Collaborate and share data in active research
Learn how to manage and securely share data in research collaborations, from protecting confidential information to using recommended tools and platforms.
A large part of KTH's research is conducted in collaborative projects with external parties. In some of these collaborations, information can be classified as confidential due to regulations or clauses in research agreements or conditions in an ethical permit. In those cases, information classification and a risk assessment should take place in connection to drafting an initial data management plan. Appropriate protective measures for protection of confidential data against unauthorized access may vary from case to case. Protective measures can depend on the degree of confidentiality and type of data and technical processing involved.
In general, the results from research should be made publicly available. Whether resulting data should be publicly available may depend on what type of funding and what clauses that are included in the research agreements. So make sure you understand the conditions before sharing your data. In most but not all cases you may share data with research partners, but restrictions on what tools and platforms you are allowed to use may exist.
How to share data during active research collaborations
There are many file-sharing services and file-transfer protocols that can be used for sharing data in active research. When collaborating, it is practical to use a cloud-based file sync and share service to keep track of versions and avoid different copies of a file in different states. Examples of such services is KTH OneDrive, Owncloud, Nextcloud, Google Drive, Box and Dropbox. All employees at KTH have access to 5Tb storage in KTH OneDrive.
On EU level, university employees also have access to EOSC cloud file sharing services. Via the EOSC cloud services you may also access other tools, for instance for batch transfer of larger volumes of data.
Many research infrastructures offer resources for processing, transferring, storing and sharing data for research projects.
If you work with both data and source code in the project, you may use other tools for keeping track of versions of code and collaborating with a service using a git-type version control system, such as Github, Gitlab or Bitbucket. KTH also has a KTH Github service for private projects.