What You Should Bear in Mind When Publishing and Licensing Open Data

Data should be made available when it is published under an open licence, such as a Creative Commons licence. CC-BY 4.0 (unlimited use with citation) is the most common licence for research data. The Open Data Commons have developed a series of open licences that are specifically adapted to the characteristics of the storage, preservation, joint use and reuse of data.

The Public License Selector is a useful tool for selecting a suitable licence.

Some institutions have specific requirements for the type of licence, which is important to bear in mind during collaborative projects in particular.

You can find further information on this topic in our posts “Using Open Content Licences” and “Legal Issues in Open Science”.

You can also find plenty of information on these pages:

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Take a look at forschungsdaten.info on Legal Issues for more information.