SSHOC Workshop: Providing canonical training materials for secure data facility professionals

Date: 21 September 2021 Location: Online

Training researchers who want to access confidential, legally controlled data in data protection and statistical disclosure is a key part of ensuring the safe use of these data and an important task for secure data facility professionals. But developing suitable training materials can be resource intensive.

We have developed a set of canonical training materials that cover a wide range of relevant topics from understanding data access, the Five Safes framework to key statistical disclosure control principles. These materials are designed to be used by a wide range of safe data access facilities to form the basis of their researcher training programme. We have designed these materials so that individual facilities can adapt the content to suit the needs of their service and researchers with minimal additional resource requirements.

During this virtual workshop we discussed the format and development of the training materials and how we believe they could be adapted before presenting the materials themselves. These training materials are still in development, so we were keen to get feedback to enable us to further develop and improve them. Therefore, the workshop closed with a discussion session to allow attendees a chance to discuss the materials in small groups, and to allow presenters to gather valuable feedback.

This workshop was particularly relevant to secure data facility professionals who currently deliver or who are considering delivering such training, or who have an interest in secure data access or statistical disclosure. We also welcomed participants who have experience in training.

Event presenter

Dr Deborah Wiltshire, GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences Deborah is a demographer and social scientist currently working as the Head of the Secure Data Center at GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, where she is responsible for secure data access to a wide range of detailed research data. Previously she worked at the UK Data Service, where she spent a number of years delivering Safe Researcher Training for researchers applying to access controlled data through the Secure Lab. She was also part of the SRT Expert Group, a multi-agency group responsible for delivering and reviewing safe researcher training.