Policies, Standards & Guidelines

Policies, standards, and guidelines may derive from your employer, profession or field of study, be a byproduct of the jurisdiction in which your research is being conducted, be a stipulation of funding, or emanate from a partnership or other agreement with a party external to UBC. 

The following is not exhaustive but attempts to contextualize where key requirements that relate to research data management may derive from and what UBC specific policies and standards one should be aware of. 

UBC Information Systems & Security 

UBC’s policies and standards related to data management are informed by legal, regulatory, or, in the context of research, funder requirements, as well as by best practices. The policies and standards are overseen by the Office of the University Counsel (OUC) and the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). Many of the requirements articulated by these policies and standards are incorporated into features of UBC’s in-house or institutionally licensed IT infrastructure. However, researchers are also required to be proactive with research-specific systems and software they access or acquire throughout their work. 

UBC’s Information Systems Policy (SC14) and Scholarly Integrity Policy (SC6), inform its Information Security Standards. Researchers and scholars at UBC are required to comply with both policies and should be familiar with how they might apply to their work. 

Funders and Publishers 

For funder and publisher requirements, consult their respective documentation, such as the Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy. It is advisable to consider both funder and publisher requirements early on to ensure all aspects of data handling during a research project will permit compliance down the line or at time of publication.  

Canadian and International Governments 

Policies and guidelines from governments that fund part or all of a project may affect how you handle research data. For example, Canadian government policies and guidelines regarding research security may affect how risk and sensitivity are assessed in relation to research data, and therefore how you manage the data itself. Furthermore, international government regulations may impact how you collect, process, store, analyze and disseminate research data. 

Some policies of particular relevance include: 

• National Security Guidelines on Research Partnerships (Government of Canada)
• Policy on Sensitive Technology Research and Affiliations of Concern (Government of Canada) 
• General Data Protection Regulation (European Union) 

Indigenous Protocols

While there are guiding principles to support Indigenous data sovereignty, every research project involving Indigenous data is unique and context specific. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ensure their research data practices are aligned with the expectations, interests and rights of the community, band, or nation by or from which the data is being collected or acquired. 

UBC’s Indigenous Strategic Plan compels researchers to respect any relevant protocols that assert sovereignty over Indigenous data. The ISP sets an expectation that UBC, and by extension its researchers, must be aware of, and follow, actions that uphold the BC Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). DRIPA recognizes the rights of Indigenous peoples to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures. Research data may include or be part of these facets and must be protected.

Researchers should be aware of the ISP and DRIPA and consider how they may apply to their work. See Indigenous Data for more resources.

Indigenous Data

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