Licencing of Data for Storage, Management and Release

Geoscience Australia and AusSeabed

AusSeabed is a community and a program of work, but it is not a legal entity. The AusSeabed Data Hub is an infrastructure program that is run by Geoscience Australia on behalf of the AusSeabed Community, Steering Committee and Executive Board to store, manage and deliver greater seabed data. All agreements, licenses and copyright statements referred to in subsequent sections will therefore refer to Geoscience Australia rather than AusSeabed.

In order to share data with AusSeabed, the data owner must become a contributing data partner, and must be empowered to provide the data with permission to Geoscience Australia to distribute the data under a Creative Commons By 4.0 license, in perpetuity. If you are unable to do so, but still believe the data should be shared through AusSeabed, please contact AusSeabed to discuss further.

Outlined below are some further questions to consider that may impact on your ability to share the data:

1. Are you a student or employee of a academic institution?
   Each institution has its own policies surrounding ownership of intellectual property or assets acquired through centrally funded projects. It is best to seek advice prior to proceeding, and ensure that you are clear about whether you are submitting data representing yourself as an individual data owner, or the organisation as the data owner.

2. Are you an employee of an Australian federal government agency?
   While each department may have different processes and policies regarding the sharing of information, there is a significant investment over the last decade to open government data for free and reliable access.

3. Did you procure the data through a 3rd party provider?
   If you have purchased data, then the terms of its re-supply to others should be outlined in your procurement documentation.

Geoscience Australia License Requirement

GA stores large volumes of data that has been acquired by the organisation, and on behalf of other organisations for the common good of the public. In order to maximise the value of storing other organisations or individual’s data, AusSeabed, on behalf of GA would prefer to receive data that can be released under a Creative Commons 4.0 licence(CCby 4.0). What this means for data contributors:

1. If you have already applied a CCby 4.0 licence to your data – there is no further work. GA will happily store data that has been assessed as of interest, and release the data with this licence applied.

2. If you have applied a more restrictive licence, AusSeabed would require the data owner to provide a signed statement that would allow GA to release the data under this CCby 4.0 licence in perpetuity.

   1. Please note that acknowledgement of the CCBy 4.0 licence being applied OR the signing of the statement of release will need to be completed for each dataset submitted and is covered in the data submission process and associated data registration forms.

   2. If you are unable to provide the data for release with this licence, please contact AusSeabed@ga.gov.au to discuss your options further.  

 Please be aware, the granting GA the ability to release this data under this licence, in perpetuity:

1. Does not replace you/your organisation as the cited data owner

2. Does not remove you/your organisation as the cited person or organisation when data is utilised. That is authority to publish does not negate GA’s responsibilities to provide appropriate citation for the data. 

3. Does mean that GA will be the cited custodian when the data is referenced.

4. Does mean that GA will ultimately make the decision on whether or not to publish the data (or continue to publish the data) regardless of you as the cited data’s owners desire to do so, however it is unlikely that GA would refuse to remove data if requested to do so.

An example of a citation structure for data provided by John Smith at Deakin University is shown below to clarify.

Point of Contact:

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
clientservices@ga.gov.au (Manager Client Services)

Cnr Jerrabomberra Ave and Hindmarsh Dr GPO Box 378, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia

Call 1800 800 173,02 6249 9960

Owner:

Deakin University

221 Burwood Highway Burwood Victoria 3125 Australia

Call +61 3 9244 6100

Custodian:

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
clientservices@ga.gov.au (Manager Client Services)

Cnr Jerrabomberra Ave and Hindmarsh Dr GPO Box 378, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia

Call 1800 800 173,02 6249 9960

Principal Investigator:

John Smith

Deakin University

221 Burwood Highway Burwood Victoria 3125 Australia

Call +61 3 9244 6100