Data and Image Use Policy

(Note: This document is subject to change. Please check back to this site before using Journey North data or images.)

Journey North is a citizen science program that spans the North American continent. Journey North volunteers collect data on phenological events including migration and life cycle stages of project species. Journey North volunteers also collect data on the distribution of project species during the breeding season. Their data have been the basis for many publications on migration and the impact of climate change.

Journey North follows the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA copyright policy (Attribution-NonCommercial-Share-Alike) (see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).

Photographs, Infographics, Educational Materials Copyright

Individuals who use photos found on the Journey North website, maps, and sightings database must attribute the work to the photographer listed with the photo and to Journey North. You may not use the work for commercial purposes. If you alter, transform, or build upon the work, you may only distribute the resulting work under the same or a similar license to this one. If you use photos from the Journey North website, follow the Creative Commons policy linked above, and attribute the photos as follows: Photographer Name, courtesy Journey North. If you use infographics, charts, and other educational and outreach materials for classroom settings, and not for commercial use, please use the following attribution: Image courtesy Journey North. When appropriate, please use the Journey North logo.

Data Access Policy

For Scientists:

Journey North encourages researchers to disseminate findings in appropriate publications, based in whole or in part on Journey North data. All publication(s) or product(s) using Journey North data are requested to adhere to the policy outlined below.

Journey North has strived to make data accessible and publicly available. In keeping with this goal, Journey North has published nine data packages on a central environmental data repository hosted by the Environmental Data Initiative.

Please note: In the EDI data repository, these data packages have unique identifiers, are well-described by metadata documentation, and are transparent and easily accessible. Credit is given to the creators with acknowledgment requested to be given to the Journey North volunteer observers who collected the data.

For Community Members and Educators:

Site visitors are welcome to use the data from the website for educational purposes, or informal analyses. Educators may use the data in a classroom setting for practice in managing and interpreting data, and students may present posters using the data at science fairs or other venues. Educators may publish articles or lessons about how they have utilized the data, but not articles for which the main purpose is to provide information about migration biology or conservation. In the latter cases, educators should submit a request for permission using the process outlined below. Teachers may link to the Journey North site on their school website or social media sites but should not post the actual data.

Redistribution of Journey North Data

Without specific approval, no data provided by Journey North can be distributed beyond the individuals requesting the data. Raw data should not be made available for download through the Internet, but derived data (maps, tables) are usually acceptable. If you plan to present Journey North data on the Internet, the nature of the visualization(s) must be specified in your data request.

Authorship

If a request for data includes proposed research with significant Journey North staff contributions, then agreement on the role of involved staff, joint authorship, and order of authors on publications must be reached before the data are released. Journey North review of manuscripts (or parts thereof) before submission to journals is requested.

Final publications are requested to be shared with Journey North so that Journey North can share relevant research with Journey North volunteers.

Acknowledgments

The researchers agree to use the citations provided if downloading data via the Environmental Data Initiative data portal, including authors, DOI numbers, and acknowledgment of Journey North volunteers, in all relevant publications.

If you are an educator and using Journey North data in informal settings, the following statement must be included in the acknowledgment section of any student work:

We wish to thank Journey North for providing this dataset. We also wish to thank all the observers who contributed data to the project.

If data retrieved from Journey North is to be used for web-based products (maps, summaries, etc.), please contact the Journey North Program Coordinator directly.

Revocation of Privileges

Any researcher/author/user not abiding by this policy may forfeit future access to Journey North data.

Contact Information

Requests for data must be submitted to:

Journey North does not release any personal information about project volunteers.

Created 07/31/2020; Revised 08/19/2020; 11/05/2021; 10/30/2023