Researchers service
Pricing
Submit a Request
The procedure
Researchers may be granted access to data for research purposes if their request is consistent with the purpose of the file. It is up to the data access committee to determine whether access is admissible and relevant.
Access is provided in the form of a loan of a dataset extracted from the file and sent to the principal investigator through the Researchers Service. No researcher has direct access to the Balsac file. To better understand access to Balsac data for research purposes, please consult the Balsac Data Management Framework.
The process for requesting access to Balsac data is divided into several steps:
- Submission of your access request
A data access request must be completed and sent to the following email address: . - Contact from Balsac
At this stage, you will be contacted, especially to ensure that the requested information is accurate and to modify or complete your access request, if necessary. If your request includes confidential data, you will be asked to send your certificate of approval from your institutional research ethics board (REB).
- Analysis of your access request by the Balsac access committee
This procedure generally takes 4 weeks. If the access request evaluation committee raises questions, you will be contacted.
- Production of your dataset
If your request is accepted, the dataset will be produced within 3 to 4 weeks. These timelines may be longer if your project involves genealogical reconstructions or data linkage operations.
- Signing of your contract
At this stage, you will sign the contract with Balsac. This contract confirms your ethical commitments to Balsac as well as the content of your dataset.
- Transfer of your data
The files to be transferred are transmitted through the UQAC Dataverse.
- Sending your invoice
Billing is based on the current rates presented on the Balsac website. The invoice is sent to the lead researcher (or to the respondent researcher in the case of students and postdoctoral fellows).
- Renewal of your data access (optional)
When the period for which access was granted is due to expire, you must submit a request for extension at least thirty (30) days before the scheduled expiration date.
Researchers service
The provided services can range from the development of a specific data set for a research project to the implementation of genealogical reconstructions or the matching of data sets in BALSAC according to the researchers’ needs.
Services offered:
- Genealogical reconstructions;
- Data linkage;
- Extraction of a dataset based on selected variables;
- Access to Genlib;
- Access to the data of the Integrated Infrastructure of Historical Microdata of the Population of Quebec (IMPQ);
- Access to the data of the Quebec Regional Reference Sample (ERRQ).
If you are interested in accessing the BALSAC database, feel free to consult the document Structure and variables of the BALSAC database to assist researchers with their request.
Genealogical reconstructions
Balsac offers genealogical reconstruction services for academic research projects. These reconstructions are based on a set of subjects that are provided by the researcher and that constitute the starting points of the genealogies.
The following parameters must be provided in order for the probands of a research project to be retained as starting points for a genealogy:
- Proband’s first and last name;
- Date of birth of the proband;
- Surname and first name of at least one parent of the proband*;
- Date de naissance ou de mariage des parents.
* If only one parent is named, the first and last name of that parent’s parents (i.e. the proband’s grandparents) must also be provided.
Balsac database exhaustively covers marriages recorded in the Catholic registers of Quebec up to 1965.Therefore, genealogical reconstructions that contain individuals born or married more recently may take longer and sometimes prove unsolvable. To better understand the coverage of the data, you can refer to the Data. Reconstructions are done according to a biological parentage logic so when an individual is adopted, the lineage is interrupted.
It is possible to do genealogical reconstruction by family pedigree. For these researches, the following parameters must be added to the request, in addition to those named above:
- The family identifier;
- The relationships to the probands.
Pricing
The Balsac project is a non-profit research infrastructure dedicated to multidisciplinary population research. The sole purpose of Balsac’s fee policy is to ensure that it continues to fulfill its mission of service to the scientific community. All funds raised are devoted to maintaining the infrastructure, updating data, developing new functionalities and remunerating the staff in charge of serving researchers. The Balsac steering committee is also committed to promoting access to data and the democratization of research. Any researcher or student for whom these fees could represent an obstacle to the pursuit of their work is invited to contact us to discuss a personalized payment arrangement.
A flat fee of 500 $ for Quebec researchers and 1000 $ for researchers outside Quebec will be charged for all new access requests. This fee includes the cost of opening the file and administrative management of the request. Any request requiring additional work will be billed at an additional hourly rate of $100/hour. In addition, a 15% fee will be added by UQAC to the final invoice.
For requests concerning genealogical reconstitution or data matching, a fee will be added to the lump sum to cover the work carried out by the research assistants. These fees will be based on the hourly rate for research assistants at UQAC.
Please note that the lump sum is not charged to researchers from universities that are signatories to the Entente relative au projet BALSAC, i.e. UQAC and Université Laval.
Request for acess
The BALSAC Project researcher services is responsible for managing and processing requests for access to BALSAC data. A request for access must be submitted to the Researchers service by sending the access request form below to the following address: .
