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Data Services

Data Management Services assists Brandon researchers with the organization, management, and curation of research data to enhance its preservation and access now and into the future

Can I Use an Open Creative Commons License with my Data? 
 

One of the reasons to create a DMP is to make the data useful for reuse.  But you need to understand if - in your circumstances - Data CAN be openly licensed. Factors to consider:
 

1. Do you HAVE TO share data as part of a research grant?  If so, you will need to release appropriately selected and formatted data using an Open License.
 

2. Are you required to share data by a publisher?  If so, you will need to release appropriately selected and formatted data using an Open License.
 

3. Are you FORBIDDEN TO share data because of one of the following circumstances:

  • You have confidential data that cannot be amended in such a way that it remains useful - but does not violate privacy.
     
  • You are gathering data in conjunction with an indigenous community and data sharing was not agreed to. 
     
  • Patent restrictions (etc).  
     
  • You are reusing Data and do not have permission to share it.
    Note: Odds are 50  / 50 that the data you are using is licensed for sharing via a Creative Commons License. 
    These licenses are displayed with data in repositories.

 

  • If not licensed for reuse, you can only share the data is  if you seek permission from the person who created  / owns the data.

NOTE: Do not indicate that you will reuse and share others researchers data in your DMP UNTIL YOU HAVE SECURED PERMISSION TO DO THIS.

 

Licenses and Terms of Use
 

If you can share data you will need to license it.  For a general overview on copyright issues related to licensing see the Guide to Licensing Open Data from the Open Knowledge Foundation.

The following are typical Creative Commons license templates that are applied to data:

  • CC 0 (public domain, unambiguously waive all copyright control over your data in all jurisdictions worldwide. Data released with CC0 can be freely copied, modified, and distributed, even for commercial purposes, without violating copyright). This is the default license in Dataverse, as one goal of the project is to promote open science best practices.
     
  • CC BY (This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.)
     
  • CC BY-NC (This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.)
     
  • CC BY-SA (This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms)
     
  • CC BY-NC-SA (This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.)

If you do not know which license to select, Creative Commons has a good  tool to help.

Also be aware that if you have used data licensed under a Creative Commons License by another researcher, when you release that data as part of your research, you need to abide by the terms of the original license.  As an example, it the original license was a Share-Alike license, you need to reshare that data under the same license.