and video files.

We additionally ask you to submit all material relating to the research method, and the assessment as such (assessment instruments, field trial operation etc.). These are necessary for reasons of transparency and interpretation.

An overview of data types and materials can be found on the partner portal: www.forschungdaten-bildung.de.

Please contact us if you think that certain data cannot be stored. 

Please contact us if you have assessed other data than quantitative or qualitative data from empirical social research, e.g. neuropsychological data measurement data (EEG, MRT), behavioural data (reaction time measurements), genetics data or other data.


What do the data need to look like? What preparatory work needs to be done?

We can only store research data that are sufficiently documented. Generally speaking, research data are sufficiently documented if they can be interpreted and understood by someone who did not participate in the study. Certain measures are also necessary with respect to anonymity. The effort you need to invest in rendering data anonymous can vary considerably depending on types and contents of data.

For information concerning the preperation of quantitative data, see www.forschungsdaten-bildung.de

For information concerning the anonymization of qualitative data, see www.forschungsdaten-bildung.de


 What do I have to pay attention to if I'd like to use lesson videos?

For reasons of data protection, access to reusage of lesson videos from FDZ Bildung at DIPF is restricted and subject to certain conditions:

Access is granted for postgraduate scientists affiliated with a research institution and individuals whose research is supervised by a qualified scientist who also recognizes and signs the application. Lesson videos shall only be used for research purposes, including qualification theses (e.g. doctorate, Master, Bachelor) and usage of the videos in (university) research workshops. The lesson videos shall not be used for initial and further training and teaching purposes.

For further information on the usage of lesson videos, see: https://www.fdz-bildung.de/Nutzung-Unterrichtsvideos.


How can I receive a DOI for my research data?

A DOI will principally be assigned to research data that are transmitted to the research data centre for education. We are happy to support you in this regard - Please contact us.


What is a DOI?

A DOI – digital object identifier – is a so-called persistent, unique identifier.

The identifier serves as a link to a website where the research data are described via metadata. The DOI allows for a clear allocation and permanent retrieval of research data.

DOIs are assigned by specially licensed organisations, e.g. da|ra, the registration agency for social and economic data that is run by the Leibniz institutes ZBW and GESIS.

More information: www.da-ra.de and www.datacite.org.



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