Access rights

Meaning & purpose

The AccessRights element is used to describe access rights and access constraints, including who may access and when access may occur (including any embargo). Restrictions may be based on security, privacy or other policies.

AccessRights is contained within the Rights element wrapper.

Access Rights attributes

Access Rights Type

An Access Rights Type is optional. If used, preferably specify a type from the Access Rights Type vocabulary:

Rights URI attribute

Optionally, include a Rights URI attribute to access rights and constraints information relating to the registry object.

Use in Research Data Australia

Access rights information is displayed prominently in Research Data Australia to support researchers in reuse of research collections:

• Access Rights Type and value are displayed in collection and service records under the label 'Access'
• A faceted search option is provided based on Access Rights Type terms

Best practice

Access rights information is recommended to provide clarity on the conditions under which the data or service may be accessed (if any). 

• Use the AccessRights element to describe access rights and access constraints for the data or service, including who may access and when access may occur (including any embargo). If an embargo applies, include the date when the embargo is expected to cease.
• Choose a type from the Access Rights Type vocabulary above. 
• A free text statement may also be provided. 
• Optionally, provide a URI pointing to access rights and access constraints relating to the collection or service. This could be a website, or, for example, an eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) resource. 

This element may be populated from other metadata sources including:

• dcterms:accessRights
• AGRkMS Rights Type
• DC CAP Access Rights
• MODS 3.4 accessCondition
• ANZLIC 1.0 useLimitation, accessConstraints, useConstraints, otherConstraints, MD_SecurityConstraints, handlingDescription

Nested collections and aggregations

Nested (parent/child) collections and records that describe aggregations of data or metadata (such as repositories and registries) require careful consideration when encoding rights information - especially access rights information. For nested collections, the parent record and all child records should be encoded with access rights information.

The following approach is recommended to ensure that those records encoded with open attributes are retrieved when a search in Research Data Australia is limited to, or faceted by, the "open" attribute:

• Where records within a nested collection (or items within an aggregation) share the same Access Rights Type, encode the parent record (or the aggregation collection record) with that Access Rights Type.
• Where records within a nested collection (or items within an aggregation) do not share the same Access Rights Type, encode the parent record (or the agregation collection record) with the most permissive or most common Access Rights Type in the nested collection (or aggregation), and provide a free text statement to clarify. 
  For example:
  • where some child records within a nested collection are publicly accessible online and some are not, encode the parent record as accessRights@type="open" and provide a free text statement as an accessRights value, e.g. "Access rights for datasets within this collection vary. See individual datasets for the access conditions that apply to them."
  • where some items within an aggregation being described are publicly accessible online and some are not, encode the collection record with accessRights@type="open" and provide a free text statement as an accessRights value, e.g. "Access rights for individual resources within this repository vary. Refer to advice provided by the data custodian."

XML encoding example

<rights>
<accessRights type="Restricted" rightsUri="http://www.paradisec.org.au/downloads.html"> Access may be granted following approval of a written application.</accessRights>
</rights>

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