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Publishing
Research Data Management

Legal Aspects - an introduction to the subject area

In research data management, a large number of legal aspects must be taken into account, ranging from the reuse of external data to the publication of data from one's own research project. The main focus is on copyright and data protection, but patents, contractual regulations for collaborations, exploitation rules under labor law, funding conditions of third-party organizations, and fundamental rights can also play a role.

Before the start of the project, all legal and ethical issues should be clarified, e.g. by seeking legal advice, and recorded in writing, e.g. in a data management plan. This clarification should identify or specify who has what rights to the data. This is important, for example, in order not to infringe the rights of third parties or, in the case of data publication, to have the right at all to regulate further data usage rights by licensing.

In the following, we would like to refer you to some information pages on legal and ethical aspects in connection with RDM. However, these references do not represent legally binding statements. Chemnitz University Library would like to support you with this information in the management of your data. However, it is merely non-binding information and assistance on the subject. We are not authorized to offer legally binding statements or advice. All information offered is without guarantee for correctness and completeness!

For example, you can find out about the legal framework in connection with RDM on the project page of the BMBF-funded DataJus project. There you will also find a decision tree surrounding questions about data publication.

Copyright

Unstructured data (e.g. measurement data) and facts are not subject to German copyright law per se, whereas copyright law provides a regulation for databases. Even if "simple" data are not protected by copyright, they should be treated as such from the beginning of the project (There might be other property rights or contractual regulations to consider.). If the data are protected by copyright, the consent of the author is indispensable for further use of the data. A first introduction to copyright in research data can be found at the following link: Forschungsdaten.info: Urheberrecht

You can also find information about general copyright issues on the Chemnitz University Library's copyright pages.

Data protection

When data allows conclusions to be drawn about a natural person, this is referred to as personal data. The protection of such data is subject to data protection law - General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG), state data protection laws. If the data is anonymized, i.e. the person behind the data set is no longer identifiable, then data protection law does not apply. In practice, however, this case is rare, since usually the necessary degree of anonymization is contrary to the scientific desire to gain information. Nevertheless, anonymization is recommended in order to preserve personal rights. If the data are encrypted with a code or pseudonym, they are still subject to data protection laws, since decryption would make it possible to identify the person behind them. If the personal data of a research project are subject to data protection law, the study participants must be informed in advance about the handling of their data and their consent to the use of the data must be obtained. A first introduction to data protection in research can be found under the following link: Forschungsdaten.info: Datenschutzrecht

If you have any questions regarding data protection, you can contact the Datenschutzbeauftragen of the TU Chemnitz.

Ethics

In addition to compliance with legal regulations, research data should always be handled responsibly under an ethical premise. By weighing ethical aspects before collection or publication, misuse of the data should be prevented. In addition to personal data, ethical issues also play a role in all experiments involving humans or animals, environmental studies, and the exchange of sensitive data with third parties. A first introduction to ethics in research data management can be found at the following link: Forschungsdaten.info: Ethische Aspekte im FDM

There is an ethics committee at Chemnitz University of Technology, which examines the admissibility of research projects under ethical aspects.

Further information pages: