If you are academic staff at the Faculty of Social Sciences, you are not supposed to take this open course version, but will have to log in and take the mandatory course here to document that you have passed.

This course will provide you with basic knowledge about personal data protection, information security and the University of Oslo (UiO)'s routines in this area. This course comprises four modules and takes around 2-3 hours to complete. You have to complete all modules and then take the quiz. The cases in this quiz are adapted to social science research.

In addition to following data protection laws and regulations in your research, you have as a researcher an independent responsibility for ensuring that research is carried out in accordance with good research practices and recognised scientific norms and ethical principles. Researchers have a duty to familiarize themselves with and perform their research in accordance with the research ethical standards that apply to their own research field (see Norwegian guidelines for research ethics in the social sciences). Employees who supervise PhD candidates or students are obliged to ensure that the work of PhD candidates and students is carried out in accordance with research ethical norms. See also the University of Oslo`s research ethical guidelines and tools

The course is compulsory for academic staff at the Faculty of Social Sciences as well as for administrative staff who work with issues related to data protection in research, who will have to log in here to take the course in order to document that it has been passed.

The current version of the course is openly available, and is primarily aimed at technical-administrative staff and external supervisors at the Faculty of Social Sciences who will not have to document that the course has been passed.

Good luck!

Note: On 1 January 2022, the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (NSD) merged with two other Norwegian organizations to form the new Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research (Sikt). The services provided by the NSD remain the same and are still available via their original profile and website (nsd.no). The current course thus refers to NSD until further notice.

Module 1: Fundamental terminology

In module 1, you will learn about fundamental words and expressions.

Module 2: Principles relating to processing of personal data

In module 2, we review the fundamental principles relating to data protection legislation.

Module 3: Obligations and responsibility

In module 3, we study which obligations and responsibilities we have when we process information about other people.

Module 4: Cases

In module 4, we study specific cases related to your field of study.

This course was developed by LINK – the Centre for Learning, Innovation & Academic Development – and the IT legal group at USIT – the University Centre for Information Technology – on order from the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Oslo.

Illustrations in the course: Colourbox.com