GHG Europe Database

GHG-Europe data policy

Introduction

The GHG-Europe Data Policy is a voluntary commitment negotiated with all GHG-Europe Parties supporting the Open Access philosophy. This data policy document describe rules and methods to access the GHG-Europe data inside and outside the project.

GHG-Europe is based on partial funding from the European Commission. The participating Parties agree, where possible, and subject to existing or future third party rights, to deliver to the Project also data and knowledge produced from other funding sources. Access and use policies of these data are explained in this document.

Although access to GHG-Europe data is generally open, a Data Use Policy is implemented. This Data Use Policy outlines different regulations which are explained in this document and serves the purpose of appropriately acknowledging the work of data providers. All the data produced in the context of GHG-Europe are shared openly while data provided by external contributors is shared only internally and requires an authorization to be downloaded by external users.

Definitions

Data: everything that is stored in the database and for this reason accessible to other people.

Data Access: is the possibility for a user to log-in the database and get access to data that can be downloaded.

Data Use: is the possibility for a user to present results based on data downloaded from the project database.

Data Provider: is a person (can also be responsible for a group or project) involved or interested in the project that is responsible for a dataset present in the database and that has full rights on these data.

Project Partner: scientific responsible listed in the CA of the GHG-Europe project + 2 additional delegates (the number of delegates may vary according to the size of a work group using the database). The Project partner receives a personal account for the database.

Associated Contributor: is a person, group, project that agreed to join the GHG-Europe project (without budget), because of interest in the general project goals and who wants to mutually share data.

External Contributor: is a person, group, project not interested in the general project goals and activities, but who’s data are relevant to the project and thus decides to make these data available to the project partners.

General User: is a person interested in accessing the GHG-Europe data and who is not included in either of categories listed above.

External Domain: comprises all datasets and metadata directly available to all users after registration.

Internal Domain: additionally comprises datasets and metadata with access regulated by possible limitations.

Data Access Regulation

  1. Data acquired during the project are stored as part of the External Domain section of the database. Data in the External Domain can be downloaded by all users (Project Partners, Associated Contributors, General Users). Access is possible after login. The Data Provider receives a notification when a user downloads his data. In exceptional cases and after the authorization by the Project Coordinator, data acquired during the project can be shared in the Internal Domain section for a period of maximum 12 months.

  2. Project Partners (up to three people per partner, but the number may vary according to the size of a work group using the database) can login and access the data stored in the Internal Domain section without restrictions and direct interaction with the Data Providers. The Data Provider receives a notification when a Project Partner downloads his data. This also applies for data submitted by External Contributors unless it is specifically requested to restrict access due to IPR issues.

  3. Associated Contributors gain the same rights as Project Partner as soon as they share their data in the project database. They may access data in the Internal Domain section of the database ,with the exception to access data provided by External Contributors. External Contributors need to communicate, if they make their data available to Associated Contributors. A single Data Provider may ask not to share his data with Associated Contributors for specific reasons.

  4. General Users can access all data in the External Domain and see what is available in the Internal Domain of the database. To access data in the Internal Domain they need to specify the reason why they want to access the data. On this basis the Data Provider may decide to authorize the data download. The authorization request is automatically managed by the database. A Data Provider may also decide to generally grant access to his data for the General Users without any authorization.

  5. All data submitted by Project Partners and Associated Contributors become part of the External Domain and are thus accessible for General Users without any need of authorization. The use of these data remain regulated by the Data Use Policy for one year after the end of the project. Data submitted by External Contributors will not be accessible unless explicitly requested by the data owner .In this case the Data Use Policy applies as for other datasets.

  6. Data downloaded from the database must not be redistributed in any form.

  7. Together with the data an information document will be available outlining the Data Policy, the reference name to be contacted, standard and specific acknowledgments requested by the Data Providers and a list of relevant papers or citations.

Data Use Regulation

  1. Project Partners, Associated Contributors and General Users may use the data for scientific activities (papers, presentations...). They are requested to inform the Data Providers and invite them to contribute to the work with additional intellectual inputs, analysis and discussion that would lead to a co-authorship. The invitation to contribute should be based on a first draft of results still open enough to be discussed and changed on the basis of the feedback from Data Providers.

  2. Data Providers may ask for the citation of specific papers describing the data used or specific acknowledgment that should be added to the general acknowledgment to the GHG-Europe project: “The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 244122, GHG-Europe.”

  3. The information provided with any data downloaded includes a reference person to be contacted, a list of relevant papers and possible specific ongoing activities and analysis that are currently ongoing and are precluded without coordination with the Data Providers (e.g. topics of ongoing PhD thesis)

  4. For documentation purposes all products that originate from data downloaded from the database must be submitted to the Coordinator, the Database and the Data Providers involved upon publication.

  5. One year after the end of the project the Data Use Policy will change and become more flexible. It is suggested that Data Providers are contacted to ensure proper use of the data thus not imposing this. Notification about data download will continue to be sent to the Data Providers who will have the possibility to contact the data user.