The data available in this database has been shared by individual scientists or teams with the scientific community in the belief that their wide dissemination will lead to greater understanding and new scientific insights and that global scientific problems require international cooperation. Part of the data have been acquired in the context of European research projects and in these cases specific project policies could apply (see the project interfaces). In the view of a simplification of the existing policies, data access and data use regulations have been separated and each of them has two possible options, explained below.
The data access policy regulate the possibility of a registered user to download the data. It is independent respect to the right to use the data because there could be users interested to get the data only to reproduce existing studies without any plan of publication or presentation.
Public data access
The data with public access policy are available directly to all the registered users. Sharing the data in such a way increase the level of transparency and encourage new potential users. In general, data collected during EU projects are shared under this policy 1-2 years after the end of the project but there are also single PIs that decide to share under this access policy also new data. To access the data the user have to register or log-in and use the Data Request page to prepare a query. The data will be sent by email (link to download) as soon as ready.
Restricted data access
There are data stored in the database that are not directly and openly shared with the scientific community since part of active projects or simply because the data owner request this. However it is still possible to ask access to these data exactly as for the open access data (log-in and request preparation in the Data Request page). These data however will be sent to the user only after the authorization by the data PI (Principal Investigator of the site). When the data access request is submitted, an email is automatically sent by the system to all the PIs responsible of sites with restricted data access policy that will decide to authorize or not the download based mainly on the planned data use indicated in the data request.
Using the data it is requested to respect the data use policy reported below and that will be also attached to the data. It is mandatory to fully respect the data use policy and this will help to develop a trustful and collaborative relation between data users and data providers. As for the data access there are two main and different data use policies that the PIs or the projects funding the measurements decide to associate to the data.
Open data use
This data use policy is inspirited to the open and free exchange of data and information in and between scientific communities. The use is regulated by simple requests that are needed to properly acknowledge the work done at the sites. Here below it is reported the full text of the data use policy:
Open Data Use Policy
The data you downloaded have been acquired during past or ongoing European Research projects or furnished by individual scientists who encourage their use under an open data policy that emphasizes the free and open exchange of scientific information.
The data are made freely available to the public and the scientific community in the belief that their wide dissemination will lead to greater understanding and new scientific insights and that global scientific problems require international cooperation. Data download is unrestricted and requires only a free registration needed for web security reasons.
The data owners and EU projects that decided to share these data openly rely on the ethics and integrity of the users to assure that the data providers and funding projects and agencies receive fair credit for their work through inclusion of the texts provided below in the acknowledgment.
An email has been automatically sent to the contact person of each dataset downloaded to inform them about your interest in the data. We kindly ask you to send accepted papers or links to them to the database staff and PIs of the sites used in the paper. It is also recommended to contact the site PIs prior to publication to prevent potential misuse or misinterpretation of the data; if the work is based on only a few sites, this contact is strongly recommended.
Downloaded data cannot be redistributed to others and must not be redistributed via other websites, databases r any other storage system to prevent circulation of different versions of the datasets.
Regulated data use
The use of the data shared under this policy require an iteration with the PI in order to evaluate the interest of the site staff to get involved in the study, give additional intellectual input and become co-author of the work.
Regulated Data Use Policy
The data you downloaded have been acquired during past or ongoing European Research projects or furnished by individual scientists who decided to share their measurements through a database in the view potential collaborations and join activities.
The data are made freely available to the public and the scientific community for their activities but the use is governed by the DATA USE POLICY reported in this document. The data owners and EU projects that decided to share these data rely on the ethics and integrity of the users to assure that the Data Use Policy is fully respected.
Data users are requested to inform the Data owners about the planned activities 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 owners.
In all the cases (e.g. if the data owner is not interested to contribute) it is requested to properly acknowledge the data providers and the funding agencies using the texts provided below and to inform the database staff and data owner about publications that include these data.
More information about the projects specific data policies can be found in the project websites and interfaces.
Downloaded data cannot be redistributed to others and must not be redistributed via other websites, databases r any other storage system to prevent circulation of different versions of the datasets.
Part of the data could be subject to different data policies decided directly by the projects funding the activities. These data are in general distributed only through the project specific interfaces that are available in the top bar menu. The project specific data policies are available in the dedicated interfaces so please read them carefully when data from these projects are used.