Author Carpentry

Open Access, Licensing, ORCIDs & Author Rights

CODATA-RDA Data Science School

2026-04-01

This Session

9:30 – 10:15 (45 minutes)

🗺️ What does your publishing workflow look like today?
The open access landscape
Reproducible reports and the tools that make them possible
Licensing your work
ORCIDs and persistent identifiers
Where GenAI fits — and what it changes

Note

This session builds directly on the morning framing around open pipelines. We will ground abstract concepts in your own workflows before moving to tools and rights.

Why Does This Matter Now?

The research publishing landscape is shifting fast. Three forces driving change:

Funder mandates
NSF, NIH, Wellcome Trust, and the EU now require open access to publicly funded research outputs.

Reproducibility crisis
Lack of access to data and methods is a root cause. (More on this in Session 2.)

Author rights
Researchers often sign away more rights than they realize — and more options exist than many know.

🗺️ Activity: What Is Your Workflow?

~10 minutes | Work in pairs

Think about your own research process across these six phases:

Discovery → Analysis → Writing → Publication → Outreach → Assessment

Individually (3 min): Sketch or list the tools and steps in your current workflow for each phase. What do you actually do?
In pairs (5 min): Compare with your partner. What are the differences? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach?
Share back: Complete the table in this doc with your answers.

Note

Explore the full tool landscape at 101innovations.wordpress.com

What Has Changed in Research Products?

Research used to produce one thing — a journal article.

Now a research project can (and increasingly should) produce:

📄 Preprint
📰 Peer-reviewed article
📦 Dataset (with DOI)
💻 Code / software (with DOI)

📋 Data management plan
🔬 Protocol or lab notebook
📊 Presentation or poster
✍️ Blog post or policy brief

Each of these is a citable, licensable output — and each can connect back to your ORCID.

Why Work in Reproducible Mode?

Working reproducibly benefits you first:

Your future self can re-run the analysis six months later
You can catch errors before reviewers do
You can adapt the workflow to a new dataset faster

And it benefits everyone else:

Others can verify your findings
Others can build directly on your methods
Your work has a longer productive life

Tip

Reproducibility is not a favor you do for the community. It is a habit that protects the quality of your own work.

Tools for Reproducibility

Version control — Git + GitHub/GitLab: tracks changes, enables collaboration
Open-source languages — R, Python, Julia: reproducible, shareable code
Literate programming — Jupyter, Quarto: analysis and narrative in one document
Open data formats — CSV, JSON, Parquet: not locked to proprietary software
Research repositories — Zenodo, OSF, Dataverse: assigns DOIs to code and data
Containerization — Docker, Binder: freeze the computational environment
Workflow managers — Make, Snakemake: automate and document analysis pipelines

The Open Access Landscape

Open Access (OA): making research outputs freely available to read, use, and build upon.

A key distinction:

Term	Meaning
Gratis	Free to read — no cost to the reader
Libre	Free to reuse — rights to modify, redistribute, republish

“Think ‘free speech,’ not ‘free beer.’” — Richard Stallman

The Open Access Landscape

Route	Where	Cost to author	Cost to reader
Gold	Fully OA journal	APC (often)	Free
Hybrid	Subscription journal	High APC	Free (if paid)
Green	Repository self-archive	None	Free
Diamond	Community-run OA journal	None	Free

Tip

Green OA is almost always available to you at no cost — check your journal’s policy at sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.

Preprints and Licensing

Preprints — shared publicly before peer review — let you establish priority, get early feedback, and meet funder OA requirements immediately.

Platform	Field
arXiv	Physics, CS, Math, Economics
bioRxiv / medRxiv	Biology, Medicine
OSF Preprints	General / interdisciplinary
SciELO Preprints	Latin America & Global South

Preprints and Licensing

Licenses determine what others can do with your work:

License	You allow…
CC BY	Any use, with attribution (required by most funders)
CC BY-SA	Any use + share-alike
CC BY-NC	Non-commercial use only
CC0	Public domain — no restrictions (recommended for data)

Caution

For code, use software-specific licenses (MIT, Apache 2.0) — Creative Commons licenses are not designed for software.

ORCID: Your Persistent Research Identity

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a free, persistent identifier for researchers — like a DOI, but for people.

Why you need one:

Distinguishes you from researchers with the same or similar name
Links your publications, datasets, grants, and affiliations automatically
Travels with you across institutions and name changes
Required by a growing number of journals and funders

Step 1 — Create your ORCID:
authorcarpentry.github.io/orcid-profile/
00-orcid-profile.html

(or register directly at orcid.org)

Step 2 — Populate your profile:
authorcarpentry.github.io/orcid-profile/
01-adding-works.html

Persistent Identifiers: The Connective Tissue

Everything in an open research pipeline has — or should have — a persistent identifier:

Identifier	What it identifies
ORCID	Researchers
DOI	Articles, datasets, preprints, software releases
ROR	Research organizations
ISSN / ISBN	Journals and books

Persistent Identifiers: The Connective Tissue

A DOI is a permanent, stable link. Unlike a URL, it will not break when a journal reorganizes its website.

When you deposit data or code, use repositories that assign DOIs: Zenodo, Figshare, OSF, or your institutional repository.

Note

Connect your ORCID to your institutional repository, Crossref, DataCite, and your funder systems — your profile will update automatically as you publish.

Author Rights and a Full Open Workflow

Many researchers sign away more rights than they need to. Most publishing agreements are negotiable.

Before you sign:

Check the journal’s OA and self-archiving policy at sherpa.ac.uk/romeo
Ask: Can I post a preprint? Can I archive my accepted manuscript in a repository?
Consider using a SPARC Author Addendum to retain key rights

Author Rights and a Full Open Workflow

What a fully open research workflow looks like:

Design study
  → Pre-register (OSF)
  → Analyze with open tools (R/Python + Quarto)
  → Post preprint (arXiv / bioRxiv / OSF)
  → Share data + code with DOI (Zenodo / GitHub)
  → Publish OA (Gold or Green)
  → Connect everything via ORCID

Where Does GenAI Fit in Publishing Workflows?

GenAI tools are already part of how many researchers write, summarize, and code. They raise new questions about authorship, disclosure, and accuracy.

Current consensus across major publishers:

AI cannot be listed as an author — authorship requires accountability
Use of AI in writing or analysis must be disclosed
The researcher is responsible for all content, AI-assisted or not

Where Does GenAI Fit in Publishing Workflows?

✅ Reasonable uses:

Summarizing literature (verify outputs)
Drafting and editing text (disclose)
Explaining, documenting or debugging code
Translating or reformatting content

⚠️ Use with caution:

Factual claims — verify independently
Citations — AI hallucinates references
Data interpretation/cleaning
Peer review content

Important

GenAI does not know what it does not know. It does not flag uncertainty. You are the check.

Summary

Your publishing workflow already exists — the goal is to make it more open, one step at a time
Reproducibility tools serve both your own future self and the broader community
Open Access has multiple routes — Green OA is almost always free and available to you
Licensing is a deliberate choice: CC BY for articles and materials, CC0 for data, software licenses for code
ORCID is your persistent research identity — create one, connect it to everything, keep it current

☕ Coffee Break

10:15 – 10:30

Next up: Open and Responsible Research — research integrity, FAIR principles, ethical data use, and case-based group discussion.