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Learning Data Ethics for Open Data Sharing

Data Use Agreements

We will not be going into great detail about Data Use Agreements (DUAs), because these are more often formally talked about when you’re using vendor proprietary data. In those cases, they often look like long contracts with legal clauses. However, Data Use Agreements can be short and easy to read too. Think of a Creative Commons CC-BY license, which is often the default open license placed on your data repository record. This is essentially stating, “User, you are allowed to USE this DATA, provided that you AGREE to acknowledge me as the data source.” Dataverse, a open data repository, has provided a sample Data Use Agreement for deidentified data that is a more contractual-looking version of what you’ll often see in the data repository record itself.

If we break down the clauses, we’ll essentially see (underlines added):

“III. Use of the Materials: “Use of the Materials include but are not limited to viewing parts or the whole of the content included in the Materials; comparing data or content from the Materials with data or content in other Materials; verifying research results with the content included in the Materials; and extracting and/or appropriating any part of the content included in the Materials for use in other projects, publications, research, or other related work products.”

Meaning, you can look at, work with, and reuse this data.

“III.1.B. Restrictions In his/her Use of the Materials, Downloader cannot: … produce connections or links among the information included in User’s datasets (including information in the Materials), or between the information included in User’s datasets (including information in the Materials) and other third-party information that could be used to identify any individuals or organizations, not limited to research subject.”

Meaning, don’t intentionally try to re-identify participant subjects.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has provided 2 flowcharts about whether or not you should share data and if so whether or not you should have a Data Use Agreement. Check it out: https://research.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/61/2013/04/CCM3_039360.pdf

What would your Data Use Agreement say?

Source

Office of Sponsored Research. (2013). Data Use Agreement Guidance. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://research.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/61/2013/04/CCM3_039360.pdf

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