1. Data Access Policy Review
Charged by CC in Fall 04 meeting to update DAP to be consistent with other NSF programs and develop appropriate use guidelines
Review completed December 2004.
Summary of findings
Appendix 1: revised Data Access Policy V 3
Appendix 2: General User Agreement

2. Data Release
Data from publicly funded research in the U.S. LTER Network, totally or partially from LTER funds from NSF, Institutional Cost-Share, or Partner Agency or Institution where a formal memorandum of understanding with LTER has been established is to be released either:
Publicly available (within 2 years, most data)
Restricted users (sensitive data, human subjects act, prior licensing restrictions – requires justification)
All data are released with metadata compliant to LTER standards – identification, citation, access, use
All metadata are public.

3. What does this cover? In spirit, ALL DATA
In practice, priorities may be defined:
Primary observations or secondary (value added products) from core research activities with direct or leveraged LTER funds
Acquired (tertiary) data, student data, SLTER data, ‘legacy’ data
Raw, un processed data; interim statistical, GIS, modeling outputs.

4. Registration
Information for tracking data use and notification among relevant parties
Contact information
Acceptance of the Data User Agreement
Statement of intended use
Most of this information will be collected through online registration

5. General Use Agreement
Standard template for specifying use guidelines for public LTER data
Derived from open content forums
Very generic language to enable use beyond LTER
References parties identified in the accompanying metadata:
Creater, Owner, User, Contact, Provider

6. Terms Acceptable use Redistribution Citation Acknowledgement
Notification
Collaboration

7. Some Caveats
Facts cannot be copyrighted, only creative products. Data fall in the boundary.
Products of federal agencies cannot be copyrighted.
Use guidelines are considered ethically, probably not legally, binding.