#  Introduction

netCommons operates only marginally with personal data, while in most cases
the data produced by the project refer to technical measures or experiments
not involving human beings. Nonetheless netCommons seeks the adoption of
proper security and confidentiality standards for the data collected as well
as proper Open Access (OA) policies to maximize the impact of the research
carried out, as we are well aware that at the heart of modern research is an
extensive scientific dialogue, with a timely sharing of data and experiences.

Proper data sharing accelerates innovation, allows researchers to build on
previous work improving the quality of the results, fosters collaboration and
avoids duplication of work. The necessity of Open Access and Open Research
Data (ORD) adoption has gained momentum and it is influencing the political
choices of all the main public agencies funding and sponsoring research. The
European Commission (EC) is no exception to this general international trend,
which has been first spawned in the U.S. by the National Institutes of Health
(NIH). The commitment of the EC toward Open Access of the research results is
reflected in official guidelines [1] and in the wording of Grant Agreements
(GAs) (e.g., art. 29.2). In addition, from the specific nature of netCommons
and from its being part of the “societal challenges” programme, we derive a
particular emphasis on the involvement of citizens, economic stakeholders,
governmental agencies and charities. All these considerations require the
adoption of liberal standards for the scientific dissemination of information,
in accordance with the mandate in Art. 29.2 of the netCommons grant agreement.

In order to avoid problems and misunderstandings and to streamline the whole
process of data collection and of dissemination of results, this document seek
to define clear guidelines on how to treat data and on how to disseminate the
results. This document is extended following the EC Guidelines[2]

#  netCommons Open Access Policy

netCommons is part of the H2020 Open Data Pilot[3], thus the access policy to
the project result must deal both with the publications produced by the
project and with the data upon which these publications are based. Moreover,
given the interdisciplinary approach of the project and its societal
importance, we foresee additional data to support general findings and to
build a base for dissemination of the project outcomes, as well as setting the
ground to build the advocacy capabilities and support the impact-oriented
actions of netCommons.

One of the key challenges for a Cooperative Awareness Platforms for
Sustainability (CAPS) research project like netCommons is to produce
scientific knowledge that is persistent, that goes beyond the restricted
scientific communities and that fosters the benefit of the individuals, of the
communities and of the European society at large. Furthermore, having its
roots in Internet Science [4, 5] netCommons findings are conceived to foster
and benefit the development of Community Networks (CNs) also beyond the
European Union.

These ambitious goals require a thorough dissemination activity of the
research results, and a careful management of general data, including the
information collected, to maximize the impact of the project efforts. For this
reason, netCommons has opted for, and included in the Consortium Agreement, a
fully open model of results and documents dissemination, including
deliverables that are all public.

The remaining part of this Chapter deals separately with the two topics of: 1.
Open Access to scientific publications,

2\. Open Access to research data.

##  Open Access to scientific publications

One of the cornerstones of our dissemination strategy is to secure a timely
and regular publication of the scientific findings in peer–reviewed, high
impact journal and conferences. This will ensure a proper consideration of
netCommons results in the scientific communities of interest. All scientific
publications will be available in Open Access, providing archival Portable
Document Format (PDF) versions of the published document. As specified in the
H2020 Guidelines on Open Access publishing [1], by this term we mean the
practice of providing free and unrestricted access to scientific publications
to read and download.

According to the contractual obligations specified in the GA Art. 29.2, “
_Each beneficiary must ensure open access (free of charge online access for
any user) to all peer-reviewed scientific publications relating to its
results._ ” We will obviously comply with this obligation and we are
implementing a specific policy and best practice based on OpenAIRE2.2 to
ensure and almost automatic propagation of the Open Access version of the
publication to repositories compliant with the Open Archives Initiative
Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) standard[6] and to the web site of
the project.

###  Documents Subject to Open Access

The Open Access policy for scientific publications _applies whenever a partner
of the project or a group of partners decides to produce a scientific
publication_ containing the results of a research activity. This decision is
taken on the following grounds:

  * the publication is scientifically relevant and brings forth significant advances in the state of the art of the interested discipline; 

  

  * (if applicable) the data contained in the publications fulfill the requirements specified by the Ethical Committees of the partner/partners that collected the data. 

  

It must be noted that, due to the societal and open nature of netCommons
research, as provided by the Consortium Agreement (CA) in Sect. 8 and in
particular in Sect. 8.3.1, netCommons Parties are not subject to prior notice
to the Consortium or any other legal body.

