Quick Deposit Guide

Step 1 - Contact the ADA

If you want to deposit research data with the ADA, please send an email to ada@ada.edu.au with the following information:

- Study Title:
- Study Abstract:
- Related Data:  (e.g. is the data derived from or closely related to other data, especially data already held by the ADA).
- Methodology and Data Description: (e.g. qualitative data or quantitative data, sensitive or non-sensitive, format etc. ).

See Deposit Appraisal & Collection Policy for details on what data the ADA accepts.

Step 2 - Prepare data files and documentation

De-identification of sensitive data

Ensure that your data does not contain identifying information about your research participants. This includes, for instance, personnel information about the respondents in a survey that could lead to the identification of an individual respondent. If your not sure if your data contains identifying information, please contact the ADA for guidance.

For more information on the topic see:

• Legal & Ethical
• De-Identification
• The Privacy Act 1988

Reusability of data

Data deposited at the ADA should be understandable and reusable by a secondary user.

 Please ensure that: 
- all variables have clear labels, preferably under 80 characters long, because some programs such as Stata truncate labels after 80 characters
- all values of categorical variables have clear labels, preferably under 25 characters 
- there are no comma or separators in value labels as this can cause problems in CSV files 

For more information see:

• Quality Assurance
• Workflows

Data formats

The ADA accepts data in most formats, but if you are using an unusual format (e.g. a database set up), please let us know in advance and we can discuss options. We will export all tabular data to SPSS, STATA and SAS formats, as well as CSV for distribution.

For more information see:

• Quality Assurance
• Workflows
• Preservation plan

Documentation files

Please provide appropriate documentation for you data. As a minimum, you should supply the questionnaire or equivalent. Other supporting documentation such as a technical report or instructions to the data collector can be deposited as well. Related publication can be linked in the metadata.

Step 3 - Upload files

An ADA archivist will set up a deposit shell on the ADA Deposit Dataverse site for you. Please upload your data files and supporting documentation files to this site. Other secure file sharing solutions are possible, however, this should be discussed with the ADA first. For security reason do not send data files by email.

Step 4 - Provide metadata

Good metadata is essential for findability and reusability of data. Please fill in as many metadata fields as you can in the provided deposit shell (where you uploaded your data). If you are unsure about what information to provide in a given field, please contact the ADA for guidance.

The ADA uses controlled vocabulary for keywords, see APAIS and for the topic classification, we use ANZSRC FoR code.

Step 5 - License and Access conditions

Before the data can be published on the ADA Dataverse, the data rights holder must sign a license agreement with the ADA. This document specifies the conditions under which the ADA can disseminate the data, see Rights Managment for more information.

There are a number of options of access conditions for a given dataset, see Access Conditions for details. The ADA can advise on what access condition would suit your data best, if you are unsure.