#  DATA SUMMARY

ACTTiVAte will focus its effort in setting up strategies that allow clusters
to lead the engagement of SMEs in activities intended to create new services
and products and therefore the generation of new value chains and emerging
industries across Europe. For that aim, an appropriate data collection and
generation process will help make better decisions, to drive decision making
and to increase project impact.

The formats to generate, disclose and store ACTTiVAte’s data will be both
digital and printed. As to the main types of produced data, we may highlight
the following ones:

  * Project deliverables, which will collect the progress of ACTTiVAte. 

  

  * Data and information related to SMEs projects: viability analysis, business plan, prototype’s development data, innovation processes and technology achievements regarding the state of the art, marketing and commercial plans, industrialisation plans, etc. 

  

  * Data from surveys, questionnaires and face-to-face interviews conducted with project’s key stakeholders and target groups. 

  

  * Data that Consortium partners bring to ACTTiVAte as background IP, that have been described in the Consortium Agreement. 

  

  * External communication documents: all the public documents to communicate ACTTiVAte and the SMEs projects’ results, such as technology and business analysis, presentations, guidelines and manuals, articles, papers, newsletters, etc. 

  

  * Internal communication documents: They will be aimed at keeping all data generated during the project, mainly those related to communication among Consortium partners, such as agendas and minutes of meetings, emails, proceedings, agreements, etc. 

  

There are existing data that will feed ACTTiVAte, both at technical and
strategic level. Among them, we find those relevant national and international
activities linked to the project, whose main outcomes will be helpful to be
used as ACTTiVAte’s inputs. Furthermore, the project will make use of any
existing guidebook produced by the European Commission or any other policy-
maker focused on clusters, social economy and entrepreneurship.

ACTTiVAte’s data gathered will be mainly stored in BAL.PM software with
restricted access and a back-up feature. All the partners will have access to
the system according to their roles in the project, and the Coordinator will
be in charge of managing access permissions, usage procedures and basic
training.

All the activities performed under ACTTiVAte, and therefore public data
generated during the project are focused on providing results to SMEs.
Nevertheless, other stakeholders will be able to make use of them, such as
clusters, RTDs, Regional Development Agencies, Enterprises Associations,
private investors groups and policy makers, among others. Therefore,
ACTTiVAte’s public data will be openly accessible to any third party interest
on them.

#  FAIR DATA

##  MAKING DATA FINDABLE, INCLUDING PROVISIONS FOR METADATA

Efficient data management is vital for the success of projects. This is even
more important for large-scale integrating projects, like ACTTiVAte, with an
exceptional amount of participants and tasks demanding adequate reporting
procedures and collaboration support.

Basic methodology will comprise the considerations on how to manage the data
and information created during the project, in order to precisely describe all
procedures for keeping and disseminate results from ACTTiVAte, in their
different stages of execution and according to their usages and the way that
the audience accesses to information. The data related to project
deliverables, SMEs projects, external and internal communication documents
will follow specific procedures which will be developed by ACTTiVAte’s Quality
Manager and defined in the Quality Assurance Plan. These types of data will be
stored in a secured, software platform, which will be accessible to all
partners and external entities to the Consortium when needed. This methodology
will contain:

  * Codification 

  

  * Templates 

  

  * Versions control 

  

  * Approval process for the documents generated during the project 

  

  * Storage procedures for the documents in the secured-web based platform (folder structures) 

  

As mentioned before, to ensure data management process, ACTTiVAte puts in
place a software that is a configurable network-based environment build on SQL
and business intelligence databases to be implemented in the internet (global
access) or restricted intranets (company networks) and extranets (company
networks with restricted external access). Main target of this tool is to
maintain a central information source with most actual data accessible and
maintainable by different distributed users. These users will have different
rights to view or edit information maintained in this context according to
their roles within the project.

The data management software offers a sophisticated search mechanism to find
document stored in the database. When clicking the menu item “Document
search”, the following windows opens (Figure 1). It consists of three major
areas,

  * Project tree (1) 

  

  * Result view (2) 

  

  * Search area (3) 

  

To initiate a search, the request has to be entered in the line under “Search
terms”. The simplest possibility is to enter one or more words which means
that each document found contains at least one of the words. In order to
submit a more detailed query, the following special expressions may be used:

  * “+” in front of a word means that it must be contained in the documents found. 

