The Timescapes Archive

Incremental Project and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH)

Digital Forum19 January 2011

Cambridge

Libby BishopUniversity of Leeds – Timescapes

University of Essex – UK Data Archive

Timescapes Themes

Relationships, identities, family life, intimacy, care and support

The dynamics of personal lives : key turning points and transitions

People’s biographies set against a backdrop of inter-generational and historical change

Projects that span the lifecourse

Projects:• Siblings and Friends: children’s lateral relationships• Young Lives and Times: teen to adulthood transitions• The Dynamics of Motherhood: an intergenerational project• Masculinities, Identities and Risk: lives of men and fathers • Work and Family Lives: the changing experiences of ‘young’ families • Intergenerational Exchange: grandparents, exclusion and health • The Oldest Generation: events, relationships identities in later life

Data:• Qualitative longitudinal (10+ years) multi-media data• 400+ participants

Project Waves/Years and Geographic Location of Data Samples

P1 Siblingsand Friends

Wave 1: 2000-05National(52 yp;63F37M)

Wave 2: 2007 National

Wave 3: 2009National

P2 Young Lives and Times

Wave 1: 2007N.England(29 yp; c.age 15)

Wave 2: 2008 N.England

Wave 3: 2009 (sample boost-ethnic, parent(38 yp; c.age 16)

Wave 4: 2010(sample boost)

P3 Dynamics of Motherhood

Wave 1: 2005 Large City and New Town

Wave 2: 2006 (same geog, added intvws)

Wave 3: 2007 (same geog, added intvws)

Wave 4: 2008 (same geog, added intvws)

Wave 5: 2009(same geog, added intvws)

P4 Men as Fathers

Waves 1-3: 1999-2000 Norfolk

Wave 4: 2008 Norfolk

Wave 5: 2008South Wales

Wave 6: Oct 2008-Feb 2009South Wales

Wave 7: May-Nov 2009South Wales

P5 Work and Family Lives

Wave 1: Oct 2007-Jan 2008 Scotland

Wave 2: Sept 2008-Jan 2009Scotland

Wave 3: March 2009-Scotland

P6 Inter-generational Exchange

Wave 1: 2002-2006 Northern City

Wave 2: Sept 2007 to May 08Northern City

Wave 3: June-Sept 2008Northern City

Wave 4: Nov 2008-Feb 2009Northern City

Wave 5: March-June 2009Northern City

P7 The Oldest Generation

Wave 1: 2007/2008 National

Wave 2: 2008/2009National

• Three strands braiding research, archiving and reuse• Declared goal to engage researchers as stakeholders

The Timescapes Programme structure

• Integration of research, archiving and reuse• Multi-media, longitudinal data with documentation• Explicit focus on ethical reuse of QL data • Accessible and secure• Linkages with other longitudinal data• Striving to engage researchers as stakeholders

Distinctive aspects of the Timescapes Archive

The data is from three waves of interviews with the respondent and includes transcripts and photographs taken by the respondent.

If you click on the fourth entry for Wave Three you see this image.

The viewer allows you to zoom in and out of the image, rotate left and right and to see the image at its full size or as a best fit for the screen.

Going back to the results will allow you to access more information about the data.

These essays can be matched to the NCDS survey data of 11 year olds done in 1969. Extensive quantitative data is available, along with the young people’s essays.

• Depends in part on confidentiality and agreements made at the time of data collection

• Archived data should always conform to ethical and legal guidelines with respect to not disclosing participants’ identity when this has been requested by informants

• Achieve this by various strategies:– consent for archiving (as well as participant, publication)– editing the original data (e.g., anonymisation)– controlling access (e.g., licences, case-by-case basis)

Is it ethical to reuse data?

• Early, informed consent from participants to share data• Consistent data management-transcription, anonymisation• Rich and extensive contextual documentation• Researchers as partners in design of access system-to

ensure proper balance of sharing and protection• Collaborative models for reuse rather than “handoff”

To give participants greater voice

To ensure precious, hard-to-collect data is used

Why ask researchers to engage with archiving?

