It is necessary to prepare for the archiving of research data already when planning the data collection. The first step is naturally to consider the value of the data. Although the final valuation is done by the receiving archive, the researcher, as an expert in their data, has a big role in it. In this case, it is assessed whether certain parts of the data or the entire data set are suitable for archiving. The questions to be clarified are whether there are obstacles to archiving, how important and unique the material is, whether the material is in a form that makes it meaningful to preserve it, what kind of use the data may have and whether archiving makes sense from a resource point of view.
Especially in the case of data containing personal information, the subjects must be informed about archiving in advance. The choice of archive can also guide the creation of material - several archives have precise instructions on what kind of data and in which file formats they accept. Likewise, some archives do not accept data containing personal data, while others do not accept anonymised data. If these are not taken into account before data collection, archiving may turn out to be impossible. In the planning phase, it is important to map the applicable archives, contact them and find out the conditions for archiving.
During the research, the to-be archived data should be organised particularly carefully and systematically and care should be taken to ensure that it is followed by the necessary informative documentation, for example a description of the variables and the analysis of the data, with the help of which it is possible to interpret and understand it.
In the handover phase, according to the archive's instructions, the handover of the data is agreed upon and the technical transfer of the data to the archive is handled
