Licence Protocol

The University of Bath Research Data Policy Guidance states that any licences applied to data should ensure the originator of the dataset is acknowledged. The University does not normally recommend the use of licences which restrict commercial use.

The Archive supports the following licences:

Any of the above licences and statements can be used when depositing data in the University's Research Data Archive. The Archive also allows datasets to be published with all rights reserved, or to be restricted to individual requests for access. Our preferred licence is CC BY 4.0.

All Rights Reserved

The most restrictive condition is to reserve all rights. This allows end users to view data to confirm research findings, but restricts the use of data for other purposes. Additional permissions may be granted to specific data users, and may require the user to sign an agreement before re-using the data.

Creative Commons Attribution–NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-ND 4.0)

This licence allows users to share the dataset but not to distribute derivative works or adaptations made from it. This is very restrictive in a research context, but may be appropriate if the dataset contains materials which may lose their value or present a risk if altered (e.g. images).

Creative Commons Attribution–ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0)

This licence allows users to distribute adaptations or derivative works made from the data, as long as they are shared under a similar licence. For software, an appropriate equivalent licence is the GNU General Public Licence 3.0 (GPLv3) or GNU Lesser General Public Licence 3.0 (LGPLv3).

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)

This licence enables users to make full use of the dataset, including permission to adapt and modify the data without any requirement to share the resulting dataset. This allows the widest possible re-use, while maintaining the requirement to be acknowledged as the originator of the dataset. For software, an appropriate equivalent licence is the Apache License 2.0 or the MIT License.

Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)

In this licence, copyright (and related rights) are waived to the fullest extent possible, so this is not normally used in the Archive, but can be if an attribution licence would render the dataset unusable. In the case of re-use by a research organisation, it would still be expected that the source of the data should be acknowledged either in a related document or in a citation in a publication in line with academic norms, but this is not a requirement of the licence. CC0 is usually the most appropriate licence for metadata and all metadata in the University's Research Data Archive are released under a CC0 licence.

The Research Data Service provides guidance on licences for research data, from the perspectives of applying licences to new datasets and reusing licensed data.

If you would like the Research Data Archive to support other licences, please contact us.