In Brief
» New Online Service for Data Access
» Trend Data on Finnish Attitudes from EVA
» FSD Data Descriptions Available on Data Citation Index
» Self-evaluation of CESSDA organisations
» National Roadmap for Research Infrastructures to be Updated
» Cooperation in the Archiving of Qualitative Data Developed in the DASISH Project
FSD Announces a New Online Service for Data Access
The FSD will introduce an online data dissemination service in the late spring of 2013. Authentication will be based on the HAKA identity federation, allowing the students and staff of Finnish universities and polytechnics to log in with the username and password issued to them by their institution. Other users will use an alternative registration system. The new service will allow users to search and browse data and metadata online as well as download data for research, study and teaching.
The archive has also renewed its data deposition and access agreements to make them consistent with the new service and practices. At first, the online dissemination service will be available in Finnish only but will become available in English later in the year.
Data on the Changes in Finnish Attitudes from EVA
The Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA has published data from its attitude and value surveys in Arvopankki which allows the examination and comparison of the survey results over the years. Arvopankki contains data from 1984 onwards and is available in Finnish. The data itself have been archived at the FSD and are available both in English and Finnish for research and study, free of charge.
More information:
» EVA website
» EVA Surveys on Finnish Values and Attitudes at the FSD
FSD Data Descriptions Available on the Data Citation Index
The new Data Citation Index by Thomson Reuters contains the data descriptions produced at the FSD. The Data Citation Index is part of the subscription-based Web of Knowledge service that comprises several citation databases. Including datasets as part of the service enables the examination of which publications the data have been used in and which publications are related to the data.
The data descriptions produced by the FSD are openly available as zip packages, which are updated regularly. A zip package contains the description of the dataset in DDI 2.0 XML file format. Only the data for which the FSD is the originating archive are included in the Index.
More information:
» Data Citation Index
» FSD metadata records in DDI 2.0
Self-evaluation of CESSDA organisations
CESSDA, the umbrella organisation for European social science data archives, is moving towards establishing an European Research Infrastructure Consortium (CESSDA-ERIC). Social science data archives of different countries participate in the activities of the consortium as national service providers.
To build trust, CESSDA has started a self-evaluation project of the member archives to examine how the CESSDA members meet the requirements of the CESSDA-ERIC Statutes. One of the aims of the project is to ensure that the member archives have the same understanding of these requirements. Advice and support needed by the organisations will also be charted.
A core group responsible for coordinating the self-evaluation project will prepare a gap analysis based on the self-assessments. The core group consists of representatives from UKDA (Great-Britain), GESIS (Germany), DANS (the Netherlands) and the Finnish Social Science Data Archive. Mari Kleemola acts as the FSD's representative in the project.
More information:
» CESSDA website
» ESFRI Roadmap
» Data Seal of Approval (DSA)
» FSD Projects page (including information on the VERIC project)
The National Roadmap for Research Infrastructures to be Updated
The Academy of Finland started to update the roadmap for Finnish research infrastructures last autumn. The roadmap is a plan for new research infrastructures and projects developing them. The first roadmap was published in 2009.
The Academy will process the roadmap proposals in two stages. First, the projects involved in the first roadmap were required to submit a plan of intent by the beginning of February 2013. The FSD submitted two plans of intent in the first stage, one about developing the national services and the other about Finland's CESSDA-ERIC membership. Both plans of intent submitted by the FSD were selected for the second stage. Full proposals are to be submitted to the Academy in May. The proposals will be evaluated by international peer reviewers during the summer and the expert committee on research infrastructures will decide on on the new roadmap projects in the autumn.
More information:
» FIRI expert committee
Cooperation in the Archiving of Qualitative Data Developed in the DASISH Project
The Data Service Infrastructure for the Social Sciences and Humanities, DASISH, funded by the European Commission, organised a workshop focusing on qualitative data in Maynooth, Ireland. The purpose of the workshop was to examine how qualitative researchers and archivists could participate in the DASISH project and how to ensure their involvement in cooperation. Jarkko Päivärinta represented the Finnish Social Science Data Archive in the workshop.
