Monday, April 18, 2016

Further PCCF Usage Clarifications

Questions

Appendix II (Terms of Use) of the license states that:

"3. You will not use any part of the Data Product to develop or derive any other data product or data service for external distribution or commercial sale."
Appendix A (Approved Data Matching Uses) states that data can be matched for:
“Research Purposes
E.g.: Can be used in analysis to write articles that are published in journals. The data is not shared but the results are published. This also includes thesis for masters or Doctorate where results are required to be public”
1. Can StatCan clarify what it means by “data product or data service.” Is a dataset developed through secondary analysis with the PCCF considered a “data product” in this instance? I ask because “product” is a term often used by StatCan to refer to its many PUMFs, statistical tables, documentation sets, and reports/analyses.

2. Can results produced by research that incorporate the use of the PCCF be shared with an external party when no commercial transaction has occurred? i.e. Is there anything in the license that stops the researcher from sharing research results with an external party (e.g., a publisher, a government department, a municipality, a public health unit, a school board) when the research is non-commercial (cf. Term of Use #3, above)? The examples used in the Approved Matching Uses Appendix (cf. Appendix A clause, above) under “Research” illustrate instances that speak of results that are “published” (e.g., scholarly articles in journals) or theses and dissertations (which quite clearly must be open). However, not all research is published, so the example can confuse stakeholders, librarians and researchers alike. Much research our scholars undertake is not “published” in the traditional sense of the word.

3. In my case today, I am working with a researcher who is undertaking the analysis while writing his dissertation, and results of this analysis would in all likelihood be part of that document. As well as what is mentioned above, we are wondering if there is a difference between him (1) sharing unpublished results with an external party prior to the completion of his dissertation and, (2), an external party reading the results for themselves in the dissertation after he has received his PhD.

Thanks for your time on this. The PCCF products are valuable tools to our stakeholders, and we take the license itself seriously. Clarifications like these help build our understanding of licensee and licensor obligations.

Answer

1. We are referring to the PCFF, PCFRF and PCCF+ Statistics Canada data product, all of these data products contain the Postal codes that are owned by Canada Post Corporation. Anytime you create a new data product or dataset through your analysis using PCCF, PCFRF or PCCF+, you are creating a data product and you cannot share it or distribute it if it contains the Postal Codes.

2. Research results can be shared externally as long as they don’t contain a list of more than 1% of the PCCF, PCFRF or PCCF+. You can publish an extract of up to 1% of the PCCF, PCFRF or PCCF+ data products as long as the published data was used to support your published report or analysis.

‘The Licensee may publish an extract of up to 1% of the data product pursuant to Appendix ‘A’. This permission includes the use of the extracted data in support of analyses and in reporting of results and conclusions. The Licensee shall obtain approval from Statistics Canada before publishing extract of the data product in excess of 1%. ‘
3. Same answer as above, Research results can be shared externally as long as they don’t contain a list of more than 1% of the PCCF, PCFRF or PCCF+. You can publish an extract of up to 1% of the PCCF, PCFRF or PCCF+ data products as long as the published data was used to support your published report or analysis.