Research Data Management

Security

The University of Oregon Security Office can consult with researchers to ensure that appropriate measures are in place to prevent unauthorized access to restricted data.

Backup and Storage During the Active Phase of your Project

UO faculty, staff, and students have access to a HIPAA- and FERPA-compliant OneDrive for Business Cloud Storage account with one terabyte of storage, and a FERPA-compliant Dropbox account with unlimited storage. The technical support team in your department should be able to help you sync your hard drive with OneDrive or Dropbox to create automatic backups. Be aware that you cannot sync files to both OneDrive and Dropbox simultaneously. Whether you use OneDrive or Dropbox, we recommend that labs and research groups use storage that is assigned to the team, lab, or group rather than owned by an individual. This ensures that the files remain seamlessly accessible should that individual leave the university or otherwise leave the team. Here are some UO-specific resources for setting up shared storage:

• Dropbox vs Onedrive
• Dropbox Team Folders
• Team Folder options for OneDrive
• Teams best practices
• Where things go in Teams

Whatever storage you use, follow 3-2-1 backup rule: keep at least three (3) copies of your data, and store two (2) backup copies on different storage media, with one (1) of them located offsite.

Sample UO-specific backup DMP language:

The PI will consult with the University of Oregon Security Office to ensure that appropriate measures are in place to prevent unauthorized access to restricted data. During the research process, all files will regularly be backed up in three places: 1) to a HIPAA-compliant OneDrive for Business cloud storage account; 2) to a solid-state flash drive (thumb drive) kept in a locked file in the PI’s office; and 3) to a solid-state flash drive kept in a locked file in the PI’s home office. OneDrive backups will be near-instantaneous, as all files stored on the laptop will be synced to OneDrive. The PI will perform incremental regular backups to the flash drives and will confirm the data integrity of the flash drives quarterly.

For questions, comments, or suggestions, please contact us at ResearchDataMgmt@uoregon.edu.