Research data constitutes all data from an experiment, study or measurement, including the metadata and processing data.[1] Under the EU Horizon 2020 track 'research data' refers to information, in particular facts or numbers, collected to be examined and considered and as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation. In a research context, examples of data include statistics, results of experiments, measurements, observations resulting from fieldwork, survey results, interview recordings and images. The focus is on research data that is available in digital form.

Adding structured metadata to your publications provides many advantages. Smart metadata can facilitate the discovery of your work as well as allow others to comprehend and evaluate your data on a basic level without requiring access to the datasets themselves.

The purpose of OpenScienceLink - as well as most other open access initiatives - and the basis for its selection of data and services is the creation of a repository of well-structured and semantically linked datasets. The role of metadata herein is crucial. Therefore metadata descriptions should be based on existing and established domain ontologies.

A data paper is a publication that is designed to make other researchers aware of data that is of potential use to them. A data paper includes a description on the methods used to create the data set, a description of the structure of the data set and an elaboration on the dataset’s reuse potential. A link to the data paper’s and data set’s location in a repository should also be included. [1] It is important to note that a data paper does not replace a research article, but rather supplements it. When mentioning the data behind a study, a research paper should reference the data paper for further details. Similarly, the data paper should contain references to the research papers associated with the dataset.[2]

In general, the purpose of a data paper is to:

• Describe the data in a structured human-readable form, and
• Bring the existence of the data to the attention of the scholarly community

• Provide a citable journal publication which allows the data publisher to be credited.

The description should include several important elements documenting how the dataset was collected, who owns the data, details of which software was used to create the data, how the data can be viewed, etc.

Data Papers can be indexed and cited like any other research article, thus bringing registration of priority, a permanent publication record, recognition and academic credit to the data creators.

The rationale given by many policy makers and scholars for pushing open access conditions is that 'opening up the data allows for new knowledge to be discovered through comparative studies, data mining and so on. It allows greater scrutiny of how research conclusions have been reached, potentially driving up research quality."[1] This rationale is also the idea behind the OpenScienceLink project: "to foster the widest access and re-use of scientific publications and data".

When done correctly, the making of scientific information freely available online, has the potential to benefit all stakeholders within the Open Access value chain, such as researchers, research organisations, publishers, editors and funding authorities.

Open data can be reused by the wider public for a range of purposes including teaching, journalism and citizen science projects. Making research outputs available for others to work with and build upon is part of the social contract of academia. Moreover, some studies claim that open access publications are more likely to be cited than subscription publications.[2] This Open Access citation advantage should be considered by researchers who wish to increase the impact of their works.

Data are stored in data repositories. These are databases or archives created to collect, disseminate and preserve scientific output and make them freely available.[1] There are many data repositories to choose from. Repositories can be institution-, discipline- or content-specific, or general. A list of international repositories can be found at databib.org.

Some things to consider when choosing a repository are:

• Does your employer, funder, or publisher recommended or mandate certain repositories?
• Does your research discipline have conventions concerning where to publish data?
• What metadata and format of data does the repository require?
• Does the repository enable tracking of data citations by allocating a unique identifier?
• Does the repository manage conditional access to data, and is conditional access managed by the repository or the data owner?

The decision whether or not to protect the research results is important and needs to be discussed at an early stage with the research and development department of a researcher’s institution.

OpenScienceLink provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Authors of data made available on the platform remain the copyright holders and grant OpenScienceLink and any other third parties the right to use, reproduce and share the article according to the Creative Commons license agreement. [1]

All data on the OpenScienceLink is made available under the following license: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.[2] This means that anyone who wants to submit research data onto the platform has to understand and agree for the work to be made available under this license. Any user of the research data has to conform to the use requirements under this license. To upload the work the author must confirm to have permission to do so by clearing the copyrights. The data may not include any personal information under the data protection directive.

The following sections will provide guidance for using the OpenScienceLink platform.[3]

As a good practice you must always cite the data you use. This can also be an obligation depending on the license that is attached to the scientific work (e.g. Creative Commons licenses require proper attribution to be given, whereby the correct citation method is often indicated within the work).

If you use data from a repository that has been released under an open license you should include a reference to the data paper describing the data, followed by a reference to the data in the repository itself.

It is essential that the citations are in the references section of the article and include the Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) or any other identifier the repository might use. Citation methods differ depending on your active field of research, however each citation must include basic elements that allow the dataset to be identified in the future, such as:

• Title
• Author
• Data
• Version
• Persistent Identifier, such as the Digital Object Identifier.

Within OpenScienceLink, the dataset format follows the OpenScienceLink data model and the file may be in any file format. Nevertheless, depending on the chosen repository, formats may alter.

Once the dataset is uploaded it becomes indexed and searchable from all Platform users, but not downloadable, which requires that the dataset is first reviewed and then published by the data journal.

Once the review of the dataset is over, and the dataset is accepted for publication, it enters into a special status within the dataset pool, flagged as ‘ready to be published’, and enables the publisher to select it as part of any future volume or issue for publication in the data journal. The candidate datasets for publishing comprise all of the peer-reviewed datasets. The rest of the uploaded datasets are either in the ‘pending to be assigned reviewers’ stage, or in the ‘under review’ stage. If further recommendations or clarifications are demanded through the review process for any given dataset, the dataset will still be in ‘under review’ status, until all conditions posed by the reviewers are met. At any given stage, the researchers who uploaded the dataset will be informed for the process, and will be able to follow the status of their dataset’s reviewing process.

The publisher uses the Platform in order to publish the selected datasets in a predefined manner, according to particular specifications. The datasets and corresponding metadata can then be viewed and downloaded by the issue readers. Once a dataset is published, it is indexed with appropriate issue/volume numbers and pages, and turns into the ‘published’ stage. From this point on, the dataset is available to all of the Platform users for downloading and re-using in their research.

