Data Use Agreement

Data collected under the auspices of the SBC LTER are available to the public after primary publication, or at most two years after the completion of the study unless proprietary restrictions are warranted. As a member of the Long Term Ecological Research Network, SBC also adherers to the LTER Network Data Policy (2005). Use of SBC LTER data is subject to acceptance of the following conditions:

  1. The user agrees to provide valid name and contact information prior to downloading online data. This information will be used to contact the user in case of changes to the data, and may also be used by data set authors and SBC LTER project administrators to document data usage.
  2. The user agrees to cite the author and SBC LTER in all publications in which the data are used, as per the instructions in the data documentation. If no specific instructions are provided in the data documentation, the user is requested to include the following statement: "Data sets were provided by the Santa Barbara Coastal Ecosystem LTER, funded by the US National Science Foundation (OCE 9982105, OCE-0620276)".
  3. The user agrees to provide one copy of any manuscript based on SBC LTER data to the data set author prior to submitting it for publication.
  4. The user agrees to send two copies of any published manuscript based on SBC LTER data to the following address: 
                      Principal Investigator, SBC LTER
                  Marine Science Institute
                  University of California, Santa Barbara
                  Santa Barbara, CA  93106
  5. Users are prohibited from selling or redistributing any data provided by SBC LTER without explicit prior permission.
  6. Users are encouraged to contact original investigators responsible for data. Where appropriate, researchers whose projects are integrally dependent on data are encouraged to consider collaboration and/or co-authorship with original investigators.
  7. Extensive efforts are made to ensure that online data are accurate and up to date, but the authors and the SBC LTER will not take responsibility for any errors that may exist in data provided online. Furthermore, the user assumes all responsibility for errors in analysis or judgment resulting from use of the data.
  8. Any violation of the terms of this agreement will result in immediate forfeiture of the data and loss of access privileges to other SBC LTER data sets.