What is hourly pricing comprised of?

The more assessments or supplements are needed, the more working time it requires.

During the preparation of a user licence, working time is spent, for example, on

• processing and reviewing the application, as well as estimating any necessary clarifications and the price range
• reviewing the appendices (e.g. research plan, external licences) and, where necessary, assessments related to external licences
• supplementing the application, providing guidance and communicating with the customer
• checking pledges of secrecy and remote access commitments
• assessing the availability of the dataset and data protection issues
• preparing, processing and signing the user licence
• correcting possible error situations

Ready-made datasets have a fixed price that includes two hours of work concerning limiting the dataset. Other dataset work is invoiced on an hourly basis.

Datasets collected for statistical purposes are often not directly suitable for research use and editing them may take time. Working time is used, for example, on

• combining data from different years
• processing open-ended response fields for research purposes
• clarifying metadata
• pseudonymising datasets
• constructing long time series.

Where datasets from other authorities are used in the research, the work may include, for example,

• communicating with data suppliers
• technical processing, editing and format conversions of datasets
• pseudonymising and implementing data protection requirements related to it
• verifying, combining and exporting datasets for remote access use
• investigating any possible error situations related to the datasets.

In the preparation of a research services agreement and invoicing, working time is spent on

• establishing the agreement details and drafting the agreement
• negotiating the agreement and making any necessary changes
• preparing a possible broader cost estimate (e.g. FIONA costs) and responding to pricing-related enquiries
• presenting the agreement to the co-signatory and managing the signing procedure
• processing and supplementing the invoicing details
• issuing invoices
• addressing questions related to invoices and communicating with the customer.