The following section aims to provide researchers with guidelines on how to handle copyright. The main goal is to make researchers aware of the responsibilities that follow out of copyright. These requirements mainly arise when using other people’s material during the creation of a scientific work. Before uploading scientific material to the OpenScienceLink portal, the researcher must take into account his responsibilities under relevant national copyright law.

With regard to the re-use of material that has been originally published on the OpenScienceLink portal, we refer to the guidelines concerning our licensing practices. Content uploaded to the OpenScienceLink platform is licensed to platform users under the Creative Commons 4.0 – BY-NC-SA license. The two main consequences of this license for the researcher are:

1. When uploading material via the OpenScienceLink portal, the author agrees that his material will be shared to others under the CC.04 BY-NC-SA License.
2. Material originally published via the OpenScienceLink portal can be re-used under the conditions of the CC.04 BY-NC-SA License.

The use of scientific articles via external databases accessible via the portal is not captured by this license. For instance, GoPubMed enables the access to articles from the Lancet and Open Access journals. In order to re-use these works, the licensing conditions of those journals, and of the authors that have written the articles therein, must be taken into account.

The following section does not only provide information to the researcher as to which material he can use. It also informs him concerning his rights. Nevertheless, whilst still retaining his exclusive rights, when uploading material via the OpenScienceLink portal, the author agrees to publish his work under the aforementioned creative commons license. Therefore allowing others to use his material under the conditions of that license.

Copyright grants the right holder several exclusive rights with regard to the actions that can be performed with the copyrighted work. As a researcher building upon other people’s work, the exclusive rights of the original author must be respected.

• The reproduction right: the exclusive right to authorize or prohibit direct or indirect, temporary or permanent reproduction by any means and in any form, in whole or in part. This right also includes the right to adapt.

• The communication to the public right: the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit any communication to the public of  the copyrighted work, by wire or wireless means, including the making available to the public of this work in such a way that members of the public may access them from a place and at a time individually chosen by them.

Due to the exclusive nature of copyright, the reproduction and public communication of protected works requires the permission of the right holder.

Do Bare Facts – Research Data enjoy copyright protection?

Bare facts do not enjoy copyright protection: they belong to the domain of knowledge, which is a public good.[1] Consequently, biomedical research data per se do not enjoy copyright protection as well.

Research data may still be copyright-protected if they have been expressed in a tangible form with a sufficient level of originality. The latter however does not protect the data as such, but rather the work in which the data has been incorporated.[2]

Do Metadata enjoy copyright protection?

When metadata refer to descriptions of biomedical data using standardised keywords and terms, they are unlikely to be protected by copyright due to a lack of creative freedom in the choice, sequence and combination of the terms. However copyright in metadata cannot be ruled out.

Nevertheless, the purpose of OpenScienceLink - as well as most other open access initiatives - and the basis for its selection of data and services is the creation of a repository of well-structured and semantically linked datasets. The role of metadata herein is crucial and descriptions should be based on existing and established domain ontologies.[3] Indeed, any freedom in the description and definitions of terms may lead to less discoverability of the data and should therefore be avoided.

Do datasets enjoy copyright protection?

Scientific datasets are unlikely to attract copyright when they are the result of research. This can be concluded from the fact that the level of freedom required for a researcher to express his creativity is fairly limited.

However it is the researcher who ‘Has to make sense of the data that have been collected by exploring and interpreting them’.[4] When a researcher has sufficient freedom and made personal choices in how to present the results of his data collection activities the resulting dataset will be protected under copyright.

Does a database enjoy copyright or any other protection?

A database may enjoy copyright protection when it is considered ‘original’, i.e. when it is the author’s own intellectual creation by reason of the selection or arrangement of the contents. A database selection or arrangement, which purely depends on technical factors or aims to achieve accuracy and exhaustiveness, will also not be protected by copyright. Scientific databases, which constitute bare facts and therefore limit creative freedom, are generally not considered to fall under copyright protection.[5]

The creator of a database may also enjoy a sui generis right for the investment he has made when creating the database (see section What is the Database Rights?)

What are the exclusive rights of the original database’s creator?

The author of the database has the exclusive right to carry out or authorise the:

1. Temporary or permanent reproduction by any means, in any form, in whole or in part;
2. Rights of adaptation, translation, arrangement and any other alteration;
3. Any form of distribution to the public of the database or of copies thereof (subject to Community exhaustion); and
4. Any communication to the public, display or performance to the public;

Scientific datasets and works originally provided to the OSL platform are licensed under the CC.04 – BY-NC-SA license. This license allows the re-use of the works within the OSL repository under the conditions of the license (see section Making Scientific Research and Data Open Access – Licensing Guidelines).

Who owns copyright?

In general this is the author or creator of the work. However there are a few instances where permission needs to be obtained from other parties. It depends on national legislation how this permission should be given and from whom.

1)Joint ownership

If a work has two authors there is joint copyright for both authors. When a research project has multiple researcher’s institutions there is joint copyright for all researchers/institutions

If research material is derived from existing data enjoying copyright and the newly created work also enjoys copyright there is joint copyright.

2)Works created in the course of employment

The vast majority of scholarly works is made in the course of employment either with a research institution, an enterprise or with universities. In some countries copyright in works created during the course of employment will vest in the employer.[6] However since this may differ, it is important to always consult national copyright regulations. Academic institutions and funding bodies may waive copyright in research materials and publications and assign ownership to the researchers. But the opposite might also be true: the rights of the researcher may be assigned to the research institution. It is therefore very important do check with your institution or funding body what applies to you.

It is important to check the copyright policy of your institution.