Archiving

When closing a research project, it is important to archive the documents that should be preserved, and to delete those that shouldn't. Preserving the right documents is important for accreditation or to make research replicable and verifiable. Deleting documents can be important to comply with privacy regulations (GDPR), by keeping personal information no longer than is required for obtaining your research goals.

Keep the following steps in mind: 

1. Check the data management plan. You could start by checking the data management plan (if there is any) to see which retention period is decided on for the research data and whether you will publish (parts of) the data in a repository. 
2. Selection of files. Make a selection of files that should be kept after the project. At Hanze, the HG Selection List is the guiding document for making this selection.
3. Transfer from dynamic to static archive. Dynamic archive refers to the project folder where the files of the research projects are managed. For example a project folder in Research Drive or Sharepoint in which you collaborate with colleagues. Static archive refers to a folder where you keep documents for  the long term. Each knowledge centre is responsible for maintaining their own static archive. In an archive folder, the user rights of the original project folder will be deleted and for each file, the retention period will have to be indicated. 
4. Deposition of data in an external repository (optional). You can preserve research data for the long term in an external repository or data archive as well. For example to allow for verification of your research or to make the data available for reuse. For non-sensitive data you can archive data in for example DataverseNL or DANS-EASY.
5. Delete project folder. When all the required documents are archived in a static archive folder, you can delete the old project folder. All files that don't have to be archived can now be deleted, included those copies of files that are saved on personal accounts or personal devices.

Hanze UAS has developed the HG Selection List (in Dutch), which describes the archiving guidelines for different processes at the organisation. This includes which documents should be kept and the applicable retention periods.

The HG Selection List indicates that the following documents should be archived:

• ​Project plan and/or research outline
• Research data
• Final report/research results 
• Evaluation report
• Publications

It is also advisable to keep the data management plan together with the project plan. 

Research data refers to all data that underlies the research results. This includes both raw data as well as edited and analysed data that are necessary to make research results transparant.

To make data available for verification purposes, it is important that a third person is able to recover the right data and able to understand its content. An understandable folder structure and version control are crucial for this purpose. 

At Hanze UAS, research data should be preserved for at least five years, or longer if necessary according to the researcher. The other documents that are mentioned above should be kept permanently. 

Often, a preservation period longer than five year is applied. According to the Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, raw data as well as edited versions of the data should be retained for a period of time that fits the research field and research methodology. Besides this, funding organisations can also request a minimal retention period. NWO and ZonMw, for example, require research data to be preserved for at least 10 years, unless laws or regulations require differently. 

Do you want to archive research data in an external repository? Check how long the repository will archive the data. DANS-EASY guarantees to preserve the data for at least ten years, while 4TU.ResearchData guarantees to preserve the data for at least 15 years.