Since the spring of 2021, the storage service Sunet Drive has been available for researchers at Stockholm University who need to store research data digitally in a secure and easy-to-handle way.
“It is a cloud service that is completely reliable according to the General Data Protection Regulation. The server is located in Sweden, which means that all data is stored here, says Merlijn de Smit, who is working as a data steward at Stockholm University Library since last autumn, informing and providing support to researchers at the university that want to use the new service.
“An advantage of Sunet Drive is also that the data stored is mirrored, which means a redundancy in the system. Should one hard drive crash, it is in many cases possible to recreate the data with the mirrored copy. This means extra protection if something goes wrong, but the users still have their own responsibility for traditional backup. Mirrored data is not the same as a traditional backup where a separate copy is saved in another location and thus is not affected by a hard drive crash in, for example, Sunet Drive.”
As one of two data stewards, Merlijn de Smit is part of the research data group at the library and he holds regular presentations for departments in the humanities and social sciences to talk about the service and answer questions about Sunet Drive as well as other questions about research data. At the end of February and in the beginning of March, he gave presentations via zoom for researchers at the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and at the Department of History.
“In social science research, an important part of the research can concern sensitive personal data about, for example, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and ethnic origin. Such information must be handled in a legally secure manner. The Cloud service Box, which many people use, is not as secure because the server is not in Sweden”, says Merlijn de Smit.
It’s good to be able to share data in projects
Then it is better to use your own department’s server, which many also do, he explains. But a disadvantage of putting research data on the department’s server is that it is more difficult to share the material with other researchers who may be outside of Stockholm University.
“With Sunet Drive, it is easy to share data with others, even outside of Sweden. It facilitates projects where several universities are involved in different parts of the world.”
Merlijn de Smit explains that those who want to use the service can create a profile via their university account and then get a free storage space of 200 Gb.
“You can decide who you want to share your data with, and you can choose if someone else should only see the material or even be allowed to change it and if they can share the folder further.”
During the meetings with the researchers at the various departments, he is asked questions about everything from the type of files that could be stored as research data and the costs for extra storage space.
“If you want more space than 200 Gb, you have to pay for it yourself, the cost is 0.06 swedish krona per Gb and month”, says Merlijn de Smit.
He also points out that it is good to have a backup, even if the researchers use the new storage solution.
“Sunet Drive has no automatic backup so it is good to have an external hard drive in a safe place. You should never put all your eggs in one basket.”
A server in Sweden is more secure
Charlotte Alm, associate professor at the Department of Psychology, discovered the possibility of Sunet Drive during the pandemic, when she searched for different storage options for research data.
“We have a research project underway where we have a large amount of material that consists of interview transcripts from psychological experiments. Since we were not on the premises much during the pandemic, we needed to find other options to share this data with each other and being able to sort it in different ways”, she says.
In the project, the researchers investigate if there is a difference if the participants are allowed to answer questions in Swedish or in English in an experiment with legal testimony.
“Around 120 interviews have been transcribed and it is a great advantage being able to share the material with each other even though we are in different places and also that it is possible to edit the documents directly without having to upload them again.”
When it comes to how easy Sunet Drive is to use, she thinks it has been “a mixed bag”:
“It may have more to do with the implementation itself, when a new version of the app was to be introduced it was not compatible with the rest of the service, but the benefits have outweighed the problems. It is secure that the server is in Sweden, which provides protection for all data. It feels good to know that we have taken this into account.”
Katarina Boye, associate professor of sociology at the Swedish Institute for Social Research, needed a new platform for research data in connection with a new round of the Swedish Level of Living Survey in 2021. The study has been conducted every ten years since 1968 in the form of a survey with representatives from the Swedish population.
“It highlights people’s living conditions when it comes to work, education, health and family situation and more. This time we had 14,000 respondents so it’s a big amount of material.”
The data can be used for all possible further studies, both by researchers at the department and by others who may apply for access. With regard to integrity, the research group wanted to be sure that the server is in Sweden – and for that Sunet Drive was well suited.
“It is flexible with a cloud service and that you can control who has access to the material. It has been a bit of a hassle sometimes, but it has been possible to contact those who work with the service at the library, who in turn takes it to Sunet so it can be fixed”, she says.
Hopes to get over 1,000 users
Erik Hedman works as a data steward for researchers in the natural sciences. He says that there are currently 300 users of the service at Stockholm University.
“But we hope for more! We have several thousand doctoral students and researchers, so our goal is to have over 1,000 users at the university, it is a reasonable goal to have”, he says.
Erik Hedman has daily contact with researchers and doctoral students from different faculties who ask about the service or need advice when it comes to the handling of research data.
“With Sunet Drive, we can offer a storage solution that is durable, practical, flexible and safe to use. Today, many researchers have their own solutions, perhaps on different USB sticks or on their own computer, it can be impractical, for example when researchers want to share material with colleagues.”
Are there any disadvantages?
“Sunet Drive, just like many similar storage solutions, can have difficulty receiving many or very large files in a short time and we had an incident this summer when another university transfered a lot of data at once, then the system became overloaded. This has been fixed and today we can see an increased number of users again, which is gratifying. It is natural that a little extra work is required with a new service, but we work to develop and improve guides so that the process will go as smoothly as possible for our researchers and doctoral students.”
More information
On the staff pages, you can read more about Research Data at Stockholm University and the storage solution Sunet Drive.