Licensing data for reuse
Answer
Licensing research data makes it clear to others what they can and cannot do with your research data. This protects your rights as a researcher whilst maximising reuse.
The most common licenses applied to data are Creative Commons licences which are recognised around the world. You can choose the most appropriate licence for your data via the Creative Commons website. You can read more about Creative Commons licences for publications via this article.
These are not the only licences available, for example government data is frequently licensed under the Open Government Licence.
If you are working with software you should consider using a software-specific licence.
Most data repositories will allow you to select the licence you wish to apply to your data.
If you deposit your data in the University’s Figshare data repository you should select the appropriate licence from the menu. Further guidance about licences within Figshare is available from the Figshare user guide under 'How to choose a licence'.
More information
You can access further guidance on licensing data via the Digital Curation Centre.