Sharing

 

How to share your research data

For all AU’s top research funders, the minimum data to be held and shared is that which underpins a published research output. In the first instance, such research data should be offered for deposit and retention in an appropriate national or international data service or subject-specific repository, as advised by the research funder. A list of such repositories is available here. If no such repository is available, datasets should be held within AU via PURE.

 

Preparing data for sharing

Before any data is shared, it should be confirmed that all end user license terms and conditions in relation to the sharing of any third-party data used within the project is respected (such terms and conditions should have been recorded within the project’s DMP).

It should also be noted that any data containing information believed to be exempt under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 may be withheld i.e. un-anonymised personal data; data and further-derived research intended for future publication; data with commercial interests.

If you believe that your dataset is not suitable for open sharing, it may still be possible to make your data available to interested parties as long as they are able to satisfy particular stated conditions. For example ‘commercially confidential’ data, in which a business organisation has a legitimate interest, might be made available to others subject to a suitable legally enforceable non-disclosure agreement. Such conditions must be stated within the Dataset record created in PURE and will be made public within a web searchable catalogue. If you have concerns with sharing your data or wish to discuss particular circumstances where restrictions may apply please contact infocompliance@aber.ac.uk.

 

Licensing for sharing and re-use

It is recommended that any dataset that is to be made available for sharing and re-use by others is issued under an end-user license. AU recommended that a license that requires attribution to the creator as a minimum be adopted, such as Creative Commons or Open Data Commons Attribution.

Exclusive rights to reuse or publish research data should not be handed over to commercial publishers or agents without retaining the rights to make the data openly available for re-use i.e. not Creative Commons Attribution without ShareAlike or Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL), unless this is a condition of funding.

• Further information on licensing research data is available within the DCC guide ‘How to License Research Data’
• Further information on Creative Commons licenses are available from their website.
• Further information on Open Data Commons licenses are available from their website.