Sustainable Legal Framework for Open Access to Research Data

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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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

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Ethical Issues

• Privacy and confidentiality - Remsburg v. Docusearch

• Privacy v. Open Access

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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

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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.

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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

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ZACAT - GESIS Online Study Catalogue

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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.

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Tracked Research publications based on the Hapmap Project

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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?

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Acknowledgments

• Frank Tulus

• Michael Clarke

• Telecentre.org

• CTAP - IDRC

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gchristian@idrc.ca