digital literacy for the modern data user

We are living in a world where data has become so central to our survival yet its...

We are living in a world where data has become so central to our survival yet its obvious ubiquity is barely understood by most of us. This can be in a way compared to oxygen, we know it exists, but we don’t really think much about it other than the fact that we need it for survival. You have probably heard that data is the new oil. This becomes more intriguing when you hear the staggering fact that 90% of data available on earth was just created in the last two years. Pervasiveness of data requires that we become acquainted with what it means every time we interact with data, especially when it does not belong to us, as is mostly the case. We see words such as copyright, creative commons, all rights reserved, open licenses and so on, but do we really understand what they mean?

It is important that biodiversity practitioners, data scientists and professionals who use data frequently in their fields become conversant with the implications of these terms. A copyright is a legal instrument that shows who owns the intellectual property such as image, or code, or music, or data and so on. Any use of such work must have permission from the owner who has all rights reserved. In some jurisdictions, data is not explicitly copyrighted since it is not regarded as an original creation of someone’s mind. It is however protected by some other forms of intellectual property (IP) rights. Licenses on the other perspective determine how the item which is under a copyright may be used. They give the terms of use.

Open licenses have fewer restrictions and in most instances allow access, modifications and redistribution of work. Local copyright laws or commercial license laws apply to those works that do not have explicit licences indicated and one needs to be careful in such circumstances not to infringe on intellectual property rights of others. Several types of open licenses are available and it is important to read the terms of the license to find out the level of freedom it allows third parties. Some open licenses might have restrictions on how the work is redistributed or whether it can be reused for commercial purposes.