Services for students and researchers
Aside from making existing archive materials available for scientific research, Cultura functions as the end-of-life archive for qualitative research material created by researchers of ethnology, folkloristics and related disciplines, meaning we archive materials such as interviews, questionnaires and field work notes and make them available for further research. In doing so, we follow standard practices and recommendations for tradition and cultural history archives. These differ somewhat from those of, for instance, open data repositories, especially with regards to data privacy. Please be aware of this and familiarize yourself with the information below well in advance of beginning your collection.
Please note! Starting in the autumn semester of 2025, we require that all researchers and students affiliated with ÅAU who wish to archive their research material at Cultura follow our processes and use our forms according to the instructions provided. We therefore decline to accept material from collections initiated in other ways after 1 September 2025.
When you, the researcher, collect a material – that is, create qualitative research data – and analyse it, you are from a data protection perspective processing data for a specific purpose, and the process ends when the results are published. You are responsible for ensuring that data, including any personal data, is collected in accordance with good research ethics and handled correctly. For more information about these topics, see also the research data libguide. We provide practical assistance as needed and provide information and separate forms to the informant regarding the actual archiving. As a researcher, you need to keep track of the following steps (but we will of course help you if needed!):
Data protection form
When you interact with living people and collecting information from them for your research you are in legal terms processing their personal data, and in some cases sensitive personal data. You can learn more about the terminology, and how ÅAU researchers are to document their data processing on the intranet; the section below summarises the relevant information for collecting research materials that are to be archived at Cultura.
Your own collection of material and research constitutes the processing of personal data in terms of data protection terminology, and for this you must create your own data protection notice in accordance with ÅAU policy. Your data protection notice concerns the research itself, i.e. the collection, storage and analysis of materials. Archiving at Cultura is what, according to the logic of data protection legislation, takes place after your research (processing).
In other words, your data protection notice is to inform the informants of your own processing, and in this notice, you do not need to include all possible use cases of further processing of the materials once they become part of the archive’s holdings and are made available to researchers. For this purpose, Cultura has its own register descriptions and data protection notices that account for its collection and archival function. A practical example: if you purchase external transcription or translation services, this constitutes a transfer to a third party that you need to disclose in your data protection notice, but you do not need to disclose the archive’s customer service as a transfer to a third party in the data protection notice for your thesis or research project. For this, or if the informant has other questions regarding archiving, you can refer to Cultura’s data protection notices, which can be found here (in Swedish).
The contact person for your data protection notice should be you, or the director of your research project. For students (bachelor’s and master’s) collecting material, the supervisor is the contact person.
The legal basis for your processing of personal data is often, but not always, “public interest or official authority”. For the processing of sensitive personal data, consent is generally required as the legal basis. Please note, however, that consent in the context of data protection has a specific legal meaning, and is not the same as consent in the context of research ethics.
Cultura has compiled a template with suggested phrases for data protection notices regarding collections of materials intended to be archived in our archives, please contact the staff for more information.
Informed consent (research ethics)
Participation in scientific research must be voluntary, and general research ethics principles require that the subjects give their informed consent to participate. Informed consent is generally required for all material collection from informants in the humanities. Obtaining and documenting this consent is the responsibility of the researcher. For more information, please see the guidelines of the Finnish National Board of Research Integrity (TENK): https://tenk.fi/en/advice-and-materials/guidelines-ethical-review-human-sciences
Please note that informed consent to participate in research is not the same as consent to the processing of personal data – the former is required in most cases, while the latter is only to be used when it is required as the legal basis for the processing of personal data. To avoid confusion, these consents should not be documented on the same form. Regarding documentation of research ethics consent, we recommend that you familiarise yourself with the conventions within your field of science, any requirements imposed by research funders, and consult with your supervisor.
For online questionnaires that are published in collaboration with Cultura we have routines for obtaining and documenting different types of consent – contact the staff for more information!
Archiving form
When research material is archived at Cultura, it becomes available for further research within the given ethical and legal framework. In terms of data protection terminology, the collected material (the interview or questionnaire response) will henceforth be included in Cultura’s archive collections containing personal data (including any sensitive data), while the information about the informant as an identifiable individual will be included in Cultura’s informant register. To preserve and manage the material in the long term (permanently) in accordance with our public service archiving function, and to safeguard the rights of those registered, we need to collect contact and contextual information about the informant. In other words, unless there are particularly compelling reasons, we need to know the names of individuals, even if they are only presented under a pseudonym or completely anonymously in the research process (or rather, in the research results).
We collect this information using Cultura’s own forms, which you as a researcher give to the informant and then submit to us. They can be completed and sent to us on paper or electronically. By signing the form, the informant certifies that they understand that the information will be archived after the researcher has finished processing their personal data.
Please contact us well in advance of the collection to obtain the correct form for the type of material you are creating! For questionnaires published online, we collect this information through the web survey.
Data management plan and information security
In most cases, Åbo Akademi University or the funders of your research will require you to have a data management plan (DMP) for your research or thesis project. The DMP is a tool for you and your research, describing your data management during the course of the project. As with the data protection notice, it is sufficient to state in the DMP that the data will be archived at Cultura when the project is completed; you do not need to describe the archive’s infrastructure for information storage.
Remember to handle your data securely throughout the process, especially if the material contains personal information. You can read more about ÅAU’s guidelines for storage on the intranet. When the material is to be transferred to us, it must also be done in a secure manner. Read more on the intranet and contact us if you have any questions, we are happy to help!
In summary
When you, as a researcher, collect material from informants that is to be archived, there are three separate forms of consent/information involved:
- Research ethics consent – participation in scientific research must be voluntary, an informed consent that can be withdrawn during the research project.
- Data protection notice – consent may be a legal basis for the collection and processing of personal data but should not be the only basis for material that is archived.
→ As a researcher, you create a data protection notice using ÅAU’s tool that applies to your research. The notice is then logged internally, and your register is registered in ÅA’s register description.
→ Cultura has its own data protection notices for the collections themselves, into which your research material is incorporated.
- Informing the participant about archiving – the archiving form that is filled in by the researcher and informant and submitted to Cultura.
Please contact us before you begin your collection so that we can provide more specific information depending on the type of material and collection method you aim to use!
Supervisors and seminar chairs: we are happy to present the above information in more detail and answer any questions at your research or thesis seminars – contact us at cultura@abo.fi to set up a time!