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Secure Empirical Analysis Lab (SEAL)

Faculty of Social Sciences

How much does data access and storage cost?

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Fees are determined on a cost recovery basis. Fees depend upon:

  • The number of researchers in the project 
  • Anticipated project support from the SEAL Lab 
  • The cost of updating and maintaining the data sets that are being used by the researcher 
  • Software requirements which that are not part of our usual suit of programs 
  • Processing capability required for the project e.g., multi-processors
  • Number of MobiKeys required for remote access.  Local access is free.

We can provide you with a quote for SEAL services at an early stage in your project.  Fees allow access to SEAL for a one-year period. 

Generally, the SEAL Lab does not charge users for data storage.  Researcher’s files are retained securely on the SEAL server for a minimum of 15 years.  Frequently, researcher’s must access their research analysis long after they have finished their research, for purposes of making revisions for a paper that is to be published. There is no fee for storage or access to your research analysis. 

 To encourage clients to manage storage space, there is a storage fee if you need more than 1TB of storage. Our quotes will indicate whether this fee is applicable to your specific project.