The SHRUG Open Data License

The terms of use for the SHRUG are based on the Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL), which requires derivative works to retain the same open source status as the original work. In practice, this means that if you use the SHRUG, you commit to sharing the non-proprietary data that you link to the SHRUG for the purposes of your research at the time that your research is accepted for publication.

For example, suppose a researcher aggregates administrative data on water quality measures for all villages in Karnataka, and conducts research linking these to village-level economic outcomes using the SHRUG. When that researcher’s paper is accepted for publication, she should post the shrid-aggregated water quality data (plus a brief description) for public use. To make it easier for users to find new SHRUG-linked datasets as they appear, we will post links to them on our web site. With the researchers’ consent, all-India datasets that seem particularly general in use may be included in future SHRUG packages. Users of the SHRUG are required to cite the original provenance of the data; inclusion in the SHRUG will therefore result in more citations for the reseacher in question. We therefore view this data sharing license as win-win, though recognizing that it does take some additional work to post data in a format that is usable by the public. We recognize that some data are proprietary and cannot be shared, and the license does not apply to these data sources. Nevertheless, in many cases, location-level aggregates can be shared even if the raw microdata cannot. It is our hope that the user agreement and citation structure of the SHRUG will motivate researchers to release as much data at the shrid level as is possible.