Storage and retention

This module will help you with the Data organisation, Storage and back up and Data post project sections of your data management plan. Data management planning templates are available for download here or directly from our library data management page here.

Section 1: Research data management and storage services

Section 2: Working research storage

Section 3: Storing sensitive data

1 Research data management and storage services

Research Integrity and management of research data are critical elements of your research project. We can work with you to develop systems to manage data for capture through to long term presentation. Griffith University offers various storage services to all researchers and research students affiliated with the University. The Research Storage Service is an area where researchers can gain access to digital storage based on their storage needs. The project data stored in these services are freely accessible and securely stored on Griffith servers. For more information, access the Research Space, Research Drive and the Research Vault options below. To acces this storage follow the link here.

The following services are available to researchers and HDR students. Service specific information can be found for each tool listed below by clicking on the associated link or visiting the Service Catalogue.

Digital solutions data management and storage solutions inlcude:

Please note, if the standard offerings don’t fit your research or if you have more than 2TB of data contact eResearch support

2 Storage options

Note this is a very small selection of the type of storage options availble to you

Griffith Research Online (GRO) Research data collection This repository makes research data collections accessible and searchable via a web interface. Current submissions are restricted to approval from the Library. Please see the Collection Statement for more information.

QRISCloud Virtual machines for research use (such as compute-intensive analysis) and provides high-volume data storage capacity for research data

Microscopy Portal Analyse, visualise and store your microscopy images and easily create and customise algorithms to compare multiple samples, plates or batches

Please note, Griffith research storage services does not include: 
    Non-research and personal data storage and data management.
    Infrastructure provisioning for non-research based or personal websites.
    Support for research storage options managed by other organisational units at Griffith.
    Internal Network-Attached Storage (NAS) that is available to Staff (G Drive) and Students (H Drive).

Retention and achiving

There are minimum periods required for data retention as set out by the Schedule of Retention Periods for Research Data and Primary Materials Annexure to The Responsible Conduct of Research

The data required for retention is defined by the schecule as “factual records, which may take the form of numbers, symbols, text, images or sounds, used as primary sources for research, and that are commonly accepted in the research community as necessary to validate research findings.”(pg 4, Schedule of Retention Periods for Research Data and Primary Materials Annexure to The Responsible Conduct of Research)

The tables in the schedule show how long each data set needs to be retained and the security requirements for each.

Data can be retained in the Research vault, you will need to request access to the research vault via this form.

For more information please consult the Griffith Information managment guides.

3 Sensitive data

If your data is sensitive, you need to know that effects your storage and archival options.

There are several steps that you will need to work through to assess your data’s sensitivy and what that means for storage and sharing purposes. This process is the same for electronic and hardcopy datasets;

First work out how sensitive the dataset is.

Second discern what that sensitivity level means for your datasets.

Note: the sensitivity of your data dictates where the data can be stored.

Hardcopy datasets still need to ne archived and stored. Check here for options.