The Open Access policy does not apply to partial results which are produced at
intermediate steps of the project and are not deemed scientifically relevant.

###  Green and Gold Open Access

The H2020 guidelines [1] refer to the two main procedures to enforce Open
Access to scientific literature.

**The Green Open Access:** this procedure is based on re-publishing (often
indicated as selfarchiving) of the published article or the final
peer–reviewed manuscript without the graphical imprints of the commercial
publisher. Some journals also allow the deposit of the published version with
the publisher imprinting. The manuscript is archived into an OAI-PMH-compliant
repository2.1.3 by the authors; some publishers could require an _embargo_
period of time before the paper is made concretely available to the public:
netCommons will try to minimize both the use of publishers that require an
embargo and the duration of the embargo, that will in any case abide to the
requirements of the Commission [1] as stated in Art. 29.2 of the GA.

**The Gold Open Access:** the article is provided in Open Access directly by
the publisher, which normally (but not always) enables also re-publishing with
the same means of the ’green’ method. We note that while some publishers (most
notably the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP))
maintain a fully open Digital Library (DL) without any fees, many others
require a fairly expensive fee to publish in Open Access. Many scientific
communities regret and discourage ’pay-to-publish’ procedures, specially in
mixed publication venues (i.e., journals that allow both traditional and OA
publications) where authors must declare their desire to publish in Open
Access before the peer-review.

###  Open Access Repositories

A repository for scientific publications is generally defined as an online
archive, but this condition is not enough to make a repository Open Access.
The most known Open Access repository is probably arXiv (  http://arxive.org),
maintained by the Cornell University. The H2020 guidelines give full freedom
on the choice of the repository: it can be an Institutional Repository or a
subject–based centralized repository. If the Institution the authors belong to
does not have a specific infrastructure of this kind, the EU is funding the
OpenAIRE effort (  http://www.openaire.eu)  , which provides APIs to a
comprehensive list of public repositories and in general means to foster Open
Access policies. OpenAIRE plays a central role in netCommons best practices
for Open Access, since it provides means to automatically link the
repositories of most institutions, and it can thus be used to provide suitable
visibility and linking to all the published material. In particular the Zenodo
(http://www.zenodo.org/)  repository is strictly related to OpenAIRE and is
maintained by CERN, thus providing a suitable means for archival for all
European institutions that cannot (or have not yet) set up an institutional
repository. Other lists of repositories and further information on Open Access
are available at  http://roar.eprints.org  and  http://www.opendoar.org/.

###  Accepted version and published version

An _accepted paper_ is a version which has been revised by the author to
incorporate review suggestions, and which has been accepted by the publisher
for publication.

The final, _published version_ is the reviewed and accepted article, with
copy-editing, proofreading and formatting added by the publisher.

##  Implementation of the Open Access Policy to Publications

The Open Access policy will be applied both to peer-reviewed publications
(i.e., publications that are evaluated by “peers”) and to other types of
publications such as books, white papers, and all other documents that the
consortium deems valuable of dissemination. In the following we refer to the
first type of publications as “peer-reviewed (PR)” and to the second as “non
peer-reviewed (NPR)”. Deliverables will be initially available through the
project web site with the very appealing format described in detail and
available on the specific area[7]. After review it will be decided if they
deserve dissemination through OAI-PMH compliant repositories(Sect. 2.1.3).

###  Procedures for PR publications

The authors of netCommons publication have the freedom to opt for either a
Green or for a Gold policy. In case of _a Green Open Access policy_ the
procedure is as follows:

  1. As soon as the paper is accepted, the draft of the accepted paper is stored in one or more repositories of the authors’ choice among those supported by OpenAIRE along with bibliographic metadata; 

  

  2. The paper publication is notified to the project coordinator and to the exploitation and dissemination list (netcommons.wp6@list.disi.unitn.it); 

  

  3. Within a few days the manuscript becomes visible automatically through OpenAIRE reporting the proper reference to netCommons; 

  

  4. A script parses OpenAIRE daily (or weekly) to retrieve novel manuscripts and upload them automatically on the netCommons web site in the proper section; 

  

  5. If requested by the publisher, the paper is left unpublished for the duration of the embargo period; such period cannot exceed 6 months or 1 year in exceptional cases; 

  

  6. After the embargo period expires, the Open Access is granted to every one via the repository; 

  

  

This procedure guarantees the highest visibility and dissemination as well as
consistent and coordinated referencing, linking and availability.

