# Reuse agreement template between Cultural Heritage Institutions and researchers

Laurent Romary, Dorian Seillier, Erzsébet Tóth-Czifra

► To cite this version:

Laurent Romary, Dorian Seillier, Erzsébet Tóth-Czifra. Reuse agreement template between Cultural Heritage Institutions and researchers. 2019. halshs-03367459v2

HAL Id: halshs-03367459

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Preprint submitted on 13 Oct 2021

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Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Reuse agreement template between
Cultural Heritage Institutions and
researchers

Document initiated by: Laurent Romary (INRIA), Dorian Seillier (INRIA) and Erzsébet Tóth-Czifra (DARIAH-EU) in 2019.

A defining feature of data and data workflows in the arts and humanities domain is their
dependence on cultural heritage sources hosted and curated in museums, libraries, galleries and
archives. A major difficulty when scholars interact with heritage data is that the nature of the
cooperation between researchers and Cultural Heritage Institutions and the researchers working
in CHIs (henceforth CHIs) is often constrained by structural and legal challenges but even more
by uncertainties as to the expectations of both parties.

This recognition led several European organizations such as APEF, CLARIN, Europeana, E-
RIHS to come together and join forces under the governance of DARIAH to set up principles
and mechanisms for improving the conditions for the use and re-use of cultural heritage data
issued by cultural heritage institutions and studied and enriched by researchers. As a first step of
this joint effort is the Heritage Data Reuse Charter (https://datacharter.hypotheses.org/)
establishes 6 basic principles for improving the use and re-use of cultural heritage resources by
researchers and , to help all the relevant actors to work together to connect and improve access to
heritage data. These are: Reciprocity, Interoperability, Citability, Openness, Stewardship and
Trustworthiness.

As a further step in translating these principles to actual data workflows the survey below serves
as a template to frame exchanges around cultural heritage data by enabling both Cultural Heritage
Institutions, infrastructure providers and researchers and to clarify their goals at the beginning and
the project, to specify access to data, provenance information, preferred citation standards, hosting
responsibilities etc. on the basis of which the parties can arrive at mutual reuse agreements that
could serve as a starting point for a FAIR-by-construction data management, right from the project
planning/application phase.

In practice, the survey below can be flexibly applied in platform-independent ways in exchange
protocols between Cultural Heritage Institutions, researchers, and all other parties involved in
cultural heritage data exchange.

Institutions who sign the Charter could use it (and expect to use such surveys) in their own
exchange protocols. Another direction of future developments is to set up a platform dedicated to
such exchanges.
On the other hand, researchers are encouraged to contact the CHIs during the initial stages of their project in order to explain their plans and figure details of transaction together. This mutual declaration can later be a powerful component in their Data Management Plans as it shows evidence for responsible and fair conduct of cultural heritage data, and fair (but also FAIR) research data management practices that are based on partnership with the holding institution.

As enclosing a Research Data Management Plan to grant applications is becoming a more and more common requirement among research funders, we need to raise the funders' awareness to the fact that such bi- or trilateral agreements and data reuse declarations among researchers, CHIs and infrastructure providers are crucial domain-specific components of FAIR data management.

A richer context to the adoption of the template below can be found at: https://datacharter.hypotheses.org/ For further information and feedback (which is more than welcome), please contact: laurent.romary@inria.fr and erzsebet.toth-czifra@dariah.eu.

## In practice

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* Both researchers and CHIs and research facilities should be clear about their goals and the ways in which they want to publish, store, license and attribute the output of their projects.

* **Distributing responsibilities** between cultural heritage institutions, researchers and research institutions.

* Researchers are encouraged to contact the CHIs **during the initial stages of their project**.

* The inclusion of the declaration into Data Management Plans.

## Reciprocity

« *Both Cultural Heritage Institutions and Researchers agree to share content and knowledge equally with each other, making use of data centres and research infrastructure* »

* **Researcher**

Are you planning to communicate your research results to the institution that gave you access to the primary sources as well as the equipment providers, enabling them to enrich their original resources?

