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It is important that you consider the impacts of any data sharing. You have a legal, professional and ethical responsibility to ensure that you safeguard any data, and individuals to which that data might relate, when distributing it to others.

Here we advise on what those responsibilities might be and how you might evaluate them when/if you intend to share data.

NB. Whenever you intend to share data, documentary evidence that you have considered these matters should be provided. We can provide a pro-forma Data Sharing Risk Assessment and Data Sharing Agreement check-lists to help you. When seeking assistance with data sharing you will be required to provide these to demonstrate that you have not overlooked anything.

Understanding your responsibilities

Research data and any associated IP is the property of Oxford University. If you intend to share data then you must consider the potential consequences.

The University's guidance is well stated on the Research Data Oxford website and we recommend you refer to this resource.

Please note that your responsibility to the University also includes not endangering it's reputation. That is, you may be held responsible for loss or leaking of OU data, and/or any activities which might cause, through careless mismanagement of that data, financial loss or damage to the University's reputation.

Sharing data can hugely benefit your career but data involving people cannot always be shared publicly where there's a risk of violating their privacy.

All project with human participants and which has been approved for study at the WIN Centre will have undergone ethical review by CUREC. You should ensure that you have read the CUREC application and ensure that any data sharing activity does not violate the context of the approval.