Transcript Arts and Humanities Data Service – An Introduction

Ethics and Archives
A perspective from the
Arts and Humanities Data Service
Research Governance and Ethics Workshop
8th February 2007
Alastair Dunning, AHDS Executive Office
King’s College London, http://ahds.ac.uk/
How is the AHDS Organised?
• Established in 1996
• Managing Executive (King’s College, London)
• AHDS Literature, Languages and
Linguistics (Oxford Text Archive, Oxford Uni.)
• AHDS History (UK Data Archive, Uni. of Essex)
• AHDS Archaeology (Archaeology Data Service)
• AHDS Performing Arts (Uni. of Glasgow)
• AHDS Visual Arts (University for Creative Arts)
• Funded by the JISC and the AHRC
What does the AHDS do?
• Advises on the creation of digital
data
• Collects, preserves and distributes
high-quality digital resources for
research and teaching
• These resources are online for free
for educational and private use –
national collections at subject levels
Relevant digital subjects & material
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Oral history
Linguistics
Medical history
Copyright
Moral rights
(Soft ethics?)
Data protection and copyright cause
overlapping problems
• Text, images, video, audio, GIS …
Interaction with AHRC
• Giving advice to applicants with any
technical component
• Marking Technical Appendices
• Collecting digital material from successful
applicants
• Dissemination of material
• Preservation of material
• Issues relating to monitoring legal status of
materials occur at each stage
Technical Appendix
• Obligatory for Research Grant and
some other AHRC applications
• Candidate shows proficiency in digital
context – project management, data
development, access, rights issues
• Marked by AHDS – feedback provided
to AHRC Peer Review Panels –
applications can be rejected or
labelled conditional
• http://ahds.ac.uk/ahrc/
Resource Creation
• Projects are informed on best practice
in clearing copyright or gaining
consent
– Lack of fixed practice a problem
– Projects unaware of time / cost issues
– Project unaware of positive aspects
– Many assume copyright does not apply
to them
– Less naivety about data protection
Archiving
• All digital material should be deposited with
AHDS
• Depositor signs AHDS licence
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http://ahds.ac.uk/depositing/licence.htm
Non-exclusive
No rights transferred
Depositor ensures he has appropriate
permissions
– AHDS / University involved accepts no
responsibility
– (Licence needs updating …)
that the Depositor is the owner of the copyright and associated intellectual
property rights in the whole Data Collection or is duly authorised by the owner,
or owners, of these rights and is capable of granting under this agreement, a
licence to hold and disseminate copies of the material.
that the Data Collection is not and shall be in no way a violation or infringement
of any copyright, trademark, patent, or other rights whatsoever of any person.
that the Data Collection does not and will not contravene any laws, including but
not limited to the law relating to defamation, or obscenity.
that the Depositor is not under any obligation or disability created by law,
contract or otherwise which would in any manner or to any extent prevent or
restrict him from entering into and fully performing this Agreement.
to notify the AHDS of any change of copyright ownership affecting the Data
Collection.
to notify the AHDS of any confidentiality, privacy or data protection issues
pertaining to the Data Collection.
Delivery Options (I)
• Freely available
– Material available to everyone
– Obviously depends on depositor
• Higher Education Only
– Disseminate collection to HE users only
– But difficult to authenticate email addresses
– Rather useless boundary in legal terms
• Preservation Only
– Material only available to depositor
– Legally safe but data is not circulated
– What happens when contact with depositor is
lost?
Some examples
• Preservation Only
– TV Times
– Newcastle Corpus
• Access Restricted
– French Learner Language Oral Corpora
• Freely available
– Spanish Civil War posters
• Dependent on idiosyncrasies of
depositor as well as legal position
• http://ahds.ac.uk/collections/
Delivery Options (II) – in the future
• Making index terms available freely
– Therefore letting others at least know of
material’s existence
• Encouraging data preparation (e.g.
anonymization)
– Matter of course in some subject area
– Easy-ish to anonymize some data (e.g.
census data); Can be difficult for other
data types (e.g. transcription)
• More sophisticated authentication?
From the user’s point of view
• All users must agree with AHDS
Common Access Agreement
– http://ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/accesscommon-access.htm
– Use in non-commercial research or
teaching only
– Rights still remain with depositor
– (who reads it by the way….?)
Issues
• Proper monitoring (currently taking
word of depositors on trust)
• Getting permission for distributed
archiving; and for use and re-use
• Preparing material for re-use
– Projects have little time for others
– Keeping the chief on top
• Agreeing and circulating best practice
– Managing creators’ expectations