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​Guide for owners of a community

The purpose of a community is to offer long-term storage, enabling documentation of data and source code that is generated or used in research. A community also facilitates sharing of content within research activities at KTH. KTH data repository is not intended to be used for private purposes. A community should only be made public if it has been assessed that it is suitable to make the content externally visible. This assessment can be done separately or in connection to drafting a data management plan. As community owner you will by default also have the role of community manager in KTH data repository.

Your Responsibilities as a community owner

  • As owner of a community you are responsible for managing the content in the community. This responsibility includes means that the content in the community should maintain good quality in line with good scientific practice in your field. You are also responsible for not storing any illegal content in the community and that data is shared at appropriate access level.

  • As community owner and responsible for data management, you can delegate the responsibility for doing the actual work of assuring quality of data deposited for archive storage to someone that is assigned the role of “curator”

  • As a community owner or curator you must ensure that data is accessible at an appropriate access level for authorized persons. Recommended is also to describe what the community is intended to be used for and set up guidelines for the community. This information can be added for the community under the tabs “description” and “curation policy” in the system.

You can read about the general guidelines at KTH in the KTH research data guidelines and other guidelines listed below. In the case of changed guidelines, this document will be updated to a new version that will be available in the online documentation for KTH data repository.

Visibility and access to data: guide for choosing correct access level for data for your research project.

Levels of Visibility

For datasets:

  • Public access: Anyone can search for and download files.

  • Restricted access to files: Only community members can download, but descriptions are public.

  • Restricted access to both files and descriptions: Only community members can view descriptions and download files.

For communities:

  • Public access to community: Content is searchable by anyone.

  • Restricted access to community: Content only searchable and accessible to community members.

KTH administrators can access all data but must adhere to KTH's system administrator responsibilities as outlined in the responsibility agreement. KTH follows public access laws, meaning material in KTH Data repository may be public records, which must be disclosed upon request unless exempt by law.

Information can be at “public access” level if it fulfills the requirement below:

  • Information is classified as a public official act where public access does not cause harm to individuals, KTH or national interests.

Information should be kept at “restricted access” level if it fulfils the requirement below:

  • Information is classified as confidential, meaning that there is a risk of harm if data is shared in public. Examples of harm can be to cause damage to the integrity of individuals, cause economic damage for organisations or damage to infrastructure critical to society.

Listed below are common examples of information that should remain with restricted access:

  • Official documents covered by confidentiality according to the Swedish law, Offentlighets- och sekretesslag (2009:400). See KTH guidelines on how to apply the law in research in section 3.4.4 . For information where strict secrecy applies, see section of information not to be stored at KTH data repository.

  • Personal information where a risk assessment has determined that disclosure would cause harm to the individual. Contact dataskyddsombud@kth.se for more information.

  • Information concerning products with technology subjected to export control or dual use technology. Contact exportcontrol@kth.se for more information.

  • Copyrighted material where you yourself do not own the rights to share the material.

Please note this is not a complete list of all types of confidential data. If you are unsure about whether your data can be shared with open access or restricted access, contact researchdata@kth.se for advice.

In most cases, confidential material can be shared within the research group or within KTH. This can also be regulated in research agreements with other parties, and in some special cases more strict secrecy applies.

Information that is not suitable to store in KTH data repository that should be kept in separate storage with much more stringent security measures:

  • Disclosure of information of importance from a national security perspective according to the Swedish law on national security, Säkerhetsskyddslag (2018:585). Contact security@kth.se for further information.

  • Directly identifiable sensitive personal information according to GDPR.

  • Code keys that can be used to re-identify sensitive personal information.

If you need to resign from the community owner & data manager responsibility for the project, make sure that someone else takes over. You must assign someone that takes over the responsibility before you leave KTH. Contact researchdata@kth.se if there are any questions regarding transfer of data manager responsibilities.