RCS would like to wish well to those who are departing for new opportunities and congratulate graduates! In anticipation of your departure from HBS, we'd like to bring to your attention the following RCS-related departure checklist that may require action on your part before losing access to HBS resources. We also highly recommend reviewing the Harvard Libraries Research Data Offboarding session (the session can be viewed at a higher speed and note that clicking "Show More" in the description links out to webinar materials).

• HBS licenses – Have you removed HBS-issued research software?

  Due to the licensing agreements with our software vendors, any HBS-licensed research software that has been installed on personal (non-HBS-issued) laptops or desktops should be removed. Any software installers and/or license keys should be deleted and/or destroyed. If you plan to purchase your HBS laptop, TSS will remove all HBS productivity software for you; you may need to remove any HBS-licensed research software yourself.

• HBSGrid cluster– Have you requested a guest user account (if needed)?

  Should you need to continue using the compute cluster after your departure due to active collaborations, you will need to obtain a Guest Account, which requires a faculty/research sponsor. You can read more information about guest accounts on our website here; to request a guest account, please fill out our HBSGrid Account Request Form.

• Research Storage – Have you transferred/archived data in your home directory and project spaces?

  If you choose not to obtain a Guest Account, you should transfer any data and files from your home folder and project spaces on the storage associated with the cluster, as these will be archived and deleted soon after your departure. For more information on archiving and removing your files, please see our Copy and Transfer page and Archiving Your Research Files web pages.

  If you are removing or copying files from project spaces shared with other faculty members, please make arrangements with the primary faculty member of that project regarding how to obtain an appropriate copy of the work. We strongly suggest that you allocate adequate time in advance of your departure to archive/copy files yourself. The easiest methods to do this are backing up to an (encrypted) external drive or to a cloud location (e.g., DropBox, Google Drive, OneDrive). Please ensure that you are also following all data safety restrictions and requirements.

• MariaDB – Have you transferred data from your research databases?

  Data contained in the RCS MariaDB will need to be removed if no longer being used. Please contact RCS as soon as possible to obtain an SQL dump of this information.

Several items on the checklist may require correspondence with our team, especially regarding movement of data. We encourage you to attend to these details as soon as possible.

Please reach out to us at research@hbs.edu if you require additional assistance getting started.