ABSTRACT
Data that have been used in an analysis require archival. In some cases, even data that were collected but never used require archival. Thus, most research projects should have an archival component. Institutions, research sponsors, and regulatory agencies often have different requirements for archival and records retention. This chapter provides a broad overview covering research records, records retention, and records retrieval as well as planning and formatting data for archival. It presents an overview to create awareness of important archival principles. Different models for archival are presented, and pointers to relevant resources are provided further preparing the reader to plan and coordinate data archival for research projects. Data curation is the association of data with definitional information and documentation describing the data's origin and handling such that data can be appropriately interpreted and used by someone not involved with the study from which the data were produced.
