Objective: As text/data mining (TDM) becomes more prevalent, researchers seek to mine library resources for their projects. Some vendors are including language in their TDM licenses that aims to protect their investments by limiting dissemination and/or retention of TDM data. At the same time, researchers are increasingly being called upon by funding agencies to share and retain data from their projects. This work investigated whether vendor restrictions on TDM data sets from research projects might conflict with funder policies on data sharing and retention.
Methods: Language from existing TDM licenses was compared with guidance from several grant-funding agencies to identify potential conflicts with sharing or retaining data generated in the course of TDM research projects.
Results: Potential incompatibilities between TDM licensing language and funding agency data policies were identified. Vendor limitations on the length of TDM output could conflict with data sharing policies. Data retention is an area of particular concern, as in some cases, funder policies on data retention periods are at odds with TDM licensing terms that require data to be destroyed upon conclusion of the work.
Conclusions: In some cases, language in library vendor TDM licenses is at odds with funding agency policies on data sharing and retention. As support for TDM research continues to evolve, librarians who assist researchers with data management plans should be aware of potential conflicts between vendor TDM licenses and funder data policies on data sharing and preservation