If so, could you please provide us with contact information to the corresponding person?

* **Heritage Institution**
Under what conditions would you allow researchers to access the collection in question?

Please specify any potential legal and/or technical issues involved in allowing access to your resources.

How would you like to benefit from the research results obtained using your sources, including potential
corrections or enrichments regarding your initial data?

Are there any specific enrichments you are especially interested in?

Are there any mechanisms at your disposal to facilitate these exchanges (mail, online form, an open API etc.)?

* Research Facility / Equipment (if applicable)

Would you like to be kept informed about the research results? In which form (specific message, publication, etc.)?

Are there any specific enrichments you are especially interested in?

Are there any mechanisms at your disposal to facilitate these exchanges (mail, online form, etc.)?

Interoperability

« Cultural Heritage Data will be made accessible in a form that facilitates reuse of the data for research. Formats should work and be interoperable for both scholars and CHIs. »

* Researcher

Are you planning to share your data and/or metadata in standardised formats, processes and protocols ? If so, in which ones?

* Heritage Institution

Are you planning to share your data and/or metadata in standardised formats, processes, and protocols? If so, in which ones?

* Research Facility

Do the data you provided rely on a standardised (and open if possible) and/or documented format? If not, is there a reliable documentation on the format(s) being used?

Citability

« Cultural Heritage data and any resulting research need to be fully citable to increase their visibility and impact.
Relevant data citation standards should be applied »

* Researcher
Do you have a recommended citation model for your research data? Are you willing to cite the institutions / equipment providers that gave you access to the data / services / tools needed for your work?

* **Heritage Institution**

Do you have a recommended citation model for the experimental material / sources that you curate? Are you willing to cite the other stakeholders (researchers and equipment providers) who conducted research using your sources?

* **Research Facility**

Do you have a recommended citation model for the experimental material / sources that you possess? Are you willing to cite the other stakeholders (researchers and equipment providers) that conducted research using your sources?

## Openness

« *Cultural Heritage data should be shared under an open license whenever possible, taking into account the existing copyright and any restrictions due to national legislation and privacy issues* »

* **Researcher**

In which ways are you planning to share your results, data visualisations and any derived data?

Please specify the license (and the licensing framework) under which you are planning to share your research results. Are you planning to use an open license (such as Creative Commons under CC-BY)?

* **Heritage Institution**

Which licenses do you use to disseminate your data? Are there any particular constraints regarding the dissemination of the research data obtained using your material (sensitive data, intellectual property, etc.)? Would you recommend using specific licenses to disseminate these data?

* **Research Facility**

What is your policy regarding data obtained using your equipment? Would you recommend using specific licenses?

## Stewardship

« *Long-time preservation, persistence, accessibility and legibility of cultural heritage data should be a priority* »

* **Researcher**

Where are you planning to store your data to ensure their long-term preservation? If so, what infrastructure will you use? (This might be a repository or other appropriate solution.)

* **Heritage Institution**

Do you provide a data storage service for the research results or are you associated with any reliable and public host?

* **Research Facility**
Do you provide a data storage service for the research results or are you associated with any reliable and public host?

## Trustworthiness

« The provenance of Cultural Heritage data and any consequent research should be clear, up to date, openly available and therefore trustworthy

**Commitment:** Cultural Heritage Institutions, Researchers and Research infrastructures will put best effort into documenting the provenance of the data that they share, including records of any relevant materials, equipment, techniques, procedures and protocols used. They will attribute any resources used and flag any issues of authenticity or missing data and will also alert to any defamatory use of Cultural Heritage data. »

* **Researcher**

Are you planning to document all those who participated in the data production process in order to ensure its traceability?

* **Heritage Institution**

Will you consent to be all your materials used for a research project listed and cited under its provenance metadata?

* **Research Facility**

Will you consent to be all your materials used for a research project listed and cited under its provenance metadata?