Manage Appropriate Access to Data

One of the challenges museums face is the need to both make available and support data on their specimens for research, while also managing its usage to ensure the data are used appropriately. No other digital repository platforms allow nuanced mechanisms for specifying or restricting use and reuse of 3D data according to the diversity of museum policies. Most data repositories require full Open Access (cc0) sharing after (at best) a brief embargo period, or allow Creative Commons Licenses to be applied.  In many cases such open sharing and licensing may be inappropriate for museum (3D) data. 

To deal with the complex requirements of museum (3D) data, MorphoSource has developed nuanced and powerful tools for customizing usage restrictions. Museums can even provide a copy of their institution-specific policy documents that users must agreed to abide by in the system before being allowed to download a dataset. See the articles Rights, Licenses, and Usage Settings for Media and What is an Organizational Management Team? for more details on how MorphoSource supports usage restrictions and museum management of these restrictions.