In case of a _Gold Open Access policy_ the procedure is:

  1. As soon as the paper is accepted, and according to the publisher’s Open Access policy,the draft of the accepted paper is stored in a repository of the authors’ choice among those supported by OpenAIRE along with bibliographic metadata; 

  

  2. The paper publication is notified to the project coordinator and to the exploitation and dissemination list (netcommons.wp6@list.disi.unitn.it); 

  

  3. Within a few days the manuscript becomes visible automatically through OpenAIRE reporting the proper reference to netCommons; 

  

  4. A script parses OpenAIRE daily (or weekly) to retrieve novel manuscripts and upload them automatically on the netCommons web site in the proper section; 

  

  5. After the final publication the authors also add the publisher digital library information to ensure that the gold access policy is correctly advertised and accomplished, the publisher may request a different version to be uploaded. 

  

  

The costs incurred for publication are eligible for reimbursement as long they
are incurred before the end of the project; however netCommons will try to
avoid all venues that apply publication fees that can rise suspicions that the
publication does not follow an ethically consistent peer-review process. If
the publication of a work supported by netCommons with a publisher that does
not comply with EU rules is deemed by the Management Board of the utmost
importance for its dissemination, the netCommons Coordinator will write a
formal request to the publisher to comply with EU regulations.

###  Procedures for NPR Publications

The researchers in netCommons will publish all NPR under one of the Creative
Commons licenses and they will adopt an Open Access policy also for NPR
publications such as technical reports and white papers.

The procedures is in this case is simple and similar to the Gold Open Access
case:

  1. When a technical report is published (e.g., on an institutional website), the authors store a version of the paper, along with the available metadata, in one or more repositories of her/his choice among those supported by OpenAIRE; 

  

  2. The paper publication is notified to the project coordinator and to the exploitation and dissemination list (netcommons.wp6@list.disi.unitn.it); 

  

  3. Within a few days the manuscript becomes visible automatically through OpenAIRE reporting the proper reference to netCommons; 

  

  4. A script embedded in the netcommons web-site and compliant with OpenAire APIs, parses OpenAIRE daily (or weekly) to retrieve novel manuscripts and upload them automatically on the netCommons web site in the proper section. 

  

  

Exception may apply to these rules and procedure for contributions to
newspapers and dissemination magazines.

###  Current Policies by some of the Major Scientific Publishers

Clearly, the choice of whether to take a Green or a Gold Open Access policy is
also determined by the specific publisher and by the scientific field. Self
archiving is today compatible with the most important publishers, as far as it
is limited to the _accepted version_ of the paper, but publishers as IFIP and
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) go definitely beyond, as described
below. With other publishers, the evaluation should be made on a case by case
basis. Details on most publishers and journal policies can be found on the
Sherpa Romeo portal (  http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/ romeo/index.php)  . In the
extreme case in which self archiving is prohibited and commercial open access
options are not available, the authors should avoid the journal.

For the authors’ convenience and for general reference, we report here the
current policy contained in the copyright agreement or on web-pages of some of
the most relevant publishers at the moment of writing, though it is strongly
recommended to check the single journal OA policy on the Sherpa Romeo database
and/or on the journal website. The information in the following sub-sections
is mostly taken verbatim from publishers web pages, thus may contain
advertisement-like information and in general the publisher visions, which are
not necessarily reflected or agreed-upon by netCommons consortium.

####  Elsevier

The Elsevier policy on authors right can be found in the website
http://www.elsevier. com/about/company-information/policies/sharing.  Elsevier
supports Green Open Access, but maintains a number of journals (
http://www.elsevier.com/ embargoperiodlist)  with an embargo policy. Though
these journals can be used for netCommons publications, we suggest to avoid
those that have and embargo period longer than 12 months. In any case also
journals subject to embargo allows pre-prints to be shared in private
repositories. Citing from Elevier’s Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page:

Q. Have you removed an author’s right to self-archive in their institutional
repository?

A. No. We have removed the need for an institution to have an agreement with
us before any systematic posting can take place in its institutional
repository. Authors may share accepted manuscripts immediately on their
personal websites and blogs, and they can all immediately self-archive in
their institutional repository too. We have added a new permission for
repositories to use these accepted manuscripts immediately for internal use
and to support private sharing, and after an embargo period passes then
manuscripts can be shared publicly as well.

