FAIR for creative and/or practice-led outputs

Practice-led outputs may be particularly common in Arts and Humanities subjects or subjects where a significant role is played by practice-based research methodologies. Practice-led and/or creative outputs can assume a wide variety of formats such as audio, video, images, multimedia, (records of) performances, sculptures, installations, buildings and more. These outputs can also be collaborative or co-produced in origin.

Many of the key considerations relating to making such outputs FAIR are addressed elsewhere in this resource - for example, the need to consider the accessibility and longevity of the file formats in which the outputs are made available. However, such outputs come with their own specific issues that need to be addressed.

For general information on making your data FAIR, view the following information:

Special considerations

When planning any projects that might have a creative or practice-led output, the following points may be useful to consider:

Collaborative works

Where data/outputs are co-produced with the participants of the study, ensure your consent forms, ethics application and intended practice are all aligned in order to permit any intended sharing of the data/outputs. If this is not the case, you may decide to seek appropriate ethics approval to enable you to request retrospective consent for the sharing or onward use of the data/output. You should discuss the most appropriate form of ethics approval for approaching participants with your departmental Principle Ethics Contact . You can find more useful information on this in the Planning your research section of this resource.

Where data/outputs are co-produced with a collaborator, external organisation or research partner, you should ensure during the planning stages of your research that an agreement is in place regarding the planned uses of data/outputs after the project. Guidance on such agreements can be obtained from Research Services and the MyResearch service in MUSE. It may in some instances be possible to put such an agreement in place retrospectively to allow the sharing of your data and outputs, but it is usually easier to put this in place at the start of a project.

Websites & repositories

Historically, practice-led or creative data/outputs from a project have often been made available solely via a project website rather than via a repository. Reasons for this include the degree of interactivity which may be desirable for these types of outputs and the capacity of a dedicated website to provide a gateway into the data.

Making outputs/data available solely via a project website can make the data findable and to a degree accessible; however, this approach also has limitations and can cause some difficulties. Limitations include the fact that project websites are not as static and stable as they first appear. URLs can become defunct and websites require ongoing maintenance in case of changes to the underlying software and standards.  Funding may only exist to maintain project websites during and immediately after the project itself, which can render long-term preservation via a website unsustainable.

By contrast, placing these outputs in a repository produces a DOI which provides a stable means of citing, referencing and locating the output over time. Repositories offer a reliable option for long-term storage, with no maintenance required from the individual research team, other than updating the deposit should new versions of the output be created.

So while websites might have the functionality that is required to truly showcase the work at the time of creation and afterwards, repositories are more stable in keeping an essence of the output for a longer period of time, but it should be noted that these are not mutuality exclusive decision and both can be used for a single project.

View the Repositories section of this resource for further guidance. If no subject-specific or data-type-specific repository is available, the University of Sheffield's institutional repository, ORDA, can accommodate a wide range of item types including figures (images), media (audio/visual, 3D representations), and compositions (creative work).

Documentation

Like all outputs you choose to make available to others, creative or practice-led outputs should be fully documented and contextualised and include a README file. Aside from what has already been outlined elsewhere in this resource, this should give details including information about creators and collaborators, how it should be cited in order to credit all involved, and the way in which the deposit should be approached / the software which can be used to access the output (if this is potentially unfamiliar to users).

Copyright and licensing

If you are working with collaborators, it is important to note that they share ownership of the copyright of your outputs and so you will need to agree on how you will share your work. Where works contain third-party materials, you should ensure that these are either available under an open licence, are out of copyright, used under a copyright exception, or you have secured permission to use them. Any third-party materials need to be clearly labelled with their reuse rights to ensure users know that they may be available under a different licence to the rest of the work.  Guidance on copyright can be found on the University Library webpages . If, after consulting these sources, you cannot find the answer to your query, contact copyright@sheffield.ac.uk or book an appointment with a copyright advisor.