  

  * “-“ means that the word must not be contained. 

  

  * “AND” connects two words and means that they both have to be present. 

  

  * “OR” means that one or both word have to be present. 

  

  * “NOT” means that the word must not be present. 

  

  * “(“ and “)” may be used to change the preferences of expressions. 

  

  * By quoting an expression with “„”” signs, the enclosed string is searched for as a whole. 

  

The search can be restricted to certain document types which can be selected
under “Search only in”.

The result set is shown in the middle part of the window (Figure 2). In the
project tree, all documents are connected to a hyperbolic tree in which the
nodes represent project, work packages, etc. and their related documents.
Dragging the nodes with the mouse gives a more detailed view on certain areas.
A double click on the black square recenters the tree.

The entity tree (Figure 3) uses the same principle but organises the result
set around key words that the documents contain. Despite this difference, the
tree behaves in exactly the same way.

The third result view is a list that might be ordered with respect to a score
that is assigned to the documents (Figure 4). The score is set automatically
in relation with the precision of the matching between document and search
expression.

In the hyperbolic tree, the following functionality is available:

  * Positioning the mouse pointer on a document shows the document summary 

  

(Figure 5).

  * A click with the right mouse button opens a context menu (Figure 6): 

    * Show/Hide document’s metadata: expands the node (or collapses it again) by showing document metadata such as author, date, file name etc. 

  

    * Show/Hide document’s categories: expands the node (or collapses it again) by showing document related projects 

  

    * Show/Hide document’s entities: expands the node (or collapses it again) by showing document related key words 

  

    * Open document: launches the assigned viewer applications and opens the document inside it 

  

    * Download document: the document is downloaded and stored locally. o Find more like this: documents with similar content are shown. 

  

  

The entity and project nodes contain similar context menus which enable the
user to expand the tree and browse the search result by following interesting
key words or concepts (Figures 7 and 8).

The entry “Additional options” offers the user some more parameters to
configure the query (Figure 9):

  * Similarity: default value is “Exact” which means that only documents are found which match the query without any spelling mistakes. “Similar” and “Fuzzy” also find documents with deviated spelling. The purpose of this function is to find documents even if the exact spelling is not known or might be ambiguous. 

  

  * Project: only find documents belong to the mentioned projects 

  

  * Uploaded by: only find documents uploaded by certain persons 

  

  * Uploaded from/until: only find documents that have been uploaded after and/or before a certain date 

  

**Figure 9 Document search, additional options**

##  MAKING DATA OPENLY ACCESSIBLE

As described in section 2 “DATA SUMMARY” there are several kinds of data that
will be generated during ACTTiVAte, whose access rules will be:

  * Project deliverables: according to section 1.3.2. “WT2 list of deliverables” of the Grant Agreement. 

  

  * Data and information related to SMEs projects: data generated during ACTTiVAte’s call for proposal process as well as those gathered during SMEs projects development phase will be confidential and for internal use, unless the express consent of the concerned parties. Only data stated as “public” may be openly accessible. 

  

  * Data from surveys, questionnaires and face-to-face interviews: according to the applicable data protection laws. 

  

  * Data that Consortium partners bring to ACTTiVAte as background IP: according to the stated in Attachment 1: “Background included” of the Consortium Agreement. 

  

  * External communication and dissemination material: several criteria may be taken into account depending on the data to be disclosed. According to their applicability, criteria may be: 

    1. Data protection laws 

  

    2. Section 29.1 “Obligation to disseminate results” of the Grant Agreement 

  

    3. Section 29.2 “Open access to scientific publications” of the Grant 

  
  

  

Agreement

  4. Section 29.3 “Open access to research data” of the Grant Agreement 

  

  

  * Internal communication documents: according to applicable data protection regulations laws. 

  

ACTTiVAte’s data will be mainly stored in a secured, software platform
accessible to the entire Consortium according to the access permissions
previously agreed by the parties. The system consist of pre-configured
software and SQL Database Modules for the implementation in project specific
Internet und Intra/Extranets. User will be able to access the platform by
signing in with his username and password. The Coordinator will be in charge
of managing access permissions to the platform.