Regarding the author rights on the _accepted versions_ of the manuscripts of
journals not subject to embargo, we find the following wording:

Authors can share their accepted manuscript:

Immediately

  * via their non-commercial personal homepage or blog by updating a preprint in arXiv or RePEc with the accepted manuscript 

  

  * via their research institute or institutional repository for internal institutional uses or as part of an invitation-only research collaboration work-group ... 

  

After the embargo period

  * via non-commercial hosting platforms such as their institutional repository 

  

  * via commercial sites with which Elsevier has an agreement 

  

In all cases accepted manuscripts should:

  * link to the formal publication via its DOI bear a CC-BY-NC-ND license ... 

  

  * ... 

  

The CC-BY-NC-ND license can easily be obtained through the website  http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/  and is explicitly recommended by the EC to
_enable open access in its broadest sense_ .

####  ACM

The ACM policy can be found in the website  https://www.acm.org/publications/
policies/copyright_policy.  ACM today adopts a very flexible scheme that ACM
itself summarizes as follows:

_“Authors have the option to choose the level of rights management they
prefer. ACM offers three different options for authors to manage the
publication rights to their work._

  * _Authors who want ACM to manage the rights and permissions associated with their work, which includes defending against improper use by third parties, can use ACM’s traditional copyright transfer agreement._

  

  * _Authors who prefer to retain copyright of their work can sign an exclusive licensing agreement, which gives ACM the right but not the obligation to defend the work against improper use by third parties._

  

  * _Authors who wish to retain all rights to their work can choose ACM’s author-pays option, which allows for perpetual Open Access through the ACM Digital Library. Authors choosing the author-pays option can give ACM non-exclusive permission to publish, sign ACM’s exclusive licensing agreement or sign ACM’s traditional copyright transfer agreement. Those choosing to grant ACM a non-exclusive permission to publish may also choose to display a Creative Commons License on their works.”_

  

We notice that also in case of the traditional copyright transfer all ACM
publications allow Green Open Access without any embargo. Generally, the
publisher’s version/PDF cannot be used, but the author’s refereed post-print
can be uploaded for non commercial use on author’s personal website,
institutional repository, open access repository, the employer’s website or
the funder’s mandated repository. Publisher copyright and source must always
be acknowledged, and there must be a link to the publisher version with a
statement that this is the definitive version and Digital Object Identifier
(DOI). A set statement must be added on the website/in the repository:

cACM, YYYY. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by
permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The
definitive version was published in PUBLICATION, {VOL#, ISS#, (DATE)}
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/ nnnnnn.nnnnnn

Statement reported on the Sherpa Romeo web site (
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/ pub/21/  as of June 30th 2016.

####  IEEE

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) specifies its
policy in a document that can be found in the association website[8]. In
summary:

Generally, authors have the right to post the accepted version of IEEE-
copyrighted articles on their own personal servers or the servers of their
institutions without permission from IEEE, provided that the posted version
includes a prominently displayed IEEE copyright notice (see below) and, when
published, a full citation to the original IEEE publication, including a
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and a full citation to the original IEEE
publication, including a link to the article abstract in IEEE Xplore. Authors
shall not post the final, published versions of their articles.

The following copyright notice must be displayed on the initial screen
displaying IEEE-copyrighted material:

20xx IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE
must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including
reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,
creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or
lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

Upon submission of an article to IEEE, an author is required to transfer
copyright in the article to IEEE, and the author must update any previously
posted version of the article with a prominently displayed IEEE copyright
notice. Upon publication of an article by IEEE, the author must replace any
previously posted electronic versions of the article with either (1) the full
citation to the IEEE work with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), or (2) the
accepted version only with the DOI (not the IEEE-published version).

(see:  http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/
rights/rights_policies.html;  http://www.ieee.org/documents/
ieeecopyrightform.pdf)

IEEE also has an open access program for _Gold Access Policy_ , which at the
moment is limited to the societies journals. In any case IEEE always allows
its authors to follow mandates of funding agencies and post the accepted
version into publicly available repositories limiting the embargo to what
admitted by the funding agency.

####  Springer

Generally, authors can archive post-print (i.e., final draft post-refereeing)
on author’s personal website immediately and on any open access repository
after 12 months after publication. Publisher’s version/PDF cannot be used;
published source must be acknowledged and there must be a link to the
publisher version, with a set phrase to accompany link to published version.
Articles in some journals can be made Open Access on payment of additional
charge. (see:  http://www.sherpa.ac. uk/romeo/pub/74/  as seen on June 30th
2016).

