Research Data Australia Service Schedule for Metadata Consumers

1. Background

Research Data Australia (RDA) is a research data discovery service operated by the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC). The RDA Portal and Registry provides descriptions of, and links to, the data from the metadata records provided by RDA data publishing partners (contributors), but does not store the data itself.

This document sets out ARDC’s terms of service, which apply to the User’s use of the RDA Service.

Individuals or organisations wishing to use or consume metadata from the RDA Service are required to agree to the terms in this Service Schedule and ARDC’s Standard Terms of Service, available on its website at https://ardc.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ardc_service_agreement_2024.pdf before commencing use of the Service.

2. Definitions and interpretation

ARDC means Australian Research Data Commons Limited ACN 633 798 857;

User means any person, entity or agent, including machines and/or software, that accesses the RDA Service for the purpose of metadata consumption (to view, access, download, harvest, retrieve, copy, publish, etc.).

RDA Service means the Research Data Australia service provided by ARDC.

3. Service components

RDA Portal - an online discovery service for finding, accessing, and re-using research data available from https://researchdata.edu.au/

RDA Registry - a software application for storing and managing collection descriptions (metadata records) provided to, and displayed in, Research Data Australia

RDA Metadata - metadata provided by RDA contributors to the Service

RDA APIs and Widgets - online services that allow users to consume RDA metadata through software.
Any reference to the “RDA Service” or the “Service” is inclusive of these individually or as a system.

4. Term

This agreement commences when the User first accesses the RDA Service, and continues until terminated by either party.

Without limiting ARDC’s other rights, ARDC may terminate this agreement immediately if the User breaches any term of the agreement.

5. Additional terms

The User acknowledges and agrees that in consuming metadata from the RDA Service, the User will:

(a)Comply with all permissions and conditions associated with a particular metadata content item for relevant terms of use;

(b) Seek prior written agreement from ARDC if RDA Metadata accessed from the RDA Service is to be reused in any product or service;

(c) If re-publishing RDA metadata, provide acknowledgment and attribution to ARDC in the following format:

Metadata was sourced from Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) Research Data Australia, which is enabled by the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS);

(d) If using RDA APIs, comply with any relevant API use conditions as specified in RDA Documentation, available at Web Services.

(e) Remove RDA Metadata and RDA Widgets from their systems and services, if this Agreement is terminated for any reason.

6. Warranties

The RDA Service presents the material provided by the owners and managers of the data collections registered therein (RDA Metadata) 'as is' without comment or change. In accordance with the RDA Service Disclaimer available at https://researchdata.edu.au/page/disclaimer the ARDC makes no warranties in respect of the RDA Service and is not liable in any way whatsoever for the failure or functioning of the service; or the accuracy or completeness of the material presented.