1. Licensed to Distil – Data of Course
Susan Cadogan, UK Data Archive
IASSIST, 2007
When I mentioned to a friend that the IASSIST conference was in Montreal (which happens to be his Hometown) and that I would be giving a presentation, he just said Wisers For those of you who don’t know, Wisers is a Canadian Rye Whiskey I believe. Naturally, this impacted upon the title of this presentation.. although thanks must go to my colleague Ken Miller for the final title.

2. Outline Developing the collection and legal framework
Licence Agreements:
Standard;
Special Licence;
Commercial Licence;
ONS Agreement;
Commercial Access Licence
Challenges
Here is an outline of what I am aiming to cover albeit briefly how the UKDA collection began and has evolved and how the licence agreements have developed to meet the demands of this growing collection.
I will continue by briefly describing the licence agreements we have in place now and the challenges we face in licensing the next 40 years of data collections.

3. In the beginning… UK Data Archive 1967-2007 British Election Study
Opinion Poll Data
NOP
MORI
Gallup
This year the UK Data Archive celebrates is 40th Anniversary and we have moved across the campus at the University of Essex to a new building complete with lift! We have much to celebrate this year. Incidentally, Wisers are approaching their 150th year – but don’t have a new building.
At the beginning of the Archive’s 40 year history, much of the collection focused on small academic studies, many emerging from the University of Essex’s Department of Sociology; Election studies emerging from the British Election Study lead by the Department of Government and based in close proximity to what was then the SSRC, and opinion poll data from further a field and generated by leaders in their fields NOP, MORI, Gallup et al.

4. Developing the collection and the legal framework
Establishing a Depositor Licence Agreement and End User Licence
“As the owner of the copyright in the material described in the Schedule hereto and/or duly authorised by the owner of the copyright in the material, I grant to the University of Essex, in consideration of the payment to the grantor by the University of Essex of the sum of one pound (£l), a licence during the period of copyright to make available to persons or institutions applying to the Director of the Data Bank established by the University with the assistance of the Social Science Research Council the data and information contained in the material, for the purposes of further analysis and the publication of the results of such analysis, subject to the following conditions”
However, if the collection was to develop it needed to include materials generated by Government, the large scale data series, materials that informed policy and enabled researchers to undertake time series analysis. Thus the key skills of negotiation and tact essential to acquisitions were honed, with much time and effort spent on meeting and liaising with Government officials outlining the advantages of archiving, selling the benefits and creating and adapting the legal framework under which these datasets could be deposited, preserved and disseminated. From the very beginning licensing data and gaining access to sources was crucial, developing an agreement that meets the needs of the depositor and user and building upon the collection was the focus, often at the expense of adequate documentation and clean(er) data.
In the early days, we used as you can see from this section of the then Agreement a £1 was transferred between the depositor and the U of E. At that time, I believe, although I am probably old enough to know, to legitimise a contract money had to be exchanged hence the £ When I joined the Archive many years later, the transfer of the pound was no more but when a study had been processed and released for analysis, we would send a copy of the Agreement back to the depositor and affix a 10p stamp – clearly some tough negotiations had taken place to reduce the sum by 90p.
This agreement offered 3 access conditions only one of them allowing open access with no restrictions, the second allowed us to undertake analysis on a users behalf with the Depositors permission and the third option was depositor permission only for a period of 1-5 years allowing the depositor to select the time period.

5. Developing the collection and the legal framework
OPCS/CSO now Office for National Statistics Agreement – Licence and Concordat comprising:
Licence
Concordat
Appendices A-H
I mentioned that early negotiations ensured the deposit of the large scale or major series Data created by the then Office for Population Censuses and Surveys and the Central Statistical Office who merged and some years on, have become the Office for National Statistics. The negotiations developed an agreement formalising the deposit of the materials. The agreement still stands and has been recently finalised. It is now somewhat longer and we have a document which includes the legal agreement the Licence, the ‘understandings, obligations and expectations’ of the parties, and some appendices including reference documents copies of the various additional agreements etc.
The modernisation of this agreement was a lengthy process even with both parties committed to continuing and building upon our strong relationship. It is also fair to say that in making the Agreement modern and simpler in its explanations, is also much longer.

6. The middle……amending the standard agreement
two access categories
(third available upon request)
depositor responsibility – copyright and ownership
Although minor changes to the standard agreement had been made overtime, six years ago we embarked on a major reworking and rewriting of the standard licence agreement. At the same time we reviewed the collection, identifying studies that had been deposited with special additional clauses I.e. publications had to be sent for depositor approval prior to publication and those ‘older’ studies deposited under restricted access. Some of these additional clauses were agreed in the beginning when the Archive was in its infancy, and building the collection was key. As in the beginning, we still have to be flexible in licensing the materials we acquire or wish to acquire. And there will always be a need for special conditions or restricted access for some data collections however, it is also our remit to make data as widely accessible as possible. Again, developing this new licence, created a much longer but two significant changes were:One amendment was to remove the option for access by depositor permission from the agreement. Tracking depositors especially over long periods of time, was an extremely resource intensive exercise. Researchers move frequently between research projects, Government researchers move between surveys on an ever decreasing time frame and in some cases it became harder when depositors die. However, in some cases depositor permission is appropriate so the option is available but is discussed and agreed on a case by case basis, sometimes with a time period attached so the data may be subject to depositor permission for a fixed period, and then moving to more open access. Another change was to include information about ownership in the licence rather than its previous location, in the data deposit forms. We noticed that depositors/data creators were either ignoring the copyright/ownership question or entering not applicable. Chasing ownership of data collections or sources is extremely time consuming and it is clearly best undertaken by the person closest to the research – the onus has to be placed upon the Depositor. Moving this question to the licence agreement has been extremely successful.

