One way to plan the management of your research data is to write a data management plan (DMP). When you write down the plan, you are able to come back to it, if needed. Data management is a process and therefore also the DMP should be a living document. You should update the plan whenever there are changes to it as the research progresses.
There are different tools and templates for data management that make it easier to plan your research data management.
Before you begin to collect research data, it is good to plan the process in advance. The more precise your plan to collect and manage research data is, the fewer unpleasant surprises you will encounter during your research.
The issues listed below should be planned for and decided over before beginning to collect your research data.
In the beginning of the research process, you should consider what kind of data you will need to conduct your research. That way, you will have an overall picture of the required data and you can plan how to collect it before you start. If your research data consists of several datasets, different datasets may require different types of solutions on how to manage the data.
When processing personal data, you must also consider data protection. You can check the definition of personal data on the Office of Data Protection Ombudsman's web page. You must prepare a separate data protection notice and give it to your research subjects, and specify who is the data controller for your research data. Study the university's Data Protection Guideline for Thesis Research properly and talk it through with your thesis advisor.
More information in the Research Data Guide of Turku University Library.
Before you begin to collect your research data, you must consider whether it is practical or necessary to collect this particular data. If you collect personal data, you should consider whether all the data is necessary for your research. Do not collect personal data just to be on the safe side; instead minimise the processing of personal data.
Collecting research data without consent goes against good scientific practice. Before collecting your research data, find out whether you need consent from, for example, your research subjects, repositories, or admins of online services.
If your research data consists of images or you intend to use images in your thesis, find out early enough if you have permission to use the images. More information on using images in theses can be found in the UTUThesis guide.
If you already know you will archive your data after the research process (at the university, for example, to the History, Culture and Arts Studies Archive, linked page in Finnish), Syntax Archive, or UTU Geoportal), find out in advance if the archive requires you to have written consent from your research subjects for archiving the research data and for its further use. Getting consent from participants is considerably easier during the data collection than afterwards!
Make sure that the devices or programs you use for collecting research data function properly, and that the devices or programs in question are secure.
