A social sciences faculty member has a postdoctoral fellow working with him on a three-year federally-funded study. The study involves conducting approximately 75 interviews. The postdoctoral fellow receives a salary from the federal grant to work on the study, and works in the faculty member’s assigned space mostly during weekdays.
At the end of the first year, one of the faculty member’s graduate advisees joins the study. She plans to conduct approximately 20 of the interviews and to use the data for her dissertation, under the guidance of the faculty member. She will not receive a salary or wages from either the grant or the university (as a research or teaching assistant) for this work. As she has a full-time job, the graduate student plans to do most of her work during the evenings and on weekends.
At the end of the three years, the grant funding and the study end. The postdoctoral fellow has obtained a tenure track position and, in preparing to leave the research group, requests a copy of the data to take with himThe federal government normally assigns ownership of data generated in activities that it funds to a grantee institution (i.e., UNH), not an individual (i.e., principal investigator). As this study is federally-funded, the institution owns the data.
Supposing this scenario takes place at UNH, the University assigns custody of research data that it owns to the principal investigator (faculty member) who is expected to discharge his/her custodial responsibilities in accordance with responsible data management practices as outlined in the UNH Policy on Ownership and Management of Research Data. As students and other study personnel at UNH may take a copy of UNH-owned research data related to their research, the postdoctoral student’s request to take a copy of the data with him is reasonable.
. The student used the data she collected for her dissertation, which she successfully defended. As she prepares to leave the research group, she transfers all of the data that she collected and used in her dissertation from the computer onto a portable diskdrive and packs all the original supporting documentation into boxes to take with her. The faculty member walks in just as she starts to move everything to her car. He asks her what she is taking, and she explains that she is taking with her the data that she collected and the supporting documentation. The faculty member tells the student that she cannot take the data with her as he owns itThe federal government normally assigns ownership of data generated in activities that it funds to a grantee institution (i.e., UNH), not an individual (i.e., principal investigator). As this study is federally-funded, the institution owns the data, not the faculty member.
Supposing this situation takes place at UNH, the University assigns custody of research data that it owns to the principal investigator (faculty member) who is expected to discharge his/her custodial responsibilities in accordance with responsible data management practices as outlined in the UNH Policy on Ownership and Management of Research Data. These address collection, recording, sharing, and retention of, and access to, research data. Therefore, although the faculty member is responsible for custody of the data, he does not own it.
. The student replies that she collected the data and because she was not being paid by the faculty member’s grant or by the university to conduct the work, she owns the dataThe federal government normally assigns ownership of data generated in activities that it funds to a grantee institution (i.e., UNH), not an individual (i.e., principal investigator).
Supposing this situation takes place at UNH, the University assigns custody of the data that it owns to the principal investigator (faculty member). As the interviews were part of the work funded by the federal grant, even though the graduate student did not receive a salary or wage from the grant, the University owns the data and the principal investigator is custodian of the data. This means that the principal investigator is responsible for the collection, recording, sharing, and retention of, and access to, the data. As students and other study personnel may take a copy of UNH-owned data related to their research, a request from the graduate student to do so would be reasonable. However, she may not take the original data and/or supporting documentation with her. Prior to starting the activity, and each time a person joined the group, the principal investigator should have communicated the laboratory’s procedures for data recording, organization, access, sharing, storage, and retention. In addition, the principal investigator should have delineated in writing for each member involved in the activity which parts of the data may be copied and taken by the individual if he/she leaves the research group (or ceases the activity).
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