Data Office Adopts Network Open Data Licence and Publication Standards

The Data Office of the Velocity Interoperability Network today adopted the Network Open Data Licence and the first edition of the Network's data publication standards. The licence applies to every dataset published in the open data catalogue and permits anyone to copy, publish, adapt and combine the data, for any purpose including commercial purposes, provided that the publishing body is acknowledged as the source and the data is not presented as endorsed by the Network.

The publication standards govern the formats in which data is released, the metadata that must accompany every dataset, the identifiers used for member organisations, departments, sites and places, and the recording of dates and times. They apply to every department and network service publishing through the catalogue, and the Office will not list a dataset that does not meet them.

Data that is restricted, or that contains personal information, is not published in the catalogue and is released only under a data sharing agreement between the Office, the controlling body and the recipient. The terms of the licence and the agreements, together with answers to common questions on reuse, are set out on the Licensing and Reuse page of this site; the standards are set out on the Data Standards page.