Articles

Data collection with Penna produced a record amount of data

Since 2017, Penna has been used to collect dozens of textual research materials on diverse topics. The most prolific collection in Penna’s history has been by researcher Marjo Ring, who gathered writings from practical nurses and nurses who left the profession, detailing their experiences and reasons for the change.

A Quarter of a Century of FSD and Data Archving in Finland

For over 25 years, FSD has fulfilled its national role as a separate unit of Tampere University, witnessing numerous changes in its operational environment and the general attitude towards the management and openness of research data.

The winding road to GDPR compliance

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a binding legislative act. It was adopted on 2016, and became applicable on May, 2018. FSD thoroughly prepared for the implementation of GDPR. Contract texts were changed, policies were adapted to the regulation, and training was organised both internally and externally. The path to putting the regulation into practice at FSD has been eventful.

Building capacity and ensuring competence in FSD's IT Services

To become a partner in international projects, FSD must have the ability to participate in the development of shared technical solutions and to implement the solutions in its own systems. FSD must be able to operate according to the principles of modern software development, flexibly and efficiently. This will ensure that the organisation can carry out in its main tasks effectively and be a competitive partner for various projects. Many tasks related to capacity and competence building take place 'under the hood'. The outcomes are practically invisible to outsiders, and often also to FSD staff but yet in many ways necessary for carrying out the daily data curation work.

The road travelled for CESSDA Vocabulary Service

The DDI Alliance has created 26 vocabularies to be used in certain metadata elements in the standard, many focused on describing methods adopted to create the data. These controlled vocabularies form an inherent part of cross-national metadata harmonization. Managing multilingual vocabulary content requires appropriate software. This is a story of the development of CESSDA Vocabulary Service.

Building New European Services for Researchers

Six years ago, the Research Council of Finland awarded the Finnish Social Science Data Archive a five-year funding for fulfilling Finland’s membership obligations in CESSDA ERIC. Partly due to the delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, we were granted an additional year to finalise the project. It is now a good time to look back at what was planned and what our experts have accomplished in the project.