License Clearance Tool - Description and Documentation

Intro - Aim & purpose of the tool

This is a tool that facilitates the clearance of rights (copyright) for datasets that are to be cleared before they are publicly released under an open licence. It allows the crowd-sourced documentation of the clearance process.

• Data clearance not bound to the user that initiated the procedure, so it can be started and finished by different users.
• Potentially include crowd-source clearance.
• Clearance metadata will be an open-source resource.

Targeted use

The intended use of the tool is to provide a guided approach for establishing the proper open-source licence required for the creation of a new (or synthetic) dataset, or for the re-use of an existing unlicensed one. The procedure takes into account many potential data managers (users initiating or completing a data clearance procedure). Potential users may be researchers and research organisations.

Version features

• Initial version provides a proof-of-concept workflow.
• Will initially provide guidance for existing standard open-source licenses only.