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. 2020 Feb 1;9(2):giz165.
doi: 10.1093/gigascience/giz165.

The Data Tags Suite (DATS) model for discovering data access and use requirements

Affiliations

The Data Tags Suite (DATS) model for discovering data access and use requirements

George Alter et al. Gigascience. .

Abstract

Background: Data reuse is often controlled to protect the privacy of subjects and patients. Data discovery tools need ways to inform researchers about restrictions on data access and re-use.

Results: We present elements in the Data Tags Suite (DATS) metadata schema describing data access, data use conditions, and consent information. DATS metadata are explained in terms of the administrative, legal, and technical systems used to protect confidential data.

Conclusions: The access and use metadata items in DATS are designed from the perspective of a researcher who wants to find and re-use existing data. We call for standard ways of describing informed consent and data use agreements that will enable automated systems for managing research data.

Keywords: confidential data; data access; data discovery; data use; metadata.

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Figures

Figure 1:
Figure 1:
The network of agreements from data collection to data sharing. Solid lines connect parties in legal documents; dashed lines show agreements that are implicated in later documents. Documents are shown in white. Colors show roles and organizations.
Figure 2:
Figure 2:
Graphical representation of relevant constructs allowing consent, license, and terms of use information to be made available as information payload in DATS messages. The new "ConsentInformation" schema allows for annotation (semantic markup) with resources such as the Data Use Ontology (DUO; produced by the Global Alliance for Genomic Health) or the Information Consent Ontology (ICO).

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