Data license

BIEN data and derived products are distributed via a CC-BY-NC-ND Creative Commons license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). This license permits redistribution and re-use of a licensed work on the conditions that the creator is appropriately credited, that use is noncommercial, and that users do not distribute derivative works.  Users interested in uses of these data and products outside the scope of this license are encouraged to contact the BIEN working group (bien.working.group@gmail.com) to discuss alternative licensing options.

Citations

Any publications using data obtained from the BIEN database should cite BIEN, the original publications, and acknowledge data providers when possible.  If data was downloaded using the BIEN R package, the package should also be cited.  Studies utilizing large amounts of BIEN data should seek solutions that ultimately lead to an entry in Web of Science so that data providers and original publications are given credit.  The function “BIEN_metadata_citation” in the BIEN R package is designed to facilitate citations and acknowledgements.  More information on this function is available in the R package, (using
?BIEN_metadata_citation() ), and vignette("BIEN_tutorial") provides detailed examples and use cases for this function.

Authorship guidelines

Normal ethics apply to co-authorship of scientific publications.  Users of data stored in BIEN should consider inviting the original data contributor to be a co-author(s) of any resultant publications if that contributor’s data are a major portion of the dataset analyzed, or if a data contributor makes a significant contribution to the analysis of the data or to the interpretation of results. Similarly, studies utilizing significant fractions of BIEN data and derived data products (species lists, geographic ranges, etc.) for their research are encouraged (but NOT required) to contact the BIEN working group, who may be able to provide insight into the use of BIEN data and expected updates to the database. Under no circumstances should authorship be attributed to data contributors, individually or collectively, without their explicit consent.

BIEN Disclaimer 

BIEN has made a good faith effort in providing quality data but provides NO WARRANTY to the accuracy or usability of the data and accepts no liability for any errors or omissions.