Dear all,
Thanks, interesting discussion re. student data and their treatment.
Such issues like 'fairness' might be a relevant topic of perception, and
whether (graduate) students really want to work at 'unfair' and 'brutal'
institutions, and get a career and degree there.
Usually they do not want that at all, obviously. Nobody wants that.
We see such things all the time, and with North America and recruiting,
where recruited students are essentially expected to work here as 'slaves'
(=they have not many rights, or unions). That's the North American model,
now widely exposed onto the world.
And often people from abroad then are not coming to here, and because they
do not need such a live and degree in the first place, or can get it
elsewhere equally.
While this appears to be a (poor) personal choice, it actually is a
massive problem within the educational system and for society either way.
Data questions with graduate students, and often worse with postdocs, have
been a serious issue in the past, e.g. genetics and environmental impact
studies and with industry funds.
The 'ritual' of publishing a paper is still not so supportive of data
publishing and not embedded much, hardly enforced even.
While my own policies are rather clear on that and favoring open access,
many university lawyers and funders, even deans, provosts, libraries and
infrastructures are still not in support at all, nor are the business
models really sustainable for that, yet anyways. Consider the western
world currently as 'financially broke' with no good outlook or valuing
education and libraries. I doubt other nations are in a better state to
get there (BRIC nations or 'the rest', unfortunately)!
In our own work, and in that of our graduate students (all is open access
and global sharing) I hardly see any awards or recognition in that for
years.
Virtually nobody says 'thank you' or similar; rather vice versa. It's
quite dreadful to see the mismatches.
So again, we still see much talk, but virtually no relevant action. See
our own work on this, or papers by David Carlson (2011 and 2013) in Nature
and Science respectively. It's all very well documented, and shortcomings
and the responsible main players/institutions are clear.
More to be said; just my view and experience.
Very best
Falk
Falk Huettmann PhD, Associate Professor
-EWHALE lab- Biology and Wildlife Dept., Institute of Arctic Biology
419 IRVING I, University of Alaska Fairbanks AK 99775-7000 USA Email
[log in to unmask] Phone 907 474 7882 Fax 907 474 6716
-----Original Message-----
From: Research Data Management discussion list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Richard Rankin
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2015 2:08 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Ownership of data collected by postgrads
I took the liberty of forwarding this to Emily Goodhand, who tweats under
the name copyrightgirl https://twitter.com/copyrightgirl, to ask her
opinion. Response below
I'm always a bit wary when universities require PhD students to sign over
their IP rights to them, particularly copyright, but quite often data is
factual and not subject to copyright.
I see no reason why signing data over would not be legal - it may not be
seen as fair, however depending on the type of data it is it may be
sensitive or commercial, created at the university for the scope of a
university research project, in which case I think the university could
well argue that it would need some control over it.
Surely there shouldn't be a problem with this as if the students are
funded by research councils they will have to make their data open anyway?
I think that if the university does not have a good reason as to why a
student should sign over the rights to their research data, the university
may be exposing itself to a possible legal challenge under unfair contract
terms. It may be that students would never bother to challenge a
university, but nonetheless the risk is still there.
It's all a matter of what is fair or not - it's not illegal for the
university to get the student to assign rights to it, but if challenged
the university could fall foul of having provided an unfair contract.
Slim, but possible.
________________________________________
From: Research Data Management discussion list
[[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Angus Whyte
[[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 06 January 2015 14:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Ownership of data collected by postgrads
I contacted Charles Oppenheim to see if he has anything further to add.
He reiterated his view below, i.e. that students own the rights in data
they create as part of a project when they are self or grant-funded.
That is in keeping with previous Jisc Legal advice on the subject (1).
The University of Oxford statutes quoted by Sebastian Rahtz below allude
to this by raising the possibility for regulations 'reguiring' students to
waive those rights. According to Charles (who may be a layman but is an
internationally recognised expert one (2), if those regulations exist
"such terms and conditions are unfair contractual terms imposed on
students which could (and should) be challenged through the courts.
Other legal reports have said much the same, as does Monotti's and
Ricketson's standard textbook on Universities and copyright law
(Universities and Intellectual Property: Ownership and Exploitation)"
Accepting that students do own the IPR, where they legally exist, in my
view the more important point is to strongly encourage student data
depositors to use CC0 or CC-BY. By the way, Alex Ball has recently
updated the DCC guide How to licence data (3)
Hope that helps
Angus
(1)
http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/ManageContent/ViewDetail/ID/1893/Who-owns-copyr
ight-in-works-created-in-universities-and-colleges-6-June-2011.aspx
(2) Charles Oppenheim bio see
http://researchsupporthub.northampton.ac.uk/2014/03/21/charles-oppenheim-v
isiting-professor-in-library-and-learning-services/
(3) http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/how-guides/license-research-data
On 06/01/2015 11:00, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:
>> On 6 Jan 2015, at 10:32, Martin Donnelly <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>>
>> Here's an excerpt from a message posted by Peter Murray-Rust to the
>> Open Science list last year, quoting Charles Oppenheim.
>>
>> "If a STUDENT has created the data as part of a project and they are
self-funded, or receive a grant, then the student owns the rights to the
data. If anyone else wants to use the data, they must get permission from
the student. The student cannot be forced to agree. (Any attempt to
REQUIRE the student to assign or license rights would be invalid in law;
get the student to voluntarily agree).
> I really don't see how this can be true. Maybe it depends on the
jurisdiction? Charles Oppenheim is suggesting a layman's interpretation of
UK law which may be wishful thinking.
>
> To quote again our Statutes:
>
> "Council may make regulations:
>
> (1) defining the classes of persons or naming individuals to whom
> section 5 (1) (c) of this statute shall apply;
>
> (2) requiring student members and such other persons as may be specified
in regulations to sign any documents necessary in order to give effect to
the claim made by the University in this Part and to waive any rights in
respect of the subject-matter of the claim which may be conferred on them
by Chapter IV of Part 1 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988; ."
>
> It seems unlikely that the University of Oxford would enshrine something
in its statutes which was illegal.
>
> Students enter into a contract with the university, and may well sign
away their rights. No, they can't be forced to, but equally the university
is not forced to recognise them as a student. A free-standing "student"
can do what they like, of course, but in exchange for being associated
with the institution, they would be expected to follow its rules.
> --
> Sebastian Rahtz
> Chief Data Architect
> University of Oxford IT Services
> 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431
>
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland,
with registration number SC005336.
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