Responsible research

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization that has developed a licensing system that allows authors to share their work in various ways. Creative Commons 4.0 licenses (CC licenses) are commonly used to define rights of use. CC licenses allow the author of a publication or the owner of the data to define the degree of publicity and access rights for their work. The Open Science and Research Guidelines recommend the Creative Commons 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0) license for research publications and data.

With a CC license, you can grant an irrevocable right to further distribute and edit the material. Additional terms allow the author to limit these rights as he wishes. The license can be later changed to more permissive, but not stricter.

International recommendations

The Plan S principles of the European consortium of research funders COAlitionS recommend open licensing, with CC BY as the default license for scientific publications. The Academy of Finland is committed to the Plan S principles.

In addition:

• DORA Declaration
• UNESCO Recommendation
• European Commission
• Open Science, international statements

Licensing may be a condition for access to research funding.

National recommendations

Openness of culture

• Includes publications in universities' own series (excluding doctoral theses)

Openness of learning

• Learning materials
• Admission test book or other publication for students published in a series
• Openness of theses (including dissertations)

Transparency of publications

• Currently guidelines and recommendations mainly for peer-reviewed publications

Transparency of research data

• The Act on the reuse of publicly funded research data requires that the commercial use of publicly funded and distributed research material must be allowed, so CC-BY-NC licenses prohibiting commercial use are not appropriate.

Open Science Expert Panels

Publications of the Delegation of Scientific Societies

Laki julkisin varoin tuotettujen tutkimusaineistojen uudelleenkäytöstä (Act on the reuse of publicly funded research data) (713/2021)

Licenses are determined by four different conditions

 BY Attribution. The author's name must be mentioned in connection with the work.

• The work may be copied, distributed, publicly displayed and performed, and adapted, as long as the name of the author or copyright holder is properly attributed.

 NC Non-Commercial. The work may not be used for commercial purposes.

• The work may be copied, distributed, publicly displayed and performed, and used as a basis for derivative works only when not used for commercial purposes.
• The Act on the reuse of publicly funded research data requires that the commercial use of publicly funded and distributed research material is permitted, so CC-BY-NC licenses prohibiting commercial use are not appropriate.

 ND No Derivative Works. The work may not be altered or modified.

• The work may be copied, distributed, publicly displayed and performed, but no derivative works may be made from it.

 SA Share Alike. The modified work must be shared under the same license as the original.

• Adapted works based on a work may only be distributed under the same license as the original work.

All licenses

CC BY: The name of the author, the license used and the original place of publication must be mentioned.

CC BY-SA: Same as CC BY, but variations must be published under the same license.

CC BY-ND: Same as CC BY, but modifications are not allowed.

CC BY-NC: Same as CC BY, but commercial use is excluded from the license.

CC BY-NC-SA: Same as CC BY-SA, but commercial use is excluded from the license.

CC BY-NC-ND: Same as CC BY-ND, but commercial use is restricted from the license.

CC licenses recommended for openness

  CC BY 4.0 Attribution

This work may be freely copied, distributed, displayed and modified, including for commercial purposes. The author's name must always be mentioned appropriately, and the author's name, image or logo must not be altered. CC BY is the most common open content license.

CC BY-SA 4.0 Attribution-ShareAlike

Same as CC BY, but derivative works may only be distributed under the same license under which the work used was licensed. Recommended for educational materials.

The Public Domain Dedication

CC0: With this license you declare that you waive any copyrights that you may legally waive. This can mean waiving the creator rights to, e.g., conventional photographs. With scientific texts, however, it is good to remember Research Integrity (RI):

• ”Plagiarism includes presenting or using as one’s own another researcher’s text or sections of text, research plans, manuscripts, articles, results, materials, research ideas, observations, programme codes, translations, diagrams, images or other visual material without appropriate reference to the original.”

When publishing metadata, the CC0 license must be used.

CC licensed materials, licensed under the open CC BY or CC BY-SA licenses, are suitable building blocks for open educational materials. When you find CC licensed material that you want to use:

• Keep a record of the publication address, author's name or pseudonym and the exact license of the material you have chosen for further use.
• Always note the terms of the license of the material you are using.
• When you use the material, mention the source, author and license. If possible, always use a persistent link to the material (DOI, URN or handle). This ensures the links work in the future.

Creative Commons License chooser