All the procedures needed to use the software tools in an efficient way will
be described in the user manual, available to all the members of the
Consortium. The platform will be work as an ASP solution, running on BAL.PM
web servers, specifically configured for ACTTiVAte and for 42 months (36
months plus 6 months for final reporting).

The software tool will be configured including all related databases.
Technical maintenance of functions and databases will be handled by the
BAL.PM. The Consortium will be responsible for all project specific content
and content management. For this task the Consortium will nominate a project
secretary (a member of the coordination team), who will be responsible for it.
Planned system availability per year is 99,9% and it will have a backup server
that could replace the BAL.PM server within less than 1 working day.

For the duration of the project and also later, BAL.PM is committed to use all
data in the database only for contractual related issues. The Consortium will
receive one month after the termination of the contract a copy of all data in
databases (SQL format) and a copy of all static webpages on CD-ROM or DVD. In
addition to that, BAL.PM will delete all project data after having handed over
copies of that data to the Consortium after termination of the contract.

Initially, it is not expected to count on a data access committee for
ACTTiVAte and the person in charge of being the focal point for any data
management issue that may arise during the project will be the Quality
Manager, belonging to the coordination team.

##  MAKING DATA INTEROPERABLE

Data produced in ACTTiVAte may be subject to be exchanged and re-use between
researchers, institutions, organizations, etc. Even though, project data will
be mainly interoperable at Consortium level by means of the utilisation of the
software tool and according to the features describe in section 3.1. (data
sets, metadata vocabularies, standards, methodologies, etc.), there will be
data gathered during the project that might be used after its completion.
Among them, it is worth highlighting those coming from expert interviews,
deliverables development or SMEs projects. As for this latter case, only very
specific information (e.g. know-how matters) will not be allowed to be
interoperable and re-used.

In general, there will be three main sources of project’s public data that
will be accessible to any third party interested in the subject:

  * European Cluster Collaboration Platform 

  

  * ACTTiVAte’s Cluster Collaboration Platform 

  

  * ACTTiVAte’s website and social networks 

  

##  INCREASE DATA RE-USE (THROUGH CLARIFYING LICENCES)

ACTTiVAte does not envisage providing any data licensing, and those
disclosable data, according to the agreed disclosure rules, will be freely
accessible. It is expected to keep ACTTiVAte’s data for five years after
project completion, period in which they may be re-used.

Project’s Quality Assurance Plan establishes how documentation requirements,
procedures, records and other documents are maintained and controlled,
including retention periods, during ACTTiVAte’s lifecycle.

#  ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES

Costs for making data FAIR in ACTTiVAte are those allocated to the software
tool utilisation under partners "other direct costs" with the concept "Cost of
Software Licenses". The budget for the platform implementation and maintenance
is 22.968€, and its allocation among Consortium’s partners will be calculated
proportionally to the budget of each of them in the project.

The person responsible for coordinating ACTTiVAte’s data management process
will be the Quality Manager, and the General Assembly will be the ultimate
decision-making body of the Consortium and responsible for taking major
strategic decisions with respect to data management if necessary. It will also
promote consensus in case of conflict and, if no consensus can be found, it
will take decisions according to the procedures and rules defined in the
Consortium Agreement.

#  DATA SECURITY

For applications distributed over the internet the risk is high to download
foreign code. Therefore, ACTTiVAte’s software tool is digitally signed. The
first time the user starts the application he will be asked whether he trusts
this signature. If some parts are exchanged by foreign code, the application
will not start and an error message will be displayed.

The platform always establishes a secured connection via HTTPS with its web
service. In case this is not possible, an unsecured connection via HTTP is
used and then, the user will see the following message after login: “Unsecure
connection established”, besides he will get symbols regarding the connection
status at the status bar on the left side: “secured” or “unsecured”. In
addition to that, the platform has a back-up function to keep project data
safe during the project execution.

#  ETHICAL ASPECTS

There are not any ethical or legal issues that can have an impact on data
sharing in ACTTiVAte.

#  OTHER

The guideline document “FAIR Data Management in Horizon 2020” has been used
for the development of ACTTiVAte’s Data Management Plan.