Existing Materials and Self-Produced Materials

You can base your study on either or both existing materials (produced by someone else) and self-produced materials (which you produce during the study process). Collecting existing materials requires you to have an awareness of which sources and materials are available for research purposes. Existing materials can be, for example: books, pictures, documents, letters and media texts.

 If you decide to self-produce the materials, you need to plan the collection carefully, especially the manner of collection, i.e. you must plan to conduct, record and document in a scientific manner any interview, questionnaire and observation. You also need to decide on the format and storage of yourself-produced material, and also what to do with the data once the research is ended.

Please note that you need to know and abide by the permissions required for recording and storing the material as well as the laws and regulations related to recording and storing materials. 

Laws and permissions on copy rights are the responsibility in Finland of the copyright society, Kopiosto.