Specifying the conditions under which you share your collection is very important for the reusability of your data (the R in FAIR data management): people must know if they can access the collection, and if so, under what conditions. For example, can they re-share your data and/or software, can they use it for commercial purposes, etc?
The collection manager must therefore specify an appropriate access level: Open access, Open access for registered users, Restricted access, or Closed access. The first three access levels are available options of a Data Sharing Collection (DSC), and the last (Closed access) is available by using a Data Acquisition Collection (DAC) or Research Documentation Collection (RDC). Furthermore, when Open Access, Open access for registered users, or Restricted access are chosen, the conditions of re-use must be specified by selecting a proper licence or Data Use Agreement (DUA). If you need help choosing a suitable access level, licence or DUA to choose, contact your data steward.
Datasets vs software
A collection might contain research data and/or software. Because these resource types need specific licences, one of the first steps in choosing an access level and licence is to determine if your collection is primarily a Dataset or Software. Clear indication of the resource type increases Findability, because users might be searching for one and not the other.
These days research often produces software in one form or another. It can range from small scripts to run analyses with to complete software packages or source code. Not all of these need a specific software licence but can be published as part of a dataset. Where to draw that line when deciding on an access level and licence can be hard and are collection dependent. Use this page as guide and/or contact your data steward or the Digital Competence Centre when you require help with what resource type suits your collection best.
In general, the RDR advises to choose the resource type Software when:
- The collection consists only of software.
- You need to redistribute existing code of which the accompanying software licence states that it can only be redistributed under the same licence.
- The content of your collection is primarily software that is considered research output in its own right, such as a computer program in either source code or compiled form.
Choose the resource type Dataset when:
- The collection does not contain any software.
- The primairy research output is data and the software is included to support (clean, edit, transform, visualise, etc.) the research data. Think of analysis scripts or processing pipelines used during the research process.
The above guidelines can mean that you need more than one collection for your research project, one in which you publish the data and one in which you publish the software.
Datasets
Radboud University's research data management policy dictates that research data must be shared as open as possible and as closed as necessary. This means that an Open access collection is preferred, but not always necessary. It could mean that you need to restrict access to sensitive data. Restricting access to sensitive data is important to protect the privacy of your research participants or to prevent harm to communities, ecosystems, cultural or ethnic groups, commercial parties, etcetera. Sensitive data include:
- Human participant data which cannot be anonymised, i.e. which is pseudonymised or directly identifiable personal data.
- Data involving controlled use of animals.
- Data subject to contractual constraints, such as licences, collaboration or data processing agreements, or funder agreements.
- Data with commercial potential or that may be patented.
- Data subject to export controls.
- Environmentally sensitive data.
- Politically sensitive data.
Choosing a suitable access level and licence or Data Use Agreement for a dataset depends on a lot of factors and is very collection specific. You can start your search by using the following decision tree and by reading the detailed information below.
Data of Open access DSCs can be accessed anonymously by any user of the Radboud Data Repository (RDR). The collection manager cannot identify external users of the collection in any way. If your data have been acquired on human subjects and they cannot be fully anonymised, you are not allowed to choose an Open access DSC. In Open access DSCs, the conditions of re-use must be specified in a licence. Users of the DSC implicitly accept the terms of that licence by downloading the data. The RDR offers a variety of licences for you to choose from.
To share your data as open as possible, we recommend that you choose a CC0 licence. Under this licence, you waiver any copyright you might hold to the data and place them in the public domain. CC0 was designed to reduce any legal and technical impediments to the reuse of data. The easier you make it for people to understand the conditions for reusing data -and the clearer you make it that you will not be suing people who do- the more likely it is that your data will be reused. That is especially important when it comes to research data: facts, and therefore most raw data, are not subject to copyright. That means that if you place a copyright licence on your data collection, the conditions and restrictions specified in that licence do not apply to that part of your collection that is not copyrightable. That can become very confusing since people can argue about whether something is copyrightable or not and something can be copyrightable in some countries but not others. To avoid confusion for users, we recommend the use of a CC0 licence when publishing Open access.
You might be worried that if you waiver your copyright, you will not be attributed for your work. However, keep in mind that giving up your copyright does not exempt those who reuse your data to follow community norms for scholarly communication. Researchers are encouraged to cite your work since it is good scientific practice and data without a citation are not considered trustworthy. Indeed, the RDR Repository Policy requires users to cite any data they use from RDR data collections.
If you want to place restrictions on the re-use of your data, you can opt to use another CC licence. Be aware that in some cases, for example if you have pre-existing agreements, you cannot release your data under the CC0 terms and must choose a non-public domain CC licence.
Pay extra care if you are not the owner of (part of) your dataset. For example, if your work is based on data that were published under a ShareAlike licence and you want to redistribute those data, you should use the same licence terms as the original dataset.
Furthermore, you should check for funder obligations. Some funders recommend or oblige particular licences for the research they fund. For those situations, the RDR offers a variety of licences. To find out which non-public domain licence meets your requirements, you can use the Creative Commons licence chooser.
Data of Open access for Registered Users DSCs are accessible following authentication. That means that a user must log in and explicitly agree with the terms of a Data Use Agreement (DUA) before the data can be accessed. The collection manager can identify all collection users since they will be added as viewer to the collection. Your collection's metadata -including the list of files- are visible to anyone.
