Leaving sciCORE

sciCORE promotes best data-management practices and supports policies applicable at University of Basel for data which needs to be preserved to comply with the Research Integrity rules of University of Basel or other funding agencies like SNF (for more info please check: Research Data Management). The University has in particular established a regulation on Research Integrity, which requires processes and data to be preserved for at least 5 years after completion of a research project, in support of research reproducibility (Research integrity II.4.8: [pdf]).

sciCORE can help researchers or PIs in adhering to these requirement when leaving the university.

In this context, sciCORE has implemented the following processes:

1) Regarding data from collaborators in a research group leaving the university of Basel:

• Before the collaborator leaves:
  • The collaborator should review the data he/she owns on the sciCORE storage systems and decide which of those fall in the scope of the Research Integrity regulations.
  • After review, we recommend the following:
    • Delete temporary and intermediate files
    • Transfer research data that need to be preserved to a location agreed upon with the group leader (e.g. in the group directory, or in Deep Storage).
• After a collaborator has left the university:
  • sciCORE transfers ownership of files of the collaborator to the group leader (or to a person designated by him) to review remaining data and decide on those that need to be preserved.
  • Upon request from the group leader, sciCORE can transfer the remaining data of the collaborator (i.e. his/her home directory) to Deep Storage.

2) When a group leader leaves the university of Basel (joining a new organization, because of retirement, or other causes ...):

• The group leader should agree with the Management of the department about the process to be applied. Two main options can occur:
  • Group data are transferred to deep storage, and the incurring storage costs will be covered by the University of Basel up to 1'000 CHF per year. Costs exceeding 1'000 CHF per year, will be charged to the department. Alternatively data can be transferred to another active group at university.
  • If the PI join another Institution,  (e.g. very large datasets, or data that will be used in subsequent research in another organization),  a contract is established between the group leader and the university of Basel guaranteeing that data generated at University of Basel will remain accessible under the conditions of the Research Integrity in the new organization.
• In case a group leaves the university without clarifying the end-of-life data management process, the default procedure is to transfer data to Deep Storage with storage costs covered by the University of Basel up to 1'000 CHF per year. Costs exceeding 1'000 CHF per year, will be charged to the department. Data in Deep Storage will be deleted 5 years after upload unless an alternative end date is communicated by the department.
• A request to delete a group directory earlier than the 5 years period required by the integrity policy must be approved (signed) by the Head of the department (or its Geschäftsführer).

Definition:

Deep storage

Deep storage is a tape-based storage solution for large datasets (typically > 1 TB) that are still formally part of an active research process, but do not require being accessed. When transferred to deep storage, data are not accessible to the researcher anymore. However data can be recalled upon request in case of need. (Data retrieval can take several days.)  Deep storage is not an archive: data redundancy and storage time are limited. As a general rule, data in deep storage will be deleted after 5 years. (The preservation period can be renewed, but will remain limited.)  However, deep storage can be seen as a staging area, before being transferred to a genuine archive system. (Data that need to be archived (long-term preservation, with high redundancy) must be stored in an environment offering that quality of service.)  Group leaders can consult the status of data they own in deep storage, by logging on the user account on the sciCORE web site: https://scicore.unibas.ch/ .

The corpus of regulations applicable at University of Basel is available here: https://www.unibas.ch/de/Universitaet/Rechtserlasse.html