
Sharing, preservation and licensing: The story of a thwarted data user
There are two entities involved in data sharing. The one who is sharing (the data creator) and the one who re-uses the data (the data user). Most of this unit will discuss issues involved in sharing your data, from the point of view of the data creator. However, most academics, and certainly many postgraduate students, find themselves to be more often in the position of the data user.
The case study below is an all-too-common but true story about a University of Edinburgh student from the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology Programme, whose desire to obtain and use a certain dataset was thwarted. Contributed by Dr. Karen McKenzie, University of Edinburgh
Case study - Clinical Psychology
The research in question required the analysis of a large dataset of questionnaire responses from a clinical population. Sufficient data was needed to allow the study to be adequately powered for a factor analysis.
Initial issues:
- Accessing clinical data required NHS Caldicott Guardian approval as data was from NHS patients. As it was pre-existing anonymised data, additional NHS ethics approval was not required.
- The student needed to learn how to carry out factor analysis.
- The study had to be completed within a time-limited period as it formed part of the requirements for the DClinPsychol qualification.