D3.3 Report on data sharing policies
Creators: name: Fernie, Kate
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Archaeology

description: The  ARIADNE  network  developed  out  of  the  need  to  develop  infrastructures  for  the  management  and  integration  of  archaeological  data  at  a  European  level.  The  network  brings  together  existing  archaeological  research  datasets  with  the  aim  of  making  them  more  accessible  to  researchers,  and  to  build  a  better  understanding  of  how  this  data  might  be  brought  together  to  create  new  insight  and  understanding  within  archaeology.  To  achieve  this  ARIADNE  needs  to  consider  the  data  access  and  sharing  policies  relevant  to  archaeological  research  datasets.  

This  report  provides  an  introduction  to  ARIADNE,  and  the  methodology  used  to  collect  information  and  inform  its  findings.  

Following  on  from  the  introduction  in  Section  2,  and  description  of  the  methodology  used  in  Section  3,  the  context  of  the  move  towards  open  access  for  research  publications  and  datasets  is  considered  in  Section  4,  within  which  the  2003  Berlin  Declaration  on  Open  Access  to  Knowledge  in  the  Sciences  and  Humanities  was  an  important  milestone.  Open  Access  publications  have  changed  the  subscription  model  providing  researchers,  students,  teachers  and  members  of  the  public  with  free  access  to  the  latest  research.  The  development  of  licences,  such  as  those  prepared  by  Creative  Commons  and  the  Open  Data  Commons,  is  helping  data  creators  share  their  results  in  a  way  that  makes  conditions  for  use  and  re-°©‐use  clear  to  the  public.  Technical  developments  are  both  facilitating  data  sharing  and  enabling  data  citation,  which  is  important  in  allowing  academic  recognition  for  these  new  forms  of  publication.  

Section  5  is  a  situational  analysis  based  on  a  consultation  of  ARIADNE  partners  to  understand  thinking  amongst  the  archaeological  research  community  on  data  sharing.  Research  data  in  archaeology  is  defined,  and  the  circumstances  in  which  access  to  archaeological  data  needs  to  be  limited  are  explored.  These  include,  amongst  others,  the  sensitivity  of  some  sites  to  treasure  hunters,  national  legislation,  commercial  value,  active  research  projects  and  complications  over  the  management  of  rights  in  legacy  datasets.  The  licensing  of  data  for  re-°©‐use,  open  licensing  of  resource  discovery  metadata  and  ways  of  enhancing  data  awareness  and  the  culture  of  data  sharing  are  discussed.  

Section  6  considers  the  results  of  a  survey  of  the  sharing  policies  in  place  for  the  datasets  ARIADNE  partners  plan  to  provide  for  integration  within  the  research  infrastructure.  The  survey  revealed  that  almost  90%  of  the  datasets  are  accessible  online,  with  50%  openly  available  to  public  users  without  registration.  Over  half  the  datasets  are  made  available  under  Creative  Commons,  or  other  forms  of  open  licences.  

Section  7  discusses  the  issues  identified  in  the  report.  Consultation  with  partners  revealed  that  access  and  sharing  policies  are  still  evolving.  The  aim  of  this  report  is  to  help  establish  best  practices  in  the  management  of  rights  and  data  access  amongst  partners  and  the  wider  community.  This  means  considering  the  whole  data  sharing  chain,  from  the  archaeological  researcher  depositing  their  data  with  an  archive,  to  its  integration  in  the  ARIADNE  infrastructure,  and  its  subsequent  availability  to  the  research  community.  The  licence  framework  discussion  covers  both  data  deposits  and  access  policies,  and  both  content  and  resource  description  (discovery)  metadata.  Our  survey  confirmed  that  Creative  Commons  licences  are  being  widely  adopted,  although  there  are  differences  in  the  conditions  specified.  The  potential  impact  of  the  main  licence  conditions  (Attribution,  Share  Alike,  No  Derivatives  and  Non-°©‐Commercial)  on  data  sharing  in  ARIADNE  are  considered.  

Finally,  Section  8  recommends  that  ARIADNE  include  in  its  data  sharing  policy  framework:  



A common  method  of  data  citation  for  adoption  by  partners,  as  the  means  of  ensuring  academic  recognition  is  important  in  motivating  researchers  to  share  their  datasets;  

Alllocation of  DOIs  (or  the  equivalent)  for  datasets  ingested  to  the  ARIADNE  infrastructure;  persistent  identification  underpins  data  sharing  and  data  citation;  

The use  of  the  Creative  Commons  licence  suite  (version  4.0  is  preferred)  for  content  provided  to  ARIADNE;  CC  BY  is  recommended  for  open  access;  

A collection  description  be  provided  with  each  collection  provided  to  ARIADNE  and  licensed  under  a  CC  BY  licence;  

Item level  metadata  records  be  published  under  a  CC0  (public  domain)  licence  to  enable  integration  of  multiple  datasets,  to  support  resource  discovery  and  enable  linked  open  data.