As far as Springer LNCS is concerned (see  http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/pub/
2765/  as of June 30th 2016), authors can archive post-print (i.e., final
draft post-refereeing) on author’s personal website, institutional repository
or funder’s designated repository. Publisher’s version/PDF cannot be used;
published source must be acknowledged and there must be a link to the
publisher version with DOI and a set phrase to accompany link to published
version.

If Springer Open is chosen (see  http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/pub/948/  as of
June 30th 2016), authors can archive post-print (i.e., final draft post-
refereeing) and publisher’s version/PDF. The published source must be
acknowledged; authors retain copyright and a Creative Commons Attribution
License must be attributed.

####  IFIP

All information in the IFIP Digital Library (  http://dl.ifip.org)  is
available in Gold Open Access, free-to-read basis. However, the full text of
print publications from the IFIP publisher may be available only for a fee for
a period of time after publication (see  http://www.ifip.org/
index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=143&Itemid=460  as of June 30th

2016).

Some IFIP journals published by Springer and Elsevier have a paid Open Access
option , such as:

Journal: Computers and Security (ISSN: 0167-4048)

Journal: International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection (ISSN:
1874-5482)

Journal: Entertainment Computing (ISSN: 1875-9521, ESSN: 1875-953X)

  * Authors can archive post-print (i.e., final draft post-refereeing) on author’s personal website immediately and on open access repository after an embargo period of between 12 months and 48 months; it must link to publisher version with DOI and must be released with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License 

  

  * Authors cannot archive publisher’s version/PDF; 

  

  * Permitted deposit due to Funding Body, Institutional and Governmental policy or mandate, may be required to comply with embargo periods of 12 months to 48 months. 

  

Journal: Education and Information Technologies (ISSN: 1360-2357, ESSN:
1573-7608)

  * Authors can archive post-print (i.e., final draft post-refereeing) on author’s personal website immediately and on any open access repository after 12 months after publication. It must link to publisher version; the published source must be acknowledged with a set phrase to accompany link to published version; 

  

  * Authors cannot archive publisher’s version/PDF. 

  

####  SAGE

Journals published by “SAGE-Hindawi Access to Research” have a paid Open
Access option. Authors retain the copyright of their article, which is freely
distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting the
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction of the article in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited. In order to cover the costs of
publication, Article Processing Charges are required for accepted manuscripts.
(  http://www.hindawi. com/memberships/  as of June 30th 2016).

In subscription journals published by “SAGE Publications (UK and US)”, authors
can deposit the version of the article accepted for publication (version 2) in
their own institution’s repository. Authors may not post the accepted version
(version 2) of the article in any repository other than those listed above
(i.e., you may not deposit in the repository of another institution or a
subject repository) until 12 months after first publication of the article in
the journal. Authors may not post the published article (version 3) on any
website or in any repository without permission from SAGE. When posting or re-
using the article authors must provide a link to the appropriate DOI for the
published version of the article on SAGE Journals (  http://online.
sagepub.com)  . (see  https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/the-green-route-%
E2%80%93-open-access-archiving-policy  as of June 30th 2016).

In Sage Pure Gold Open Access Journals, all articles provide worldwide,
barrier-free access to the full-text of articles online, immediately on
publication under a creative commons licence. All articles are rigorously
peer-reviewed retaining the quality hallmarks of the academic publishing
process that authors would experience in publishing in any traditional SAGE
journal. Most SAGE pure Gold Open Access journals are supported by the payment
of an article processing charge (APC) by the author, institution or research
funder of the accepted manuscript.

Some journals (8 titles:  http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/journals.php?id=1581&
fIDnum=|&mode=simple&letter=ALL&la=en)  published by SAGE Publications (UK and
US) with the 12 month Embargo option let authors post on any non-commercial
repository or website the version of their article that was accepted for
publication – ‘version 2’. The article may not be made available earlier than
12 months after publication in the Journal issue and may not incorporate the
changes made by SAGE after acceptance. When posting or re-using the article,
authors should provide a link/URL from the article posted to the SAGE Journals
Online site where the article is published:  http://online.sagepub.com,  and
make the following acknowledgment:

The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in <journal>,
Vol/Issue, Month/Year by SAGE Publications Ltd, All rights reserved. c[The
Author(s)]. Authors may not post the final version of the article as published
by SAGE or the SAGE-created PDF { ‘version 3’.

