AFSC Data Use and Acknowledgement Policy

Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) scientists make every effort to release data in a timely manner. Publication of descriptive or interpretive results derived immediately and directly from the data is the privilege and responsibility of the investigators who collect the data. However, the re-use of scientific data has the potential to greatly increase communication, collaboration, and synthesis within and among disciplines, and thus is supported and encouraged. Permission to use AFSC datasets is subject to the following terms:

1) Use. The data provided here are intended for scholarly use by the academic, research, educational, government, and not-for-profit professional purposes. Any other uses for the data or its derived products require the permission from the data set owner.

2) Citation. It is not ethical to publish data without proper attribution or co-authorship. The intellectual and time investment in the collection of a data set entitles the investigator to the fundamental benefits of the data set. Publication of descriptive or interpretive results derived directly from the data is the privilege and responsibility of those who collect the data. Thus the Data User should properly cite the data in any publication or in the metadata of any derived data products that were produced using the original data set. Citation should take the following form: Creator, Year of Data Publication, Title of Dataset, Publisher, Data set identifier. For example:

McKee, W. 2001. Vascular plant list on the Andrews Experimental Forest and nearby Research Natural Areas: Long-Term Ecological Research. Corvallis, OR: Forest Science Data Bank: SA002. [Database]. http://www.fsl.orst.edu/lter/data/abstract.cfm?dbcode=SA002. (21 October 2004)

3) Acknowledgement. The Data User should acknowledge the source of the data and any specific funding sources (including any identifying information such as grant numbers) for the original research. For example:

Data sets were provided by the Forest Science Data Bank, a partnership between the Department of Forest Science, Oregon State University, and the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, Corvallis, Oregon. Significant funding for collection of these data was provided by the National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research program (NSF Grant numbers BSR-90-11663 and DEB-96-32921).

4) Notification. The Data User should notify the originator of the data set when any derivative work or publication based on derived from the data set is distributed. This notification should identify how the data were used to produce the derived work or product.

Disclaimer

While substantial efforts are made to ensure the accuracy of data and documentation contained in AFSC data sets, complete accuracy of data and metadata cannot be guaranteed. In addition, some data sets posted on the AFSC web site have been contributed by third parties interested in sharing their data. These data are subject to the limitations, assumptions, collection methods, or uncertainties regarding that third party data (if not clearly disclosed in the data set itself).The findings and conclusions contained in the third party data are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of NOAA Fisheries Service, NOAA or the Department of Commerce.

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