Terms of Use

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ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH DATA REPOSITORY GENERAL TERMS OF USE

Effective as of (2020-11-18)

Welcome to the Arizona State University (ASU) Research Data Repository General Terms of Use. The ASU Research Data Repository is a dedicated research data management service platform that serves in the publication and reuse phase of the research data lifecycle and works in concert with the ASU Digital Repository ecosystem to present a more complete picture of ASU’s scholarly activities.

The following Terms of Use govern all use by you and any third parties who use your account of the Site and the Service accessed via our website located at https://dataverse.asu.edu. Use of the Service is offered subject to acceptance of and compliance with all of the terms and conditions contained herein (the General Terms of Use) and all other applicable operating rules, policies and procedures of the Service. By accessing or using the Service, you agree and accept all the terms in this General Terms of Use document (“Agreement”).

Please review the following terms carefully. If you do not agree to be bound by these Terms of Use in their entirety, you may not access or use the Service.

ASU reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to modify or replace any of the terms in this Agreement at any time without prior notice to Users. It is your responsibility to check the Agreement periodically for changes. Your continued use of the Service following the posting of any changes to the Agreement constitutes acceptance of those changes.

DEFINITIONS

Account – A User-controlled means of access to the Arizona State University (ASU) Research Data Repository that is protected by an ASURITE username and password, with which Users can obtain access to the ASU Research Data Repository’s uploading and downloading functionalities.

Administrator – The User who created, controls and is the main organizer, curator, and manager of a particular Dataverse.

Agreement – The General Terms of Use in its entirety.

Author – The person(s) from whom the data within the dataset originated; the person(s) who conducted the research that led to the creation of the dataset. This person can but need not be the same as the Depositor.

Content – Any information, data, text, software, scripts, graphics, and interactive features found on the ASU Research Data Repository application.

Curation – The actions of any User on the ASU Research Data Repository application that organize, shape, or otherwise edit the state, status, configuration, or content of any datasets or Dataverses.

Data Use Agreement – This is the restricted data usage license agreement option that the ASU Research Data Repository offers. If applied to a User Submission, the Data Use Agreement will be a legally-binding license contract between the Depositor and any Downloader of that User Submission.

Data Usage License Agreement – The license agreement between a Depositor and a Downloader governing the limits and restrictions (or lack thereof) of how the downloaded User Submissions can be used.

Dataset – A study, experiment, set of observations, or publication that is uploaded by a User. A dataset can comprise a single file or multiple files.

Dataverse – A virtual container with which to store research data studies (including datasets and other Dataverses) that can be customized and managed by its owner.

Depositor – The User who uploads a collection of data files as a dataset to a Dataverse on the application.

Download Data – Information collected whenever a dataset is downloaded, including but not limited to user account name, time of download, and downloaded file name.

ASU Research Data Repository – The repository application server as a whole, including all Services, Content, and related features, but not including any separate Dataverse sites created using ASU Research Data Repository’s source code and managed by independent outside parties who are unaffiliated with the ASU Research Data Repository.

Metadata – Accompanying information, either in a separate file or otherwise included in the dataset materials, about a particular dataset or Dataverse, including but not limited to Author’s name, publishing date, title of data contents, description of contents, and other such related information.

Preservation - set of activities aimed at ensuring that digital information of continuing value remains accessible and usable. Professional archival services, including backups, recovery, and standards-based persistent identifiers. The Service facilitates archival and long term access to datasets with persistent Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) provided by DataCite via ASU Library’s Global Dataverse Community Consortium (GDCC) membership.

Publish – A function available for User Submissions by which Users can make their Dataverse and/or their dataset containing data files publicly available and publicly searchable on the ASU Research Data Repository application search engine and third-party search engines (e.g., Google Search or Bing Search).

Restricted User Submissions – Any User Submissions that are published with either the ASU Research Data Repository’s Data Use Agreement or with a customized data usage license agreement that the Depositor drafts and/or designates for the Submission.

Service – The ASU’s services accessed via the Site, in which ASU affiliated users share, store, preserve, cite, explore, and make research data accessible and discoverable.

Site – The ASU Research Data Repository website, including application and server, brought to you by the ASU Library.

