Open science and research

Open content licenses - Creative Commons

CC licenses let creators and copyright owners give permission in advance for certain uses of their material. The various license terms define the ways in which users can legally share, modify, or build upon a copyrighted work without the need to ask the owner/creator for permission. 

CC licenses are globally recognized, standard, machine readable licenses used for open academic publishing and sharing of research data. Every CC license ensures that creators get credit for their work. Copyright ownership remains with the licensor. Once granted, a CC license cannot be withdrawn from someone who is already reusing your work under the license, so think carefully before attaching a CC license to your work.

CC licenses and publications

  • Aalto University recommends CC BY 4.0 for publications unless the publisher recommends another license.

CC licenses and research data

  • When publicly funded research data is published in a data repository, CC BY 4.0 is compulsory, compliant with the requirements defined in Open data directive, and implemented in Finland with the national law Laki julkisin varoin tuotettujen tutkimusaineistojen uudelleenkäytöstä. The attribution term of CC BY 4.0 license ensures, that creators of research data are credited.
  • Researchers can also choose CC0 1.0 Universal waiver and ask to be credited. With a waiver the attribution is not a binding license term, so attribution stacking can be avoided in cases of data being combined from multiple sources.
  • For research data that is not publicly funded, Aalto recommends the CC BY 4.0 license, but other licenses can be chosen to fulfil the goals of research work, funders' requirements, publishing agreement requirements and publishers' data availability policies.
  • For research data that is not publicly funded, dual licensing can be used in cases where the goal is selling commercial licenses in addition to distributing a license allowing only academic and other non-commercial uses.

Licenses for software

More information

Share your work - Creative Commons

How to choose a CC license (in Aalto University Visual Resources Centre guide, based on Tarmo Toikkanen's image)

Maria Rehbinder, [email protected], +358505703396.

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Research Data Management (RDM) and Open Science

Properly managed research data creates competitive edge and is an important part of a high-quality research process. Here you will find links to support, services and instructions for research data management.

Services
An image describing the benefits of open access (for example findability, impact, visibility, higher citation rates, compliance with grant rules, value for taxpayers)

Open Access Publishing

Open access to publications ensures that scientific publications are accessible to everyone free of charge.

Open science and research
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