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When publishing research data in a repository the choice of licence defines who can re-use the data, and for what purposes.
The Creative Commons set of licenses are the most commonly used for sharing research data by academics, and in academic publishing, with the the CC-BY license being the main one used for open access papers and books. These licenses are designed to be open, which means the material released under these licenses can be freely re-use without explicit permission being required, as long as the conditions of the license are adhered to. All of these licenses can be applied to items uploaded to the UCL Reserarch Data Repository. It is important to select an appropriate license for your data, which will govern both who can reuse data and what they are allowed to with it. Read the descriptions of the various licenses and select the one that matches your needs:
CC-0: Waves all rights and releases work to public domain.
This is not technically a licence at all but a waiver of the ownership of copyright for a particular item, often used for data deposits in databases. CC-0 permits others to freely build upon, enhance and reuse the work. There is no legal requirement to give acknowledgement to the original creator when material is released under the CC-0 terms, but professional standards for citation of sources should be adhered to when using data released under CC-0. The use of CC-0 is actively encouraged particularly for data publications.
CC-BY: By Attribution, which permits sharing and reuse of the material, for any purpose, as long as the original authors are credited.
The material can be freely shared, redistributed, transformed, built upon and adapted for any purpose, including commercial use. Anyone using the material must provide credit to the original authors and indicate clearly any changes that were made, and there is a legal obligation to do this. These terms are widely used for open access articles in academic journals.
CC-BY-SA: By Attribution, with a Share-Alike clause which means that anyone sharing or modifying the original work must release it under the same license.
The material can be freely shared, redistributed, transformed, built upon and adapted for any purpose, including commercial use. Anyone using the material must provide credit to the original authors and indicate clearly any changes that were made. Anyone sharing the work or a derivative of it must do under the same license terms as it was originally shared.
CC-BY-ND: The No Derivatives clause prevents anyone from producing a modified version of a work, whilst fully allowing sharing.
The material can be freely shared and redistributed. Anyone sharing the material must provide credit to the original authors. Sharing of a derivative of the original work that has been transformed, built upon or adapted is not allowed. This license effectively prevents people from altering your work in any way, while allowing free distribution.
CC-BY-NC: The Non Commercial clause specifically prevents reuse of material for commercial purposes.
The material can be freely shared, redistributed, transformed, built upon and adapted for any purpose, but not for any commercial use. Anyone using the material must provide credit to the original authors and indicate any changes that were made. This license effectively prevents a commercial entity from directly making use of your work. However, if someone produced a derivative version of your work and released that derivative under a more permissive license such as CC-BY that derivative would then be freely available even for commercial use. Consider the CC-BY-NC-SA licenses to avoid this scenario.
CC-BY-NC-SA: Non Commerical and Share-Alike clauses ensure any derivative material must also be shared under a Non-Commercial license.
The material can be freely shared, redistributed, transformed, built upon and adapted for any purpose, but not for any commercial use. Anyone using the material must provide credit to the original authors and indicate any changes that were made. Anyone sharing the work or a derivative of it must do under the same license terms as it was originally shared. This prevents a derivative version being released under a more open licence that would allow commercial use.
CC-BY-NC-ND: Prevents commercial use and non commercial users may only share, not modify, the material.
The material can be freely shared and redistributed, but not for any commercial use. Anyone sharing the material must provide credit to the original authors. Sharing of a derivative of the original work that has been transformed, built upon or adapted is not allowed. This is the most restrictive of the Creative Commons licenses.