Hakai Institute Open Science Policy

The Hakai Institute, a division of the Tula Foundation, practices Open Science; the “principle and practice of making research products and processes available to all, while respecting diverse cultures, maintaining security and privacy, and fostering collaborations, reproducibility and equity”.

Hakai Institute research products, which include but are not limited to, papers, reports, data, protocols, models, code and web maps, must be made available under licensed terms that enable their reuse, redistribution and reproduction. The Hakai Institute retains ownership of all research products that have been generated, collected or produced through funding (direct or in-kind) by Tula Foundation.

Making research products open and accessible.
The Hakai Institute requires the sharing of research products, and adheres to FAIR Data Principles to improve findability, accessibility, interoperability and reuse of Hakai research products. Some research products are not appropriate for public distribution (e.g., data on endangered species, data from culturally sensitive areas). Projects will vary with regard to how different types of data can be shared and where, with whom, and the time needed to get data into a shareable format after collection. Therefore, Hakai scientists are required to create a public project-specific Data Management Plan to communicate data accessibility.

Attribution of open data.
We apply the CC-BY-4.0 license to Hakai research products. Using this license, the Tula Foundation retains copyright, while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make use of their work. Where a CC-BY-4.0 license is not appropriate, it needs to be approved internally.

Data publication.
Hakai scientists are required to share their research products to the public domain. Hakai scientists are required to make the research product available in an appropriate institutional repository, and discoverable and accessible through the Hakai Catalogue. Where a domain-specific repository exists, raw and/or processed data should also be made available there and referenced through the Hakai Catalogue to promote public access.

Acknowledgements. The contributions of the Hakai Institute must be acknowledged and accompany any distributed research data.