See  https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/societyimages/wes/WES_
ExclusiveLicense.pdf  as of June 30th 2016.

##  Open Research Data

An interesting novelty of H2020 is the platform known as Open Research Data
Pilot for the dissemination of the data that could be used by different
researchers to replicate the experiments or the analysis presented in the
scientific publications. Given its scope netCommons obviously participates in
this pilot.

The topic of Open Research Data publication is much less debated, understood
and agreed upon compared to scientific publication Open Access. In particular,
the license of Data (open or not) is far more difficult, as Data are not
subject to standard Intellectual Property rules. For instance, most of

Creative Commons licenses (  https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/)
may not apply to data as “derivative work” on Data is not clearly defined and
manipulating a data set with purposes different from rendering may be
inappropriate; sometimes even rendering and statistical analysis may change
the actual meaning of the Data published. Similarly, licences like Open
Database

License (ODbL) v1.0 (  http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/)  may not
apply in many cases for both technical inconsistency (e.g., the wording
“intermixing with other datasets” is a technically inconsistent definition)
and it contains also semantic ambiguities. Furthermore, it is not clear at the
time of writing, if for netCommons it is acceptable that all produced Data can
be released also for commercial purposes.

Another additional issue with Open Research Data, is that very few
Institutions support an Institutional Repository for Data. Also in this case
the Zenodo repository can be used as for scientific publications; however, we
deem that it is still not possible to detail general procedures for the
publication of Open Research Data.

Given this situation, in the first part of the project, netCommons will
carefully select on a case-by-case basis the most appropriate license and the
most appropriate level of aggregation and detail, as well as the most
appropriate set of repositories where the Data produced during the research
can be archived and made public. We are confident that at M24, in D7.3, which
is the revised version of the Data Management Plan, we will be able to set a
more standardized procedure for Open Research Data publication within
netCommons. Chapter3 in any case details all the procedures that netCommons
will follow to ensure the protection of personal data and individuals that may
be involved in netCommons research.

#  Data Security and Privacy Provisions in netCommons

##  Scope of the privacy/security model

The activities of netCommons involve only marginally the direct interaction
with people and do not require to collect directly any personal or sensitive
information. People involved in Community Networks follow the usual policy of
these associations, and netCommons in general does not require CNs to transfer
any personal or sensitive data. Nonetheless, UoW will run some surveys and
some interviews or video recording may be useful during the project.

In such cases the netCommons practice will always abide to the principle of
informed consent and to the ethical annex reported as Sect. 5 of the project
Document of Work (Annex 1 to the Grant Agreement), furthermore the actions and
operations of the researchers will always comply with the national legislation
and with the internal regulations of the partners involved in the project. In
particular, Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to
the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and
repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) will be
strictly followed by the project security model. In the Spanish case, the Data
Protection Act number 15/1999 (December 13th) adapted to the European
directives by the Royal Decree 1720/2007 promulgated on 21st December 2007
will be applicable to the project. The specific goal of this document is to
present and discuss the issues related to the treatment of the collected data
in electronic form, their storage on different media (Hard Disks, Storage
Units, CD/DVD/SD/USB peripherals), and their distribution using network
connections.

##  General Principles

The privacy protection and operational model of netCommons rests on three
pillars:

  * Data anonymity, 

  

  * Informed consent; 

  

  * Circulation of the information limited to the minimum required for processing and preparing the anonymous open data sets. 

  

_Data anonymity_ will be guaranteed whenever possible. The only exemption to
anonymity can be in some cases for the researcher directly interacting with
the participants in surveys. When data must be presented in non-aggregate ways
for research purposes, the data will be anonymized following the best
practices of non-invertible hashing functions applied to all personal
information. Furthermore, provisions will be taken to avoid the possibility of
information linkage.

The _informed consent_ policy requires that each participant will provide
his/her informed consent prior to the start of any activity involving him/her.
AppendixA reports a template of the informed consent form that will be
completed by participants in surveys and interviews. Public distribution of
elements of information that can reveal the identity of the users (e.g.,
videos or pictures) for scientific dissemination purposes will be explicitly
authorized by the participant as part of this process.

