sustainable legal framework for open access to research data
DESCRIPTION
The presentation explores various issues (legal and ethical) affected open access to research data.TRANSCRIPT
1
Building a Sustainable Framework for Open Access to Research Data Through Information and Communication
Technologies
Gideon Emcee Christian telecentre.org
December 2009
International Development Research Centre
2
The Outline
• Introduction
• Data rights in US and EU
• Frameworks for open data
• Ethical Issues
• Factual Trend in Open Data
• Open Access and Data Utility
• Conclusion
3
IntroductionOpen Data
• Removal of access barriers to macro/publicly available data.
• In-depth access to other aspect of an openly accessible data e.g. access to micro-data
4
Data rights
• Data rights in US – Fiest v. Rural - “originality” or “sweat
of the brow”
• Data rights in EU – EU Database Directive
• conventional copyright protection – originality
• “sui generis’ protection – not a real IPR, meant to protect economic interest in database creation, restrict whole or substantial copying
• Data rights are transferable
5
Frameworks for open data
• Open data contract• International HapMap Project
• Open Content Licenses• GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL)
– Based copyleft principle (share-alike)
– suitable for works whose purpose is instruction or reference
• Creative Commons (CC) license– Attribution (BY)
– Non-Commercial (NC)
– No Derivative (ND)
– Share-Alike (SA)
6
Creative Commons
• Free to use any or combination of the CC licensing condition
• Subsists with copyright• Uniprot Project (BY+ND)
• Criticism• “Remote control” over downstream user of data
• Some conditions are not compatible e.g ND+SA
7
Open Data Commons– Standard for copyright protection differs from one
legal jurisdiction to another – Contractual terms and conditions may carry legal
weight in jurisdictions but not in another– Various conditions in CC licence may operate
against data integration– Data commons requires rightsholders to dedicate
their works to the public domain for the benefit of the public and relinquish all rights in the work
– The principle is to return data to public domain and grease the wheel of research and inovation.
Open Data Commons
• Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL)
• Science Commons Data Protocol
• Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence– “The person who associated a work with this document has
dedicated the work to the Commons by waiving all of his or her rights to the work worldwide under copyright law and all related or neighboring legal rights he or she had in the work, to the extent allowable by law.”
Criticism • “No right reserved”
• Lack of attribution
8
Ethical Issues
• Privacy and confidentiality - Remsburg v. Docusearch
• Privacy v. Open Access
9
Privacy Advocates
OAAdvocates
Definition 1Open Access to public data
Definition 2Access to micro data
dbGaP Project
• Involved collection of highly sensitive genetic information.
• Has the goal of making the data freely and widely accessible.
• The database developed two levels of access – open and controlled access.
• Prior informed consent – Hapmap Project
10
Factual Trend in Open Data
• Of 12 randomly selected pure and social sciences data archive, only 4 has full open access.
• A growing number of pure science databases are adopting full open access policy than other disciplines.
• Research funders play a crucial role in enhancing open access to research data.
11
Archive or Database Level of access Type of Data
1 GenBank Full Open Access Pure science
2 The protein data bank Full Open Access Pure science
3 Universal Protein Resource Full Open Access Pure science
4 HapMap Full Open Access Pure science
5 dbGaP Open Access/restricted access Pure science
6 Afrobarometer Full Open Access/Delayed data release
Social science
7 ZACAT - GESIS Online Study Catalogue
Open Access/Restricted Access
Social science and others
8 Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research
Open Access/Restricted Access
Social science and others
9 Economic and Social Data Service
Restricted Access Social science and others
10 Odesi (Ontario) Restricted Access Social science
11 ADPSS Socio Data Restricted Access Social science
12 UK Data Archives Restricted Access Social sciences and humanities
12
ZACAT - GESIS Online Study Catalogue
13
The Relationship between Openness and Utility
• Number of downloads and visits to database not a good tool for measuring data utility
• The number of research publications emanating from data derives from a database or archive is a much better yardstick.
• But it is often very difficult for open access archives to keep an accurate track of the number of publications resulting from their data.
14
Tracked Research publications based on the Hapmap Project
15
Areas for further research
• What is the yardstick for determining the most appropriate framework for open data access?
• To what extent should ethical concerns appropriately restrict access to research data?
• What is the empirical correlation between openness and data utility?
16