Rights to the material: The thesis agreement sets out the rights to the research material collected, produced and (re)used in the thesis between the commissioner and the student. These issues are described in the commissioner agreement. Please note that the participants in the thesis must be informed about the possible re-use and possible open access publishing of the thesis material.
Access rights to the thesis report: Theses and dissertations from universities of applied sciences are stored in the Theseus publication archive. In Theseus, you can define the access rights for both the thesis report and any output that can be downloaded as an attachment (e.g. a guide for the commissioner) yourself.
You can define the rights of use yourself using Creative Commons licenses.
The thesis contract will agree on the following:
Background material refers to information, ideas, patents, inventions, methods, solution models, devices, substances, or computer programmes produced outside the thesis, documents describing them and technical reports, photographs of written and artistic works and related intellectual property rights, etc., which the commissioner owns or has the right to grant access to and which the thesis author makes use of in their work.
Copyright: the student owns the copyright and other intellectual property rights to the thesis, results and research material.
Yhteistyötahon oikeudet opinnäytetyön tuloksiin: Yhteistyötaho saa opiskelijalta opinnäytetyössä julkistettaviin tuloksiin rinnakkaisen, maksuttoman, ja pysyvän käyttöoikeuden toiminnassaan.
Transfer of research data: If the student will transfer the research material/data to the commissioner, the research material shall be described in the thesis agreement. The research material has been anonymised and the research material to be disclosed does not contain personal data. The anonymisation will be carried out in accordance with the instructions in the Finnish Social Sciences Data Archive Data Management Guidelines or in accordance with other appropriate procedures. The research material is disclosed in electronic form, unless otherwise agreed. The parties agree on a more detailed method of handing over the research material, taking data protection and data security into account.
If the research material is protected by copyright or its related rights (including list and database), the commissioner receives royalty-free, permanent and sole rights to use the research material. The ownership to research material that is not covered by copyright protection will be transferred to the commissioner. As the author of the research material, the student shall always retain a sole right of use the research material regardless of the research material transfers under these General Terms and Conditions and the Thesis Project Agreement.
The copyright of the thesis, results and research data as well as other Intellectual Property Rights belong to the student. Student has to be referred to if his/hers materials are used.
When a thesis output, material, report or learning material is made available to others, it is important to define the rights of use.
The Creative Commons (CC) license s a commonly used open license that allows the open sharing and use of copyrighted works.
Creative Commons is an international, non-profit organisation that provides free, machine-readable licenses for the distribution or re-use of copyrighted material. It aims to promote the dissemination of creative works through free legal tools. The first version of Creative Commons licenses was published in 2002, and in 2019 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 was selected as the European Commission's standard license for material.
CC licenses are not an alternative to copyright. When a CC license is used, the copyright remains with the author. The license can only be assigned by the holder of the existing copyright or other rights, usually the author (creator), unless they have transferred the rights to the publisher.
Similarly, you can use CC-licensed material from others, as long as you comply with the terms of the license. Copyright and paternity rights always remain with the author.
The Open Science and Research Guidelines recommend that research publications and data are licensed under the Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0) license. Another good option is to use the Attribution-Sharelike (CC-BY-SA-4.0) licence. The latter also allows commercial use of the material, but requires referencing and sharing under the same licence.
Creative Commons licenses consist of four conditions that define the use of a work:
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Attribution (BY) The name of the author must be mentioned. When using a work, the author or his/her pseudonym must be indicated. The BY name license is always part of each license combination. NonCommercial (NC) Not for commercial use. Permission must be sought from the copyright holder if the use of the work is for commercial gain. NoDerivatives (ND) Not to be edited. You must ask the copyright holder for permission to modify the work or to utilize only a part of it. ShareAlike (SA) To be shared under the same licence. An adapted derivative work may only be distributed under the same license as the original work. |
The four terms are combined to create six Creative Commons licenses:
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There are six different license types, listed from most to least permissive here: CC-BY (ByAttribution): This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. CC-BY-SA (ByAttribution, ShareAlike): This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. CC-BY-ND (ByAttribution, NoDerivatives): This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. CC-BY-NC ((ByAttribution, NonCommercial): This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. CC BY-NC-SA (ByAttribution, NonCommercial, ShareAlike): This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. CC BY-NC-ND (ByAttribution, NonCommercial, NoDerivatives): This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. CC0 is a public dedication tool, which allows creators to give up their copyright and put their works into the worldwide public domain. CC0 allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, with no conditions. |
The Creative Commons licensing system contains different features that can be combined to create seven different licenses. Use the Creative Commons license Chooser to choose a licence, or the image below to illustrate options.
The image below illustrates the choice of combinations of different terms of the CC license and the impact on the further use of CC-licensed material.
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