An Orientation to ICPSR’s Public Access Data Collection

March 2014

Orientation Points

• What is openICPSR• Who might use openICPSR• How is it different from ICPSR• Why is there a charge• How is openICPSR unique• Why should institutions maintain membership

in ICPSR – the requested talking points• What other openICPSR services will be

offered

Please be sure to view slide notes for additional insights.

What is openICPSR?

openICPSR is a research data-sharing service for the social and behavioral sciences. It enables the public to access research data without charge—or in the case of

restricted-use data, for nominal charge.

Who might use openICPSR?

openICPSR has been developed for use in the social and behavioral sciences. This includes:

• Researchers required to share data freely with the public to comply with grant/contract requirements

• Researchers required to share sensitive data with the public from a secure digital environment

• Researchers, including students, who want to share data publicly as good practice or for the purposes of replication

How is openICPSR different from ICPSR?

openICPSR• To sustain itself as an

ongoing service, there is a charge to deposit data in openICPSR

• Data are freely available to the public (or in the case of restricted-use data, for a nominal charge)

• Accessed data may be fully curated or may be available only in the raw form as originally deposited

ICPSR• ICPSR sustains itself through

institutional member fees; there is no charge to deposit (donate) data

• Data are available only to individuals affiliated with member institutions

• Data are fully curated including professional processing, value-added documentation, and renderings in popular statistical programs and online analysis

Why is there a charge for openICPSR?

• openICPSR charges a fee to sustain the service such that data deposits will be available both now and into the future

• Effective data curation carries costs. Fees are charged to cover costs including:– Curation professionals who review metadata and

catalog the data– Technology professionals who maintain functionality of

the website– Costs for multiple copies of the deposit (preservation) to

ensure the safety of the deposits (storage and servers)

How is openICPSR unique compared to other data service providers?

openICPSR is the only public data-sharing service:

• Where the deposit is reviewed by professional data curators who are experts in developing metadata (tags) for the social and behavioral sciences

• With an immediate distribution network of over 750 institutions looking for research data, that has powerful search tools, and a data catalog indexed by major search engines

• Sustained by a respected organization with over 50 years of experience in reliably protecting research data

• Prepared to accept and disseminate sensitive and/or restricted-use data in the public-access environment

Why should openICPSR’s unique attributes matter to depositors?

While openICPSR is a new data-sharing service, it is backed by ICPSR

• Discoverable: Posting data online isn’t enough. To maximize usage, data must be easily discovered. ICPSR is an expert in tagging scientific data for discovery by potential users

• Usage: ICPSR’s data catalog is searched by thousands of individuals keenly interested in downloading and analyzing data; the catalog is also indexed by search engines connecting still more potential analysts to the data

• Sustainable for the long term: ICPSR has existed as a data archive for over 50 years; depositors need not worry that their data will suddenly disappear due to a loss, for example, of funding

• Secure dissemination of sensitive data: ICPSR is prepared to accept restricted-use data as it has the infrastructure and working knowledge in place to store and disseminate it securely to the public

What types of deposit packages does openICPSR offer?

There are two openICPSR package types:

1. Self Deposit: Enables research scientists to deposit data & documentation on demand and provide immediate public access. Depositors receive a DOI and data citation upon publishing and a metadata review shortly after publishing. The cost is $600 per project.

2. Professional Curation: Enables a research scientist to tap all aspects of ICPSR’s curation services. The fee depends on the complexity of the data and the curation services desired. Scientists must call for a quote, preferably during the time the grant proposal (specifically the data management plan) is being prepared.

How will openICPSR disseminate sensitive data to the public?

• The deposit of sensitive (restricted-use) data is similar to the deposit of non-sensitive data except that the depositor will indicate that the data should be for restricted-use only

• Dissemination of sensitive data will be through ICPSR’s virtual data enclave; in this environment, data never leave the secure server and analysis takes place in the virtual space

• Scientists desiring to access the data will need to apply for the data, secure IRB approval, and will pay an access fee

• openICPSR will accept sensitive (restricted-use) data at launch; dissemination of sensitive data is expect to take place in late 2014

You may ask yourself, with openICPSR, data will be free to the public. Why should an institution maintain a membership in ICPSR when the data are free to the public in openICPSR?

Why should institutions maintain membership in ICPSR?

In openICPSR, what is deposited is what you get.

• While openICPSR has been designed to be for long term archiving, self deposits will not be ‘curated’ to correct for misleading/missing documentation, missing values, corrupted files, mislabeled variables, etc.

• openICPSR will provide only bit-level preservation meaning the files will not be migrated to current versions of software

• Data will not be rendered into various forms for statistical packages for ease of analyst use; rather it will only be available in the format deposited

Why should institutions maintain membership in ICPSR?

The population of professional curation package datasets in openICPSR will be slow to build.

• ICPSR has been providing numerous estimates for the professional curation package for grant proposals to meet public data sharing requirements, however . . .

• The lifecycle of research data is long: proposals must be funded, research conducted, data deposited, and professional curation completed prior to public access

Why should institutions maintain membership in ICPSR?

Benefits of membership in ICPSR continue, even in the public data access environment:

• Exclusive access to over 28,800 members-only datasets• Access to fully curated, analysis-ready datasets with

professional metadata, stats package conversion, standardized codebook, variable-level search, data-related bibliography, and other data tools

• Access to historic data in curated form for the purposes of longitudinal, time series, and comparative analyses

• Teaching and instructional tools• Discounted tuition for ICPSR Summer Program courses

Why should institutions maintain membership in ICPSR?

Benefits of membership in ICPSR exist for the openICPSR collection too

• Individuals affiliated with ICPSR member institutions receive 10X the storage capacity for openICPSR project deposits

• Members of ICPSR will receive exclusive access to fully curated self-deposited data deemed valuable to fully process for the use of the consortium

What other services is openICPSR considering?

• Bulk self-deposit subscription: enables a university, library, or center to pre-purchase a large number of self-deposits. The entity is provided a coupon code that enables the individual depositor to deposit without incurring a fee

• Branded institutional/departmental repository powered by openICPSR: For an annual fee, enables a university, library, department, or agency to utilize the openICPSR repository but with the entity’s own branding

• Journal replicated data collection: For an annual fee, enables a journal to brand openICPSR for use as the journal’s replication data tied to articles it publishes

Tips for Evaluating a Data Sharing Service

Questions to consider when selecting a data sharing service:

• How will the service sustain itself? Does it have a long term funding stream?

• How will the service care for my data in the long term should the service fail? Is there a plan? A safety net?

• Can the service quickly maximize discoverability of my data? Does it explain how it will do so?

• Does the service have a network of interested researchers & students seeking data? Will my data get used?

• Does the service have knowledge of international archiving standards?

• Does the service provide a DOI, data citation, and version control should I need to update my files?

• I have sensitive data to deposit. Does the service understand how to secure it upon intake and when sharing? Does it have experience in this area?

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Exploring the Website – www.openicpsr.org

How can I learn more?

• Explore www.openICPSR.org (esp the FAQs)

• Sign up for our email announcements - www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/membership/lists/index.jsp

• “Like” ICPSR on Facebook; follow ICPSR on Twitter & YouTube; join ICPSR’s LinkedIn group

• Find our presentations on www.slideshare.net – user: icpsr

• Contact user support – netmail@icpsr.umich.edu

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