_3\. Data Security and Privacy Provisions in netCommons_

To achieve a _limited circulation_ of the information, the database containing
in anonymous form the data collected from the users (e.g., the results of
questionnaires and of laboratory experiments) will be distributed to the
partners, if needed at all, through protected and encrypted Internet
connections; the raw data will only be shared if it is required for the
development. The researchers will never pass on or publish the data without
first protecting participants’ identities. No irrelevant information will be
collected; at all times, the gathering of private information will follow the
principle of proportionality by which only the information strictly required
to achieve the project objectives will be collected. In all cases, the right
of data cancellation will allow all users to request the removal of their data
from the project repository at any time.

The final datasets fully anonymized will be published as Open Data as
described in Sect.2.3.

##  Security Framework

In order to accomplish the creation of a security framework it is essential to
focus on the issues of access and identity authentication, authorization and
auditing (AAA). Therefore, our main objective is to develop a base security
system that standardizes the processes of Authentication, Authorisation and
Auditing of the various information sources involved.

###  Authentication

The Data Protection Act requires that any operator who is granted access to
sensitive data must be authenticated. Authentication technology should be
strict when dealing with sensitive and confidential data available to the
users of the platform. To do this, a username and a password will be used so
that the person who wants to access the raw data of surveys and interviews
confirms that he has authorized access to the system. If deemed necessary by
sensitive collected data, which is not foresees now in netCommons, we will use
an RSA encryption mechanism, with each operator receiving a personal private
key.

###  Authorization

The objective of the authorization is to determine the rights of a user of an
information system. For each researcher, we will specify which content can be
accessed based on functionality, security and confidentiality criteria.

###  Accounting and Auditing

netCommons should not deal with sensitive data, in any case logging of the
personal data will be enforced to prevent abuses, and in case of necessity
proper auditing measures as provided by the Data Protection Act shall be put
in action.

##  Summary of Technological solutions

We report below a table of the main technological solutions used for the
different security issues mentioned in the Sect.3.2.

_D7.1: Data Management Plan (v1) 3. Data Security and Privacy Provisions in
netCommons_  
  
<table>  
<tr>  
<th>

GOAL

</th>  
<th>

Technological Solution

</th> </tr>  
<tr>  
<td>

Guaranteeing complete anonymity where required

</td>  
<td>

The collected data will be labeled with participant codes. Participant consent
forms will be held separately and will not reference the participant code.
These will be paper based and held in a locked filing cabinet on the
researchers site

</td> </tr> </table>

Safe keeping of the doc- The informed consent will be provided by the
interested subject by umentation on informed filling an appropriate form as
reported in AppendixA. The authorized consent personnel must keep this
physical document under lock and key.

Information on the interested person can also be stored in electronic form in
an database or in a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet or the database will be
encrypted and its access will be password-protected and granted only to
authorized operators  
  
<table>  
<tr>  
<th>

Remote access

</th>  
<th>

In the general case, the “raw” data related to the participant to the project,
will be handled only by the researchers interacting with the participant and
made available to the rest of the consortium only in anonymous form. In
particular any personal data contained in the collected data will be handled
only by the researchers interacting with the participant. If, for special
cases, some other researchers should need to access to the “raw” data, the
interested participants will be informed. Only after their consent is extended
to the requiring researcher, can he/she have access to the data. In this case,
if the access is remote, the system has to have the following Researchers in
the consortium can have access through an internet SSL connection

</th> </tr> </table>

http://netcommons.eu

#  Conclusions

The topics of Open Access and Open Research Data is one of the key debates
open in the scientific world, specially in case of research project that are
funded with public money. netCommons is not only a research project funded by
the EC, but it is also a project that deals with societal challenges, socio-
economic sustainability, the construction of a commons, and techno-legal
provisions. As such its effort to disseminate and propagate results and
findings must be, and it is indeed maximal.

This deliverable described the policy that netCommons as so far discussed,
approved and set for its own best practices in scientific Open Access
dissemination and in data collection and management to achieve Open Research
Data.

Regarding Open Access to publications, on the one hand, we have clearly
identified that most leading scientific publishers provide appropriate
licenses and means to achieve Open Access, either through Green Open Access
(i.e., re-publication on OAI-PMH compliant repositories) or through Golden
Open Access. On the other hand Golden Open Access is still very often
ambiguous on the peer-review process, and the publication fees required to
authors are hardly justifiable by the cost of electronic publishing, specially
in light of modern editing technologies that hardly require any intervention
of the publisher on the material provided by the authors. In conclusion,
netCommons does not see any obstacle to achieve a complete Open Access
dissemination for all its scientific publications.

