Share and archive data

Prepare for sharing

During a research project, most research data are classified as Sensitive and have restrictions on access, use and treatment. At project conclusion, de-identified, post-analysis data may be shared, providing access to interested researchers, industry partners, practitioners or the general public.

Share your research data to:

help validate or reproduce findings
build trust in research outcomes
foster innovation and new collaborations
comply with Griffith University and funder requirements
enhance the visibility, reach and impact of your work.

Ethical obligations when sharing data

Plan to share data from the design stage of your research project. If your research requires ethics approval, design your application to support future data sharing. Where possible, seek participant consent that allows:

data sharing for future projects conducted by the same research team
access by other approved researchers
open sharing of de-identified and aggregated data, where appropriate.

For ARC or NHMRC funded projects, plan for this at the time of application.

Refer to these guides on privacy, informed consent and responsible data sharing practices:

Griffith's Privacy resources including data de-identification fact sheet
Griffith University Research Ethics Manual
ARDC —Publishing and sharing sensitive data
ERIC—International hub of evidence-informed ethics guidance for research involving children and young people.

For specific advice contact the relevant team.

Research Ethics, Integrity and Governance

Legal Services

Plan for sharing data

When sharing and publishing your research data, ensure you uphold data sovereignty and comply with all applicable legal, commercial and ethical obligations.

Ownership and copyright will impact on how you share research data. Check who owns the copyright of research data according to Griffith policies.

Copyright and research data

Using cultural or historical data might impact on the approach to consent, sharing, retention, disposal and return. Identify sharing limitations and guidelines via the cultural institution who are the data custodians.

When sharing Indigenous peoples’ data, ensure there is clear information around acceptable or appropriate secondary use of the data, and any limitations on who can access it. Indigenous peoples have the right to have access to their data, and there are various ways this can be achieved. Researchers need to work alongside Indigenous communities to build understanding of what 'open data' might mean and the possibilities, risks and any implications for their data before they agree to open access. This will enhance relationships and trust between researchers and communities.

Security and access controls around Indigenous data should also be applied in line with Indigenous cultural protocols to protect sensitive data, or material that should only be viewed under restricted conditions. These conditions should be developed in collaboration with relevant communities during the project planning phase.

Explore these repositories for data sharing solutions:

ATSIDA—secure, trusted repository for long-term preservation of digital research data relating to Indigenous Peoples
PARADISEC—for datasets relating to research with languages from Pacific Cultures
Mukurtu CMS—free, mobile and open source platform built with Indigenous communities to manage and share digital cultural heritage.

Third party data providers may have explicit licensing, use, storage, sharing and secure data destruction requirements.

Data sharing may be available via reuse licences or sharing agreements negotiated with data owners.

Griffith Legal Services provides two standard Data Transfer Agreements for situations where Griffith University is supplying or receiving research data. The Clinical Trial Research Agreement ( CTRA ) also includes data ownership considerations. See Griffith’s Clinical Trial Governance for more details.

For commercially funded projects or collaborations, a licence should be negotiated to allow sharing of final state data—not raw—where possible.

For significant research projects, arrange with the data owner that after the main findings are published, other qualified researchers can request access to the data to support reproducibility. Access can be requested via the DATA Scheme.

Some data cannot be shared due to privacy, sensitivity, commercial activity or ownership concerns.

For specific advice contact the relevant team:

Research Ethics and Integrity Team
Legal Services
Copyright and Information Policy Officer
Griffith Enterprise—for advice on commercial copyright, inventions, and intellectual property (IP)
Research Development Team—for complex or multi-organisation projects.

Prepare for publishing data

Decide on data to be published: raw, processed (cleaned, formatted, de-identified) or selected post-analysis (final state) data.
Save datasets using sustainable, open file formats for long-term access.
Document and describe the data using appropriate standards for your discipline.
Assign a licence outlining re-use rights.

There are several ways to share final state data. This can help meet publication and funder requirements, allow other researchers to use the data, or provide access for industry, practitioners or the public.

Data sharing and access options include:

open access
mediated access
restricted access.

Each of these options has solutions to enable F.A.I.R. data.

For all access options, submit at least the metadata for your dataset to Griffith's repository, Griffith Research Online ( GRO ), to ensure your dataset is widely discoverable. You can submit the dataset itself to GRO for open or mediated access where appropriate. If your dataset is shared elsewhere, include a link to this permanent location in the metadata submitted to GRO .

Deposit metadata and datasets to GRO

Share research data and code, with open licences, via trusted repositories:

Griffith Research Data via Griffith Research Online ( GRO )—for final state research data sharing required by funders or publishers
Zenodo—general-purpose data repository, links to GitHub, and provides blind peer review functionality
Australian Data Archive—national service for the collection and preservation of digital research data, focusing on social sciences
Figshare—general-purpose repository for data and non-traditional outputs
ARDC—Australian data infrastructure services for researchers
Search for discipline-specific repositories via the global registry re3data.org.

This option is suitable for data that is not sensitive but requires individual oversight for research purposes. Datasets can be made findable, however access must be requested, typically through an application process that requires the data owner's approval and an agreement on terms of use.

Arrange mediated access to data via:

Griffith Research Data via Griffith Research Online ( GRO )—provides secure infrastructure and an online index for mediated access to final state research data. Authority to approve access is transferred to the Head of School if the approving researcher leaves Griffith.
Australian Data Archive (ADA)—a national service for the collection and preservation of digital research data. ADA disseminates data for secondary analysis by academic researchers and other users. Researchers can assign specific access conditions when depositing data.

In some cases, it isn’t possible to de-identify or aggregate data without compromising its meaning or context. Consider whether sensitive research data has high replication and reuse value, and if restricted access may be an appropriate option.

Many organisations have developed secure infrastructure and methods to share sensitive data, often guided by the Five Safes framework.

These platforms offer restricted access to sensitive data for approved research purposes.

ABS DataLab
HILDA
Australian Government’s DATA Scheme.

Consider these services for hosting sensitive data.

Griffith Social Analytics Lab ( SAL )—a secure research facility for storing, managing and analysing sensitive administrative and other data for research and teaching.
Australian Data Archive (ADA)—a national service for the collection and preservation of digital research data. Researchers can assign restricted or special access conditions and terms of use.
- Restricted dataset example: Ten to Men: The Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health
Databrary—offers restricted access for storing, streaming and sharing video and audio recordings collected as research data or documentation. It supports data sharing among researchers in the behavioural, social, educational, developmental, neural and computer sciences.
- Read how it is used in Education and Psychology disciplines.
Health Data Australia—sharing clinical trial data according to standards designed by the Australian clinical trials community and to fulfil public funding data sharing requirements.

Archive data

There are strict legal requirements for retaining, archiving and destroying research data. At the end of a research project or when leaving Griffith, the following actions should be taken:

Prepare data and files for archiving in long-term research data storage, including all project data files and accompanying documentation.
Select the appropriate statutory retention period (PDF 247KB) for the archived dataset. For guidance, contact Griffith’s Information Management team.
Make plans for any copies of data you intend to take with you.
Nominate a custodian—for example, your Head of School—for archived data. Further details are outlined in Section 3.4.8 of the Griffith Research Data Management Guidelines.