publishing datasets with multiple licenses

[Chris Hunter]

Hi,

When publishing a dataset that contains multiple objects/files some of which are code using OSI licenses and some of which are datafiles with CC0 waivers and some images with CC-BY licenses how should one add that information to the datacite metadata?

Would it be appropriate to add a license.txt file to the dataset listing all the different licenses of the various objects and then add this to the DataCite metadata:

<rightsList>

 <rights rightsURI="info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess">Open Access</rights> 

 <rights rightsURI="https://<URL to the license.txt file in the dataset>">bespoke licence file</rights>

</rightsList>

or is there a better way to do it?

If this is covered somewhere in the documentation please point me to it as I couldn't find it when I was looking.

Thanks

Chris

[Kelly Stathis]

Hi Chris,

Great question! I would encourage you to post this to the PID Forum—you might get more responses there in the DataCite Chat Room. (We're more active over there lately!)

I think including a license.txt file with the dataset is a good idea. In addition, you can repeat the rights property with the different licenses (OSI, CC0, CC-BY, etc) too, if you want those licenses to be visible in the metadata. However, as this does not allow for distinguishing which license(s) apply to which file(s), having the license.txt file is still key.

Cheers,

Kelly