Virginia Tech Data Repository: Human Participants Data

As stated within the Virginia Tech Data Repository Deposit Agreement, the deposit and publication of data originating from human participants requires a few considerations.

When the Virginia Tech Data Repository Administrators receive a request to publish data that may originate from human participants, the Administrators will first 1) confirm with the Depositor that this is true, and b) ask for the consent language participants were asked to agree to in the collection of data about them. 

The Administrators want to check that the consent language around human participant data sharing aligns with the data to be published. In the best case, the consent language would inform participants that "[SPECIFIC DATASETS FROM THEM] will be publicly shared in the Virginia Tech Data Repository upon publication of research results in journals or at the end of the research project.”

More general consent language would also be reasonable, e.g. “Aggregate and/or summary results from all participants will be publicly shared in an open-access repository” or “de-identified individual-level participant data will be publicly shared in an open-access repository.”

When the consent language given to participants does not align with public sharing of the participants’ data, the Administrators will talk with the Depositor about what human participant data could be publicly shared, if any. The Virginia Tech Data Repository Administrators may also consult with the Virginia Tech Human Research Protection Program about what human participant data could be publicly shared.

While the Administrators may provide advice on de-identification of individual-level human participant data, they are not responsible for conducting disclosure analysis on this data. The Depositor is ultimately responsible for the data that is published in the Virginia Tech Data Repository, including any risks to confidentiality for human participants data. 

Last modified 26 February 2025