Access

A Steering Committee is responsible for the future preservation of the access to the Aberdeen Maternity and Neonatal Databank with data from 1949 onwards.

The MRC Medical Sociology Unit collaborated in and has a responsibility for the Databank up to and including data for 1983 only.

Regulations for access have been agreed as follows:

1. All requests for access must be made through the Databank Steering Committee in order to ensure that the proposed use of the data conforms to accepted scientific standards in terms of methodology, confidentiality and ethics..
2. Access will only be available to applicants who, in the opinion of the Committee, are bona fide research workers and who have received any necessary approval for that research from an appropriate Research Ethics Committee. They will be required to complete and sign the application form, and forward a copy of their letter of approval from the Ethics Committee.
3. Copy of the complete dataset (1949 to date) even without identifiable items will only be supplied under exceptional circumstances.
4. Data will usually be provided on requested items in an extract file on disk, diskette or tape or sent via electronic mail. Such an extract file will not normally include identification data. When an applicant for data has provided identification data, the extract file will contain the requestor's identifiers and the additional items requested from the Databank. Such files will be password protected or encrypted.
   Data may also be given in tabular form or as a report.
5. Processing and use of data must comply with the requirements of the Data Protection Act. All applicants will be required to forward any relevant papers using the supplied data to the Databank Steering Committee prior to submission for publication in order to ensure factual accuracy and correct interpretation because of the material and to ensure appropriate acknowledgement to the Databank.
6. The Databank Steering Committee, as far as possible, will encourage collaborative research with one or more members or designated colleagues in order to facilitate accurate use and interpretation of the data.
7. Charges for supplying data will depend on several factors:
   - origin of the request
   - whether there has been a previous extraction for the same project
   - the complexity of the extraction requested
   Feedback on charges to be levied will be given once the Committee have agreed in principle to the request.

Request Forms

To download a Databank request application form click on the link.

All enquiries and completed request forms should be addressed to:

Heather Clark
Databank Administrator, University of Aberdeen
 
Email: amnd@abdn.ac.uk