There are two use cases for Open access for Registered Users DSCs, each with a corresponding DUA.
- The data of your collection have been acquired on human subjects and are potentially identifiable or should be regarded as pseudonymised. For directly identifiable data, a Restricted access DSC (see below) must be used. If you need help to find out if your collection contains personal data contact your data steward. In the case of sharing potentially identifiable data, the conditions of data sharing must be specified better than in an open access licence in order to protect the privacy of research participants. For example, it is important that re-users will not attempt to identify research participants based on the data. It is also important that re-users can be identified so that they can be held accountable for responsible use of the privacy-sensitive data. For this purpose, Radboud University developed a DUA specifically for sharing potentially identifiable human data: Radboud University - Human Data - 2.0 (RU-HD-2.0);
- The data are potentially identifiable human data, as in use case 1, and your informed consent form stated that research data will be shared for scientific use only. Some of Radboud University's research institutes' (older) informed consent form templates contained such a statement. In this case, the DUA must mention that re-use is allowed only for the purpose of scientific research, in addition to the conditions of re-use specified in RU-HD-2.0. Such a stipulation is included in the DUA Radboud University - Human Data - Scientific Use - 2.0 (RU-HD-SU-2.0). Note that -in line with Open Science- we strongly recommend to use RU-HD-2.0 if your informed consent form allows for this. Contact your data steward if you are in doubt.
Restricted access DSCs require explicit approval of data access requests by a person. That person can be the collection manager, an external researcher, or a committee that is responsible for handling data access requests (a so-called Data Access Committee). This means that a researcher who wants to use your data, must request access to your data and specify what they want to use your data for. You or a data access committee can evaluate based on their motivation whether access can be granted. If so, you and the data access applicant must set up a DUA and have it signed. Only after a DUA has been signed, should the collection manager grant access. Your collection's metadata -including the list of files- are visible to anyone. For more details on this process, see our page about Restricted access - access requests.
Restricted access collections serve for sharing sensitive (see the definition above) and/or directly identifiable data. Always consult with your data steward before sharing directly identifiable data via a Restricted access DSC. For sensitive data it is important to verify the identity of a user so that they can be held accountable for responsible use of the data. It might also be necessary to confirm that the use of the collection does not cause harm. In the case of directly identifiable personal data, it is important to assess that a user's research question can be answered with your data and that it complies with the data use described in the informed consent form. To allow you to do this, the RDR requests applicants to provide relevant information when they request access to your restricted access DSC. This includes information about the data access applicant and their position, about the research project and intended use of the data, and -if applicable- about any other persons/collaborators that require access to the data.
Radboud University offers two template DUAs that you can use: RU-RA-DUA-2.1 (for a pdf version see here) for Radboud University employees and RUMC-RA-DUA-1.0 for Radboudumc employees (see the pdf version here).
These two DUAs are suitable templates for sharing data with parties within the European Union or countries that offer an adequate level of data protection according to the European Union (see the list of non-EU countries with an adequate protection level). Please check whether the data access applicant is located in one of these countries. If you want to share data with parties outside of the above-mentioned countries, contact the university’s legal department or the RadboudUMC legal department (Valorisation).
Never set up a Data Use Agreement by yourself without the involvement of legal experts. You can contact Radboud University’s legal department or the RadboudUMC legal department (Valorisation) if you need help.
Data Acquisition Collections (DACs) and Research Documentation Collections (RDCs) are Closed access collection types. This means that data and software in these type of collections cannot be made publicly accessible in any way. That is why these collections are 'archived' rather than 'published'. Once these collections are archived, the content is only visible to those with an active role (manager, contributor, or viewers) in the collection.
The metadata of the collection can be made publicly available. Only if you choose to make the metadata visible to the public, anyone who follows the DOI of your collection can see that collection's metadata. This means the title, description, and all the fields that are visible under your collection's metadata tab. Some Organisational Units make the metadata visible by default. To check if the metadata of your collection will become visible, click on the Edit metadata button and scroll down to see if the checkbox next to Make metadata public is checked or not. If you wish to change this setting, please contact your research administrator.
These collection types do not require a licence or Data Use Agreement (DUA), because the content will not be shared.
Software
The RDR offers the option to share specific software collections. The goal of these collections is to serve as an archiving solution of a specific snapshot of your software. Note that this snapshot can co-exist with later versions on version control platforms, such as Github, of which you may decide to archive another meaningful snapshot at some point. The added value of the RDR is the FAIRness of the repository (including a persistent identifier) and the assurance of long-term preservation formalised in a preservation plan.
Currently, only the access level Open access is available for software collections.
Collections with Open access software need licences that contain information specifically designed for the distribution of source code. They can also address possible patent rights. Furthermore, redistributing existing software can mean that you need to reshare it under the original software licence.
If you only share source code of software, simulations, or data analysis scripts (i.e., no research data originating from measurements), you should use a copyright agreement or software licence. You can find help on choosing a proper software licence here or here. When you need a software licence for your collection, make sure to set the metadata field resource type to Software before selecting the access level and licence.