FSD Data in Reuse

The Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD) tracks data downloads and data use in many ways. We need to know who is using our data and for what purposes. FSD has even created and opened the dataset FSD3424 FSD Data Reuse 2015-2020 on this and will soon update it. In this presentation, we share recent statistics on the use of FSD data and discuss the social impact of data reuse. FSD maximise the value and impact of FAIR research data, save student’s, teacher’s and researchers’ time and effort, and enable better research.

FSD has been in operation since 1999. We provide access to a wide range of digital research data for learning, teaching and research purposes. All datasets archived at FSD are available on Data Portal Aila, free of charge. Currently there are more than 2,000 quantitative and qualitative datasets on Aila.

FSD services are widely used. Aila has approximately 6,400 registered users and they include students, teachers and researchers from Finnish universities and universities of applied sciences as well as many institutions abroad. Roughly ten percent of all Aila users are from outside Finland. All in all, between 2014 and 2024, approximately 41,700 datasets have been downloaded from Aila.

Conditions of use apply to most datasets on Aila and downloading them requires registration. There are some 160 datasets on Aila that are freely available to all users without registration.