6: Can I ask a, I mean, I’m absolutely fascinated by this whole idea that you archive as you go along. I mean, I couldn’t begin to imagine doing that.

4: Neither can we. (Member of Timescapes team)

Seemed like good ideas at the time…

• Consent (mostly) standardised form , c. 95% consented225 participants so far – 17 no consent/embargo

• Transcription and documentation

What worked well (mostly)

• Guidelines jointly developed, but• Uneven implementation.

Anonymisation – mixed picture…

Revised system for marking sensitive and anonymised text-PLEASE READ

These guidelines document an important shift from the previous (18 April version) for marking anonymised text. The previous version called for use of an XML tag “<seg>”. That system is no longer recommended and a new system has replaced it.

Timescapes recommends using the following system to indicate anonymised text. At the start of the text to be anonymised, use the punctuation marks @@. At the end of the text, use the marks ##...

Definitions for Levels of Access to Timescapes dataLibby Bishop 15 July 2009

           Type of use/user

Key purpose Examples of data available*

Authentication system

Requirements for use

Issues/Clarifications

Public to showcase data on public areas of LUDOS and Ts websites

metadata and anonymised "taster" research data

none will request email and details to track usage

none

Registered users (includes Ts team and affiliates)

to enable data sharing and reuse by Timescapes team members, affiliates and other registered users

anonymised project data; some unanonymised data with participant consent, e.g., images, video; researcher notes

database of user accounts

authentication; user registration; and sign end user licence**

1. ensure data are anonymised sufficiently to be shared with this group 2. Ben to manage registration system 3. former Ts team members to have access via the same registration procedures as current members

Approved users (Case-by-case)

to enable registered users to also access sensitive data subject to vetting by Ts team members or their designated representatives

disclosive data, unanonymised data, visual and audio data

case-by-case review of individual applications; plus database of user accounts

each user application reviewed; and authentication; user registration and sign end user licence

1. make clear to all that an approved researcher will gain access to full dataset in addition to the specially requested data; 2. need to establish a system for reviewing and approving applications; 3. review system must accommodate the longer term (after key project staff no longer involved or accessible***).

Embargoed data

to enable preservation of data too sensitive for sharing now, and to enable data to be shared at later dates.

most sensitive data; data with ambiguous consent AND with researcher approval

not applicable not applicable 1. ensure that a limited number of embargo periods is adequate; 2. establish system for release of data after embargo has expired.

What worked (less) well

“I think at the moment the issue for me, for us, is that we didn’t anticipate how long it would take to prepare the data for archiving. And because… it is current and we’re aware that the data that we’re working with, are people’s current situations, that makes us even more concerned about anonymising, perhaps. ..But because of the time-consuming process, it can feel like a lot of our time is preparing the data for other people to use, rather than us, who collected the data, getting the chance to work on it, which is not really what we, the kind of situation that we want to be in.” (Timescapes researcher)

• Some very real costs– Triple burden – collection, archiving, reuse– Burden fell disproportionately on early career researchers

• But major successes as well– Consent – high success rate with difficult data– Demonstrated key role for fine-grained access controls– Innovations in researchers’ engagement with archiving

• Working papers; researchers’ accounts in the archive

Stakeholder model has pros and cons

• Practices to address researcher exposure:• Growth in more powerful access control tools• Archive “parallel” accounts from researchers, in

addition to other contextual documentation• Accounts can also help to showcase under-

acknowledged skills of preparing data for archiving• Finally, just as participants don’t (usually) reveal

more than they want to, researchers may learn skills from “the other side of the microphone”

Emerging bright spots…

The Timescapes Archive:

http://ludos.leeds.ac.uk/ludos/

ESDS Qualidata:http://www.esds.ac.uk/qualidata/