Last Updated: Sep 20, 2024     Views: 787

Submission Policy 

  1. Any University of Calgary researcher - including faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, students and staff - may deposit datasets and related materials (e.g., documentation and code to support understanding and re-use of the datasets) in PRISM Data. Undergraduate student deposits must be sponsored by a faculty member. Note that you may include more than one author and/or contact person for a particular deposit; we encourage this where possible and appropriate. 
  2. Publications (such as books, book chapters, articles, reports), supplemental materials for publications (e.g., figures, tables, charts, etc.), presentation or poster materials, working papers, learning objects, capstone projects, and theses/dissertations should be deposited in PRISM. Please note that any material submitted to PRISM will be open by default. If you are not sure if your material constitutes a dataset, please contact the PRISM Data team at research.data@ucalgary.libanswers.com  Libraries and Cultural Resources reserves the right to move materials between PRISM and PRISM Data if deemed appropriate. 
  3. PRISM Data is intended for sharing data and making that data accessible to the general public after the completion of a research project. If limited access is required for a period of time, please contact the PRISM Data team before submitting to ensure your needs can be met. If you are looking for data storage during the course of a research project, please contact UCalgary IT and/or Research Computing Services. 
  4. All deposits must include a readme file and appropriate descriptive metadata. If you are not familiar with preparing readme files, this guide to writing readme files is a useful starting point. We strongly encourage the deposit of other appropriate documentation – e.g., codebooks, data dictionaries, etc. – and/or code where these are necessary for the datasets to be understood and re-used. If you need assistance in preparing your metadata and documentation, please contact the PRISM Data team or your subject librarian. To find out more about the metadata blocks used in PRISM Data, refer to the Dataverse North Metadata Best Practices guide. 
  5. Where possible, materials should be submitted in open and non-proprietary formats (e.g., .csv, .txt., .xml., rtf.). Note that while PRISM Data may automatically translate file formats (e.g., tabular data will be automatically translated to other formats such as .csv, .tsv, and .rdata), the underlying data remains as deposited. 
  6. File names should not include spaces, special characters, or periods other than the one before the file extension (as in .docx, .csv, etc.). For guidance on good file naming practices, see our FAQ on labeling, describing and organizing files. 
  7. Deposits must not include 
    • Confidential or sensitive information which has not been anonymized or de-identified. This includes personally identifiable information; personal health information; research data collected from human participants under the rules of the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS 2); or any other data or information listed under Levels 3 or 4 of the University of Calgary’s Information Security Classification Standard. 
    • Indigenous data or Traditional Knowledge for which you do not have explicit permission from the appropriate Indigenous rightsholders to deposit into PRISM Data. Proof of permission may be requested prior to data publication. 
    • Material for which you do not hold copyright, for which you have not explicitly obtained the unrestricted permission of the copyright owner to grant the University of Calgary and Scholars Portal the rights required by this license, or which you have not clearly identified and acknowledged as being owned by a third party within the text or content of the submission. 
    • Software viruses or any other computer codes, files, or programs that are designed or intended to disrupt, damage, limit or interfere with the proper function of any software, hardware, or telecommunications equipment or to damage or obtain unauthorized access to any system, data or other information of the University of Calgary, Scholars Portal or any third party. 
  8. All deposits will be reviewed by members of the PRISM Data team before publication. Given that changes and/or additional information may be required before a submission can be published, if you are working to a deadline, please allow sufficient time for review to take place (at least 1-2 business days) before the deadline. The PRISM Data team will, at a minimum,  

    • verify depositors’ current University of Calgary affiliation,  

    • ensure that the deposit can be considered research data,  

    • ensure that all required materials and metadata are included, and 

    • confirm that no prohibited materials are included. 

Libraries and Cultural Resources retains the right to refuse deposits if they do not meet the guidelines given here, and/or to request changes be made before a deposit is published. 

  1. The ownership, validity, and authenticity of the content of deposit is the sole responsibility of the depositor. Any copyright/licensing violations, non-compliance with the conditions set out by a research ethics board, or sharing of proprietary or confidential data are entirely the responsibility of the depositor. 
  2. If you wish to group your data submissions within PRISM Data into a common listing by author, department, faculty, research group, or other organization, please contact  research.data@ucalgary.libanswers.com. 
  3. By submitting to PRISM Data, you accept the Borealis Terms of Use. 

Content Policy

  1. PRISM Data is intended for sharing data and making that data accessible to the general public. Consequently, before uploading, data should be appropriately anonymized in accordance with ethics agreements and to maintain privacy and confidentiality.
  2. For data where limited access is necessary, PRISM Data offers several options:
    • Custom terms of use that can be used to require those downloading the dataset to agree to specific terms of their use of the data.  If not specified Creative Commons Zero (CC0) terms are provided by default (i.e., public domain dedicated that reserves no rights).
    • It is possible to require access requests for individual files or for entire datasets.  When this is enabled (under dataset terms) those wanting to access the data will have to submit requests for access; these requests will notify and be mediated by the dataset owner.
    • Guest books can be enabled to impose an information form to be filled out before data is downloaded.  Information fields can include name, email, institution, position, and other user-specified questions.  Contact research.data@ucalgary.libanswers.com for assistance in enabling this functionality.
  3. Libraries and cultural resources will apply accepted preservation strategies to all content.

Libraries and Cultural Resources retains the right to:

  1. Redistribute or amend metadata for items in the repository.
  2. Refuse or de-accession datasets under certain circumstances - see the Withdrawal Policy below.
  3. Migrate items if the format is in danger of obsolescence.
  4. Set quotas (size of files, the number of items) to determine what constitutes free service and after which point to charge a fee.
  5. Charge fees for activities requiring extensive centralized support from Libraries and Cultural Resources (e.g. large amount of de-accessioning or batch-loading).

Preservation Policy

  1. Items will be retained indefinitely.
  2. PRISM Data administrators cannot ensure continued readability and accessibility for all file formats. It is recommended practice to utilize open and non-proprietary file formats for sharing and use within data repositories.   E.g., CSV, TXT, XML, RTF.
  3. Items are not normally removed from PRISM Data.
  4. Items are allocated a checksum to facilitate the detection of alterations.

Withdrawal Policy

Our practice is not to remove items from PRISM Data unless there are concerns regarding violation of the submission policy listed above. PRISM Data administrators will investigate these matters and make a decision about withdrawal.

  1. Withdrawn items are not deleted from PRISM Data, but are removed from public view.
  2. The identifiers or URLs of any withdrawn items are retained indefinitely.
  3. URLs will continue to point to 'tombstone' citations.
  4. The metadata of withdrawn items will not be searchable.

Exceptions may apply.

Metadata Policy

  1. Anyone may access the metadata free of charge.
  2. The metadata may be re-used in any medium without prior permission, provided the DOI or link to the original metadata record is given.

More Information

For more information about or clarification of any of these policies, please contact research.data@ucalgary.libanswers.com.

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