Licensing
Licensing is an important aspect of practicing Open Science.
By applying licenses to your research data and to other research outputs, you remove any ambiguity over what others can - and cannot - do with your work.
Why you should licence your research data
Research data can include anything that is "collected, observed, or created for the purpose of analysis to produce and validate original research results." Research data can be viewed as the "lowest level of abstraction from which information and knowledge are derived" (source: Research Data MANTRA).
Licenses allow your data to be shared and re-used under flexibly, legally sound terms: it lets potential users know how it can be re-used, mined, combined, broken-up or re-distributed.
Reasons for licensing your data
There are many reasons why releasing data can be in a researcher’s interest.
- It has the potential to increase the impact of research, not only academically, but also economically and socially.
- The availability of the data alongside associated tools and protocols increases the efficiency of research by reducing both data collection costs and the possibility of duplication.
- A significant number of research funders now require data produced in the course of the research they fund, to be made available for other researchers to discover, examine and build upon.
Choosing an open licence for your research data
You have the option of creating a bespoke licence for your research. However, writing a bespoke licence for your data is not a trivial undertaking and it is almost certainly unnecessary in the light of standard licenses that are available.
There are two sets of standard open licenses particularly relevant to your research:
- Creative Commons (CC) Licenses
- Open Data Commons
You should use a licence from one of these sets rather than creating your own licence, for three reasons:
- It is less work (organisational efficiency and cost saving)
- The use of standard licensing terms can lead to greater interoperability of data
- Increased user awareness of licence terms and therefore better compliance.
Open Data Commons has produced three open solutions specifically for data, datasets and databases.
However, Creative Commons licenses are fast becoming one of the most used and recognised standard licenses for providing access to data and other resources.
Would you like help with choosing an Open Licence?
For a step-by-step guide on choosing an Open Licence for your research data and further information on copyright and database rights and the relevant Open Licenses that you can use, see our guide Help with choosing an Open Data Licence for your research data.
Applying an open licence to your research data
Open licenses, code, and tools are available to the public free of charge, without obligation. You do not need to register to apply an open licence to your material; it is legally valid as soon as you apply it to any material you have the legal right to licence.
Open licenses are irrevocable
It is important to bear in mind that open licenses are irrevocable. Once you apply a CC licence to your material, anyone who receives it may rely on that licence for as long as the material is protected by copyright and similar rights, even if you later stop distributing it.
It is therefore important to be clear on your options for choosing an open licence before attaching an open licence to your work.
Ulster University have developed a short guide ‘How do I apply an Open Licence to my research data?’ see this guide for further support.
Creative Commons Open Licenses and other research outputs
This open licence guides developed for this page have been specifically written to guide you through a process of selecting and applying an open licence to your research data.
However the overview of Creative Commons Attribution Licenses contained within these guides is relevant to all research output. If you would like a brief overview of the various Creative Commons Attribution Licenses read Help with choosing an open data licence for your research data.
For licencing information and guidance on how to apply licenses to a range of content types relevant to research outputs see How do I apply an Open Licence to my research data?
The impacts of licenses which are not fully open
Open means anyone can freely access, use and share for any purpose (source: Open Knowledge Foundation). This means while lots of licenses aim to be "open", the terms they include may fall short of actually being "open" data, or can make reuse of their data very difficult. The Open Data Institute's article 'What are the impacts of non-open licences?' explains some common licence terms and outlines consequences for the reuse of data in applying licence terms such as 'non-derivative', 'non-commerical' and 'sharealike' requirements.
An important note on licensing your software
Creative Commons licenses should not be used for licensing software because they were not designed for that purpose. Instead software developers should use appropriate licenses like those collected by the Open Source Initiative or Free Software Foundation. You can check your options at choosealicense.
The University of Bristol have attempted to address some common questions that academics and researchers have about licensing software as open source through a short document on Open Source Software Licensing FAQs.