UK Ocean Acidification (UKOA) research programme Data Policy
Approved by the UKOA Programme Executive Board following community/PAG consultation
The following data policy applies to the UK Ocean Acidification research programme (UKOA) funded at NERC research centres, Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) and partner institutes. This policy is fully consistent with NERC data policy 1 , with wording tailored to the programme.
- Data 2 arising from the programme will be lodged with the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) on acquisition 3 , together with such metadata as are defined under the NERC data policy. Data submitted to BODC must be in a data format agreed between BODC and the submitting researcher.
- Data will be embargoed for 2 years from acquisition, allowing the data collectors and immediate co-workers to exploit them in the first instance. During the 2 year embargo period, data may be made available by BODC to other researchers within the UKOA programme on the basis of approved requests. Approval for such release by BODC would be sought by email, to provide a written audit trail, and would involve a data licence agreement, stipulating that co-authorship is a requirement of using the data during the lifetime of the UKOA programme.
- If requests for data access should be made to BODC by parties outside the programme during the embargo period, these will be forwarded to the data originator to consider their allowability, under licence agreements. In addition, guidance may be sought from the UKOA Science Coordinator, Dr Phil Williamson (and, if necessary the Programme Executive Board) if major data transfers are involved, to avoid compromising the interests of other programme participants.
- The metadata will not be embargoed, to allow the wider community to be aware of work being carried out under UKOA and facilitate community building.
- With the potential exception of studentship-related data (see below) and data for which exceptional circumstances apply 4 , data will be made available by BODC to everyone 5 after 2 years.
- Data arising from UKOA studentships (either linked to grants or 'stand alone') must also be lodged with BODC, and will then also be covered by the 2 year embargo from acquisition. In addition, studentship data central to the PhD project may be granted an embargo-extension where the 2 year embargo expires before the end of the studentship, thereby providing additional protection to a student's intellectual property. Justification for such an extension needs to be provided by the supervisor and/or PI to BODC when the data are submitted. However, any extension to the embargo period is not expected to increase the total embargo period beyond 4 years from the start of the studentship, neither does it imply that the student has exclusive rights to data obtained through UKOA support.
- Any corrections, improvements or amendments to data must be lodged with BODC as soon as possible.
- Researchers making use of UKOA data are responsible for ensuring that the data used in publications are the best available at the time.
- In the event of dispute, the final decision rests with the UKOA Programme Executive Board.
- 1 NERC Data Policy : online at www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/documents/datapolicy-guidance.pdf . Note that it is a condition of acceptance of NERC funding (and co-funding) that the NERC Data Policy is followed, together with programme-specific aspects detailed here.
- 2 Data : include field-based observations, field and laboratory-based mesocosm experiments, selected model output, data syntheses, data-model syntheses, model codes and information on actual samples. In the event of doubt, the UKOA Data Manager Dr Rob Thomas should be consulted.
- 3 On acquisition : the time-scale may vary between data types (for example, real-time data could go directly to BODC) but the overall aim is to keep the time-scale as short as possible and certainly less than 6 months from actual measurements or other data origination. This is to ensure that data acquired during UKOA are available to others in the programme within its lifetime.
- 4 Exceptional circumstances are limited to those legally allowed under the Freedom of Information Act, primarily relating to commercial confidentiality, or where personal safety or national security might be compromised.
- 5 Everyone is defined as public, including commercial and foreign bodies.