7. End user agreement – from the beginning
End User Licence
preserve the confidentiality of individuals, households or organisations
supply the bibliographic details of any published work
keep means of access secure
abide by any ‘further conditions’
breach will lead to termination of access
In talking about the legal framework, I’ve talked mainly about the depositor agreement but the framework also includes and end user agreement.
Users undertake to preserve the confidentiality of individuals, households or organisations
Supply the bibliographic details of any published work
Keep means of access secure
Abide by any ‘further conditions’
Any breach will lead to termination of access

8. Need for more…
ONS – major and regular supplier of important key series
Large-scale government datasets collected to inform and develop policy
Include a wealth of information for researchers across disciplines
There is always a need for more…. Chocolate for some, Wisers for others and lower level data for the masses
The Office for National Statistics is a major and regular supplier of key series. These are large scale government datasets which are collected to inform and develop policy and include a wealth of information across disciplines.
These data are of high quality, well documented and are nationally representative with large samples often running for many years.
The studies are fully anonymised and certain variables particularly those relating to geography, may be suppressed or aggregated to minimise disclosure risk.

9. Special Licence is born
Research need for more detailed data in particular, geography
More detail increases risk of intentional or inadvertent data disclosure
Researcher need for more detailed data in particular, geographical information, led to meetings between the UKDA, ONS and ESDS Government our partners in the Economic and Social Data Service to address how the needs of the users could be met.
The agreement was initiated in a climate of increased caution regarding data confidentiality and a requirement that government material be made more readily accessible.
The existing safeguards were examined a new licence agreement known as the Special Licence was produced to facilitate access to these more detailed data. Researchers are now able to apply for access to data that include lower level geographical identifiers.
Also creating a guide to good practice as a by product of the process

10. Special Licence – conditions and clauses
Further condition of the End User Licence
Signed by research team (each member must be registered), ONS, UKDA
Also signed by a departmental head, chair of ethics committee, head of division
Requires –
- description of intended statistics use of data
- justification for access to more detailed data
The special licence has further conditions attached to the end user Licence agreement
Applications must be completed and signed by the research team, each member has to be registered with the UKDA/ESDS, and signed by ONS and UKDA
In addition a signature is required from a departmental head, chair of ethics committee or head of division together with further information about the research needs; the intended use of the data and justification for more detailed data.

11. Conditions and clauses continued…
Standards and methods for disclosure control for any outputs
Right of depositor to screen outputs
Data and site security
Data destruction and sanction
In developing the licence a Guide to Good Practice: Micro data handling and security was created as a by product of process.
It provides guidance on handling standard and special licence versions of data; avoiding in advertent statistical disclosure, storing and accessing data securely, how to destroy copies of data and institutional responsibilities and compliance with security standards.

12. Special licence data Annual Population Survey Labour Force Survey
2001 Census data
A number of ONS datasets are available under a special Licence. We receive standard and SL versions of the annual population and labour force surveys with an intention that ONS will deposit standard and Special Licence versions of all their social surveys.
The special licence has been incredibly successful and other depositors from Government departments and agencies will also be using this initiative.

13. Challenges – the next 40 years: outside the comfort zone
Commercial sources:
Financial data
Loyalty card data
Market research data
Datastream
Latinobarometers
It is clear that in our world, we have to be responsive to the needs of our user community, to seek and acquire new data collections building a current and exciting collection and to be flexible in working with depositors and data creators to facilitate access to sources so that all needs are met.
But there are sources outside of our comfort zones – the academic and government arenas. There is a researche rneed for access to commercial sources; Financial data, loyalty card data for example. These data are incredibly rich sources – in terms of the loyalty data you can track and look at purchasing behaviours over time but it comes at a cost it has a £ sum attached to it.
The UKDA have recently moved into the commercial arena, negotiating contracts for financial data from Datastream and the Latinobarometers. To secure these sources, we applied to our funding body the Economic and Social research Council for additional resources having to build very strong scientific cases to support the research need for these data. We also used the services of a broker to approach the companies involved simply because it is not our common area and it is often hard to find a route in to begin negotiations. Licensing these studies is involved and still being finalised with Latinobarometers – it is always a time consuming process but there are additional considerations with the commercial sector – they do not wish to lose revenue for example but there is a willingness to support the academic and research communities too – so contracts have to be tight well written with every issue considered and agreed. The UKDA are very lucky we have contracts expertise in house and the support of the University of Essex’s research and contracts office Sadly, we cannot simply revamp current agreements for commercial purposes or, these new agreements to the next commercial source data we may acquire – each will require its own terms and conditions and each will be time consuming.

14. Contact Susan Cadogan Acquisitions team UK Data Archive