Regarding Open Research Data accessibility and licensing, we have found that
the situation is far less clear, and that most Institutions are still most
unaware of the problem and they do not provide appropriate repositories. At
the same time, also the concept of license and of derivative for Open Data is
not as mature as it is for publications, where the concept of copyright and
the notion of intellectual property as well as creative work are well
understood both at the technical and the legal level. Indeed, in many cases
Data cannot be classified as a creative work, and the intellectual property of
Data does not yet have a commonly accepted technical and legal definition.
Furthermore the publication of data must comply with legal provisions on
privacy and individual protection. All the same, netCommons deems that data
collected and used for scientific research (specially if receiving public
funding), must be made available to the scientific community for validation
and falsification of results and theories and to the public community at large
for transparency and control. In the initial part of the project netCommons
will decide on where to publish Open Research Data, and under which license on
a caseby-case basis, guaranteeing in any case that published data is correctly
indexed by the OpenAIRE platform.

#  Bibliography

  1. The European Commission, “Participants Portal on-lline Manual: Open Access & Data Management,”  http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/docs/h2020-funding-guide/cross-cutting-issues/ open-access-data-management/open-access  en.htm,  Accessed in June 2016. 

  

  2. European Commission – Directorate-General for Research & Innovation, “Guidelines on Data Management in Horizon 2020 – Version 2.1,”  http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/ h2020/grants  manual/hi/oa  pilot/h2020-hi-oa-data-mgt  en.pdf,  Feb. 15, 2016. 

  

  3. OpenAIRE Consortium, “What is the Open Research Data Pilot?”  https://www.openaire.eu/ opendatapilot,  Accessed in June 2016. 

  

  4. D. Lazer and et al., “Computational Social Science,” _Science_ , vol. 323, p. 721–723, Feb. 6, 2009. 

  

  5. The Network of Excellence in Internet Science Consortium, “Project Web Site,”  http://www. internet-science.eu/network-excellence-internet-science,  Accessed in June 2016. 

  

  6. C. Lagoze, H. Van de Sompel, M. Nelson, and S. Warner, “The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting, Protocol Version 2.0,”  http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/ openarchivesprotocol.html,  Jan. 8, 2015. 

  

  7. netCommons Consortium, “Deliverables page,”  http://netcommons.eu/?q=content/ deliverables-page,  2016\. 

  

  8. IEEE, “An faq on ieee policy regarding authors rights to post accepted versions of their articles,”  https://www.ieee.org/documents/author  version  faq.pdf,  2015\. 

  

  

#  A. Appendix: Template of the Informed Consent Form  
  
<table>  
<tr>  
<th>

Informed Consent Form

This survey/interview is part of the EU Horizon 2020 research project
“netCommons: network infrastructure as commons”: http://www.netcommons.eu.
Scholars from the five EU-based institutions involved in the netCommons
project carry out the survey research. The study does not have any commercial
purposes, the involved researchers do not have any monetary benefits by
conducting the study and the results will be published in the form of a report
and research papers based on the survey. Furthermore, the collected data will
be published in anonymous form as open data. The open data will not contain
any personal identifiers, which is data that we are not interested to collect,
do not ask for and do not publish. We will not ask you to provide personally
sensitive data in this survey and all the answers provided will be used only
in aggregate and anonymous form.

By signing this form, you confirm the following:

  * I agree to the digital recording of the interview/survey 

  

  * I agree that the answers you give are stored in digital form in a database in such a way that I am not personally identifiable (anonymous or pseudonymous form) 

  

  * I have been given the opportunity to ask questions about the project 

  

  * I understand that my taking part is voluntary. I can withdraw from the study at any time during the interview/survey and I do not have to give any reasons for why I no longer want to take part. 

  

  * I understand my personal details such as my name, email, phone number and address will only be used by the researcher to contact me if necessary and will not be revealed to people outside the project. In any case such information will be completely deleted at the end of the project. 

  

  * I understand that my words may be quoted in publications, reports, web pages, and other research outputs in anonymous or pseudonymous form only (no name or other personal identifiable data will be mentioned). 

  

The person responsible for the treatment of the data used in this
survey/interview is:

Prof. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

University of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

E-mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Phone
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you you
have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact him/her. I agree to these terms
and want to participate in the interview/survey.

Yes No

</th> </tr> </table>

The netCommons project

July 9, 2016 netCommons-D7.1-0.1/1.0

Horizon 2020

This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons “Attribution-ShareAlike

3.0  Unported”  license.