Welcome and thank you for your interest in depositing data with ISDC. ISDC encourages data producers - government, public and municipal agencies as well as academic institutes - to deposit their own computer-readable data in the archive for long-term preservation and for use in secondary analysis by other social science researchers. The ISDC is looking for datasets from surveys or administration records, that have potential use in the social sciences. These datasets are then prepared for secondary analysis as well as for long-term preservation, according to international standards of Social Science Data Archives. Needless to say preparing a dataset for use involves disclosure control measures such as removal of all identifying details.

 

Benefits of depositing data in an archive:

• Ensures the safekeeping of data
• Reinforces open scientific inquiry
• Promotes new research and allows for the testing of new or alternative methods
• Reduces costs by avoiding duplicate data collection efforts
• Provides public acknowledgement of the data owner research and professional activities
• Allows owners to avoid the administrative tasks associated with external users and their queries

Enables researchers to demonstrate continued use of the data after the original research is

completed, which can influence funding agencies to provide further research money

Archiving data with ISDC offers additional benefits to principal investigators:

• A description of the investigator's study is included on the ISDC Web site
• Maintaining permanent backups of the data both onsite and offsite
• ISDC staff further reviews the data to determine its level of statistical confidentiality and makes, after consulting the data owner, necessary modifications to ensure respondent confidentiality
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The data owner can control the usage of data by assigning one of the following access modes:

• The dataset is deposited for free usage but the user has to acknowledge its source (the data owner)
• The dataset is deposited for free usage and its owner receives periodical usage report
• Each use of the dataset involves written approval of its owner
• The dataset is deposited and will be opened for use after its owner publishes his/her results