Unpublished Dataset – An uploaded dataset that has not yet been made available to the public and is viewable only to the Depositor or other users to whom the Depositor has granted access.

Unrestricted User Submissions – Any User Submissions that are published with a default CC0 default public domain dedication waiver agreement.

Use of the Service – Any access to, use of, or other action involving the ASU Research Data Repository application’s functions, services, resources, and repository of datasets, including but not limited to any uploading, posting, submitting, storing, searching for, downloading, distributing, facilitating distributions, and otherwise utilizing any Content found on the ASU Research Data Repository application.

User – Any individual or entity who owns and/or controls a registered account on the ASU Research Data Repository.

User Submissions – Uploaded Dataverses and datasets.

User Uploads – Any uploaded, submitted, disclosed, distributed, or otherwise posted content by a User, including but not limited to new Dataverses, new datasets, Metadata information, custom data usage license agreements, descriptive information for dataset download pages, user guides, and other contributions either originating from the User or originating from a third-party author who gave permission to the User to disseminate on the ASU Research Data Repository application.

PRIVACY POLICY

ASU respects the privacy of its Service users. Please refer to the ASU Library Privacy Statement and ASU’s Privacy Policy which explains how we collect, use, and disclose information that pertains to your privacy. When you access or use the Service, you signify your agreement to the Privacy Policy as well as these Terms of Use.

ABOUT THE SERVICE

The Service allows you to publish research datasets as well as provides a platform to find and use them. Research datasets can be directly downloaded, referenced through metadata, or analyzed via 3rd party applications. The ASU Research Data Repository is guided by two principles: (CARE) Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics for Indigenous Data Governance and (FAIR) that ensures data are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable.

Active projects in the collection, creation, and analysis phase will utilize other systems for the acquisition, processing of data such as electronic notebook systems, cloud storage solutions, and other tools supported by the university.

Submission of datasets is limited to ASU affiliated projects and people. The use of datasets and material published in the repository is open to anyone except where otherwise noted due to legal or ethical restrictions. Generally, data submitted to Dataverse should be considered “Public” according to ASU’s Data Handling Standard. Dataverse strives to be an “Open Access” platform and is not suitable for “Sensitive” data. Datasets are by default Unpublished, but Administrators can modify the access restrictions and Publish or deaccession any User Uploads at any time. Data will be treated as “Internal” before publication. Dataset publication requests are validated by the Service to ensure data meets the CARE and FAIR principles.

In addition:

  • The Service provides a systematic path towards the curation and preservation of research datasets and supplemental materials beyond routine backups currently offered by cloud and on-premise solutions;

  • Datasets may be persistently cited from Dataverse;

  • Users can link research datasets and supplementary materials to articles and institutional repository submissions;

  • The Service supports faculty promotion and tenure guidelines that recognize the importance and disciplinary contributions associated with the development and dissemination of research databases;

  • The Site provides APIs to access various integrations as indicated in Dataverse API documentation;

  • The Service supports storage and business continuity preservation to meet funding agency and institutional retention policy requirements;

  • The Service defaults to Open Access licenses for datasets where applicable;

  • The Service works with ASU Research Computing to migrate curated datasets to long term storage and preservation as you complete your projects

Research data and supplementary material submitted to ASU Research Data Repository include quantitative, qualitative, and supplementary data. Examples of quantitative data include spatial and tabular files, and remote sensing output. Examples of qualitative data include documentation, interviews, and survey results. Examples of supplementary material include photos, digitized physical samples, and recordings.

Although content submitted to Dataverse will be reviewed to ensure it meets metadata standards for access, discovery, and interoperability described by the FAIR principles, you should ensure your data has good Metadata prior to submission. See ASU Research Data Management for information on preparing data for publication. ASU through the ASU Library may suggest alternative repository or publication solutions for content. Dataverse is the repository service for the building blocks and components of research projects. Content that is determined to be summaries such as unpublished or otherwise easily lost literature such as theses, working papers, technical reports, or conference proceedings will be submitted to ASU’s institutional repository, KEEP.

