Hannele Keckman-Koivuniemi

Exemplary Data Management – First FSD Data Management Award to Dr Michail Galanakis

Data Management Award 2014: Dr Michail Galanakis The recipient of the FSD Data Management Award, Dr Michail Galanakis. Picture: Hannele Keckman-Koivuniemi.

The Finnish Social Science Data Archive presented Dr Michail Galanakis with the very first FSD Data Management Award on 17 September 2014.

Dr Galanakis earned his PhD in The School of Arts and Design in Helsinki in 2008 and has worked, among others, as a Research Fellow in the Department of Geosciences and Geography in the University of Helsinki and as a Visiting Scholar in the York University in Toronto. His dataset Intercultural Urban Public Space in Toronto 2011–2013 will be available at the FSD for research, teaching and study purposes by January 2015.

The FSD Data Management Award is presented to a person, research group or organisation in recognition of exemplary data management and attention given to data lifecycle when collecting, organising and archiving data. Good data management means that the research data and description information (metadata) related to the data have been created, stored and organised in a way that keeps the dataset accessible and reliable throughout its life span.

Dr Galanakis took data management and research ethics commendably into consideration already at the planning stages of the data collection. He asked for a written consent from the research participants for archiving the data and informed them that the data will be preserved at the Finnish Social Science Data Archive. He also presented his data archiving plan to a local research ethics board in Canada and followed the FSD's Data Management Planning guidelines when processing the data. Moreover, he has mentioned the data archive in the publications based on the data, thus promoting data transparency.

The Data Management Award is an acknowledgement of quality data management, and the awardee receives a memento and a diploma. The memento this year was a cake server made out of a recycled nickel silver table spoon. The cake server was designed by Mäntsälä-based Beloved {by} Brunou.

More information:

  • The Finnish Social Science Data Archive, Information Services Manager Mari Kleemola, firstname.lastname@uta.fi