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 Year:
- Department or Research group: 
- Field of Research (FoR) code(s): 
- List of Files and File Descriptions:

See Deposit Appraisal & Collection Policy for details on what data the ADA accepts. Licenses and access conditions will be discussed once the deposit is accepted for archiving with the ADA.

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, personal information about the respondents in a survey that could lead to the identification of an individual respondent.

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: 
- Study variable names use a consistent naming convention and can be readily matched to corresponding questions and sections on the study questionnaire (if applicable).
- All variables have appropriate labels. Labels should enable secondary users to understand the meaning of each variable, and ADA recommends that variable label lengths should be 80 characters or less.
- 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. Ensure also that any leading or trailing spaces are removed.  

For more information see:

• Quality Assurance
• Workflows

Data formats

The ADA prefers SPSS files for tabular survey data because that file format contains a metadata dictionary. Other compatible formats are also generally accepted, provided variable and values labels can be associated with their data. We will export all tabular data to SPSS, STATA and SAS formats, as well as CSV for distribution.

If you are using an unusual format (e.g. a database set up), please let us know in advance and we can discuss options.

For more information see:

• Quality Assurance
• Workflows
• Preservation plan

Documentation files

Please provide appropriate documentation for your data. As a minimum, you should supply the study questionnaire (or equivalent research materials that correspond to your data). Other appropriate supporting documentation can include:

• technical report

• instructions to the data collector

Note that related publications with an existing digital identifier (DOI) or webpage (URL) can be referenced in the project metadata on Dataverse.

Step 3 - Upload files

An ADA archivist will send you a link to a website where you can securely upload your files. To access this website you will first be directed to create a user account. Please inform the ADA once you have done that step, so we can give you editing rights to your deposit page.

Please upload your data files and supporting documentation files to this site. Alternative file sharing services can be used by prior arrangement with ADA. For security reasons, please 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). Navigate to the Metadata tab, and click ‘Add + Edit Metadata’ to edit the fields.

If you are unsure about what information to provide in a given field, please contact the ADA for guidance.

Step 5 - License and Access conditions

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

The agreement allows you to specify the terms and conditions of access for data users, the details users must provide, and the process by which data requests will be assessed and approved, see Access Conditions for details. The ADA can advise on what access condition would suit your data.