USE RESTRICTIONS

Your permission to use the Site is conditioned upon the following use, posting and conduct restrictions:

You agree that you will not under any circumstances:

  • collect or harvest any personal data of any user of the Site or the Service;

  • use the Service for any unlawful purpose or for the promotion of illegal activities;

  • attempt to, or harass, abuse or harm another person or group;

  • use another user’s account without permission;

  • intentionally allow another user to access your account;

  • provide false or inaccurate information when registering an account;

  • interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper functioning of the Service;

  • make any automated use of the Site, the Service or the related systems, or take any action that we deem to impose or to potentially impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our servers or network infrastructure;

  • bypass any robot exclusion headers or other measures we take to restrict access to the Service, or use any software, technology, or device to scrape, spider, or crawl the Service or harvest or manipulate data;

  • circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with any security-related features of the Service or features that prevent or restrict use or copying of content, or enforce limitations on use of the Service or the content accessible via the Service; or

  • publish or link to malicious content of any sort, including that intended to damage or disrupt another user’s browser or computer.

RULES FOR USER CONDUCT AND USE OF THE SERVICE

For Depositors

You need to be an ASU affiliated user and use your ASURITE username and password to access the Service. You agree to receive and read email from the Service, which will be sent to your ASU email address. See ACD-125: Computer, Internet, and Electronic Communications Information Management Policy for security provisions and procedures. You agree to notify ASU immediately of any unauthorized use of your password and/or account. ASU will not be responsible for any liabilities, losses, or damages arising out of the unauthorized use of your member name, password, and/or account.

You are solely responsible for the contents of your deposit and agree that Arizona State University is not responsible for the contents of your deposit.

You represent and warrant that:

  • the dataset is your original work, and/or that you have the authority to authorize the uses contained in the license you have selected for your dataset;

  • if your dataset contains material that is not your original work, either you have the right to deposit the materials in this context or you have obtained the necessary permission to do so.

  • any third-party material is clearly and appropriately identified and acknowledged in the content of the deposit

  • your deposit does not infringe upon anyone's rights (e.g., copyright, privacy, defamation, etc.), breach a contract, violate the law, or contain unlawful material.

You are responsible for ensuring that research data involving the use of human subjects is in accordance with ASU’s Office of Research Integrity and Assurance.

You understand and agree that services are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including without limitation, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

You understand and agree that if Arizona State University determines that the terms of service have been violated, it may limit or remove access to the deposited material in question, leaving descriptive metadata and a notice to explain the reason for the removal. The descriptive metadata and the notice will be visible to those who have its persistent URL.

Terms of Deposit

By default, all Datasets added into Dataverse are granted the CC0 Public Domain Dedication. Dataverse uses the CC0 waiver by default for all datasets (4.0 and on) because of its name recognition in the scientific community, making it a familiar option for data (for which in general copyright does not apply), and is in use by repositories as well as scientific journals that require the deposit of open data. For more information on the CC0 waiver, please visit the

Creative Commons website. Data depositors can opt-out of using the CC0 waiver for their datasets if needed.

If you are unable to or prefer not to use the CC0 Public Domain Dedication for your datasets, you may specify your own custom Terms of Use. See Custom Terms of Use for Datasets for instructions.

For Users

If you view or download information from the Service, you agree that services and content therein are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including without limitation, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use of content from the Service is at your own risk.

You agree that The Service and its administrator, Arizona State University, shall have no liability for any consequential, indirect, punitive, special or incidental damages, whether foreseeable or unforeseeable (including, but not limited to, claims for defamation, errors, loss of data, or interruption in availability of data), arising out of or relating to your use of the Service or any resource that you access through the Service.

Authors who share their data here expect that it will be re-used to some degree. By using or downloading the data, you signify your agreement to the conditions of use stated below:

  • The user will not make any use of data to identify or otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals discovered inadvertently or intentionally in the data.

  • The user will give appropriate attribution to the author(s) of the data in any publication that employs resources provided by the Data Repository.

  • If your use or publication requires permission, you must contact the authors directly; administrators of the Data Repository cannot respond to requests for permission.

These Terms of Use will be reviewed annually by ASU Library Research Data Services.