CarboExtreme Database

CarboExtreme data policy

Introduction

CarboExtreme partners aim to be as open as possible in terms of data access and data sharing as requested also by EU. This also in the trustiness that sharing data gives more possibilities to collaborate and obtain interesting results thanks to the involvement of groups with different backgrounds, experiences and interests.

CarboExtreme consortium is also ready to include data from other groups not partner of the project that could be interested or not in scientific collaborations. Data from these groups will be treated according with a different data policy respect to the data produced and funded by the project.

At the same time we think it is important that “data providers” have the possibility to participate to the scientific activities and be involved in the data use and paper writing and preparation. Also, “data providers” should have the priority in case of conflict of interest, when for example too similar analysis are planed or ongoing.

It is also important for the project to track and store information about who downloaded the data and why so that the “data providers” can understand the level of interest in their sites and the coordination/database evaluate the interest in the project data.

The project should have also the “priority” in analysing the new data and publish the results maintaining however the visibility in terms of data produced and possibility sharing the activities with others project also through collaborations between projects.

Definitions

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

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

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

Data provider: is a person (could be also responsible for a group or 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 CarboExtreme project + 2 delegates from him. The Project partner receive a specific account in the database. The limit to 2 delegates is to maintain control on the data access.

Associated partner: is a person, group, project that agreed to join the project (without budget) because interested to the general objective and interested to share data.

External contributor: is a person, group, project not directly interested to the project goals and activities but that own data relevant for the project and decided to make these data available to the project partners or part of the project partners.

General user: is a person interested in accessing the data and not included in the others categories listed above.

Data Access Regulation

  1. Project partners can login and access the data from the project database without restrictions and without direct interaction with the Data providers. The Data provider receive a notification when a Project partner download his data. If a Data providers is submitting part of the dataset that are not funded by the project and that should have restricted access, this needs to be specified to database and project coordinator and these data will be treated as provided by External contributors. Data submitted by External contributors are available directly only to the users specified by the data owner.

  2. Associated partners gain same Project partner rights, policy and procedure to access the data as soon as they also share their data in the project database, with exception to the data provided by External contributors. Single Data provider can ask to not share his own data with associated partners for specific reasons. External contributors need to communicate if they want or not made available their data to the Associated partners.

  3. General users need to register to the database indicating also the reason why they want to access the data. After a data request the download will be possible only after the authorization by the Data provider that will receive an automatic email with the request submitted and links to accept or not. The Data provider can decide to make their data more open and then available directly also to General users without the needs of an authorization.

  4. Two years after the end of the project all the data coming from Project partners and Associated partners become directly available for access to General users without needs of authorization and their use regulated by the policy reported in the Data Use Regulation, point 4. Data submitted by External contributors will not be directly available except if explicitly requested by the data owner and in this case the data use policy will be the same as for Project and Associated partners.

  5. Data downloaded from the database cannot be redistributed in any form.

  6. Together with the data a information document will be available containing data policy, standard acknowledgment, specific acknowledgment requested by the Data providers and list of relevant papers or citations.

Data Use Regulation

  1. Project partners and Associated partners can use the data for scientific activities (papers, presentations...). It is requested to inform the Data providers and invite them to contribute to the work with additional intellectual inputs, analysis, discussion that would lead to co-authorship. The invitation to contribute should be based on a draft first results open enough to be discussed and changed on the basis of the feedbacks from Data providers.

  2. General users data use is agreed directly between the user and the Data providers that authorized the access to the data. The data policy text attached with the data will be the same as for point 1 with specification that additional requirements could be asked to users not involved directly in CarboExtreme.

  3. All the products based on data downloaded from the database must be submitted once published to the Coordinator and to the Database for documentation.

  4. Two years after the end of the project, when the data submitted by Project partners and Associated partners become directly available (point 4 of the Data Access) the Data use policy will change and become more flexible, suggesting to contact the Data providers to ensure proper use of the data but not imposing this. Notification about the data download will continue to be sent to the Data providers that will have the possibility to contact directly the user.