QDR seeks to make its data holdings “as open as possible, as closed as necessary.” The licenses that QDR uses, and agreements that users who deposit and download data sign, are intended to maximize the use and re-use of the data while protecting human participants and complying with legal requirements.
Data deposited with QDR are made available under three different licenses / agreements that specify legal requirements for using the data:
- Creative Commons “By Attribution” (CC-BY): one of the most permissive licenses available, CC-BY, allows any type of re-use of data as long as the original creator is credited. We use this license for documentation files and, if requested by a depositor, for data files, provided the files do not contain any human participant information or copyright in them is not owned by a third party.
- QDR’s Standard Download Agreement: data published under this agreement are freely accessible to every registered QDR user for use in research or teaching. The agreement places certain limits on how the data can be used. Users cannot try to identify any individuals whose identities the depositor sought to keep confidential in the data; cannot re-publish the data or parts thereof without explicit, written permission from QDR; and cannot use the data for commercial purposes.
- QDR’s Special Download Agreement: data published under this agreement have been deemed to be sensitive data, or otherwise require additional controls on who can access them and how. Special Download Agreements contain all the limitations imposed by the Standard Download Agreement and an additional set of requirements for access that are specific to a given data project/file. For data projects published in QDR’s data catalog, the conditions are listed in the “Terms” tab on the data project’s landing page. Users can access files published under this type of agreement by reading the terms and then clicking the “Request Access” button next to them in QDR’s data catalog. QDR staff will contact user who do so to request the additional information required by the terms of the agreement.
In addition to adhering to these requirements, users should follow established academic best practices and
1) Fully cite any data project or data file used in their work regardless of its license.
2) Link to data on QDR as the authoritative version rather than reproducing it in whole or in parts, even where the license allows for such reproduction. This allows authors to receive full credit for data usage via QDR metrics and ensures that potential users are aware of updated versions of the data should they exist.