1. Data for secondary analysis: the experience of the UK Data Archive Hilary Beedham UK Data Archive

2. 2 Overview l Introduction to the UK Data Archive l What data do we disseminate? l What are the constraints and how do we manage them? l Technological solutions

3. 3 Introduction to the UK Data Archive (1) l 30 years of making data available for secondary analysis l Service primarily for Education l Resource discovery l Data delivery can be:  Data browsing (on screen tables via Nesstar)  Via the WWW (download service)  On computer media such as CD

4. 4 Introduction to the UK Data Archive (2) l Preservation for future use & support for depositors l On-line catalogue – HASSET thesaurus l Links to similar organisations world-wide l Integrated data catalogue searches across other archives - ELSST thesaurus l Training material and data workshops for users

5. 5 What data do we disseminate? l Anonymised data  Person  Organisation l From a variety of sources:  Government  Research councils  Charitable organisations & foundations  Private organisations

6. 6 What are the constraints? l Intellectual Property - copyright l Data protection and data

7. 7 Intellectual Property l Data producers, either organisational or individual, have IP in their data: all methods of dissemination must acknowledge ownership l Data Archives (and others disseminators who are not owners of data) operate on the basis of licences which require ownership to be acknowledged by secondary users

8. 8 Data Protection and Respondent Confidentiality l Clearly this is a critical area of concern for data producers and has implications for users of data l It is often cited as a reason for restricting access to microdata l However, under licence, the UK Data Archive has been making microdata available for over 30 years, latterly using web technologies

9. 9 Managing intellectual property rights l By maintaining structured catalogue records about the ownership of each dataset, our search and data browsing software creates on-screen copyright statements in Nesstar l For downloaded data, the appropriate citation is provided with the data file at the time of downloading l This also serves to reassure users that data are from a reliable source

10. 10 Protecting respondent confidentiality (1) l We disseminate only anonymised data  Our data suppliers are responsible for ensuring that we only receive anonymised data l Nevertheless, our procedures for processing data for preservation and dissemination include checks for disclosive information  Variable content  Dataset and documentation combinations

11. 11 Protecting respondent confidentiality (2) l By legal means: through licences with data providers and legally binding undertakings with data users l Users are required to agree:  Not to attempt to identify individuals  Not to attempt to gain information about individuals by combining with data from other sources l By careful & consistent recording of relevant information – about users, datasets and uses

12. 12 Technological solutions l In the past, we relied on pen and paper to manage the undertakings with users. l It was a time consuming process and meant users often waited weeks to gain access to data. l As a result of technological developments, users can register, print an access agreement from the web, sign and fax it to us and, subject to status, have access to datasets within hours of their request

13. 13 Access control l For our web based dissemination service we apply a sophisticated Access Control System:  It can block access to unregistered users  It can permit a user to browse the catalogue records but not the data  Or it can permit a user to browse the catalogue and the data (create ad hoc tables on screen) but not download the data  Or it will permit a user to download the data for use on their own machine  In theory it will also permit differential access to individual variables within a file – we haven’t applied this but may in future

14. 14 On-line statistical disclosure control l Real-time SDC systems are in existence in specialist fields such as medical statistics. l UKDA was partner to a project which explored the development of such a system for the Nesstar software. l Further work is needed to develop this – feasibility was demonstrated but a number of problems need to be overcome before a service could be implemented

15. 15 Contact details Hilary Beedham UK Data Archive University of Essex beedh@essex.ac.uk http://www.nesstar.com/