Penn State Data Management Plan Tutorial

Part 3: Policies for Data Sharing and Access

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Kim Addresses Issues of Data Access and Restrictions

Having explored data repositories for their metadata requirements and studied the disciplinary standards offered by organizations such as the Digital Curation Center in the U.K., Kim has begun work on applying metadata standards for documenting Dr. Smart's data. Dr. Smart has also informed Kim that he intends to make the data publicly available. He instructs Kim to make certain there are no issues that would prevent broad sharing. Kim will be seeking guidance on the issues and questions that pertain to sharing and access to ensure that management of this research data does not create security or confidentiality breaches, or impinge on any intellectual property rights.


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"Strictly Confidential" - Image of a Currier & Winter carte de visite
Credit: Beinecke Library on Flickr. CC-BY-SA 2.0.

In this part, you will learn about the importance of providing safeguards for protection of confidential information and requirements for restricting data. You will also consider how and when access to your data will be provided, and to whom. We also touch on the importance of data citation.