Guidelines for publishing using consortium tools

The Soil Carbon Solutions Center (SCSC) and the Ecosystem Modeling and Data Consortium are part of Colorado State University (CSU). Acceptance of any license agreement is a legal agreement between the person accessing the consortium product of interest (“user”) and the Colorado State University Research Foundation d/b/a CSU STRATA (“CSU STRATA”) a 501(c)3 non-profit organization which has the exclusive right to license certain CSU intellectual property.

Data policy

Access to and use of data are allowed for Ecosystem Modeling and Data Consortium members and implies that the user has agreed to the Consortium’s Membership Agreement and the Data Terms of Use. All data are subject to usage restrictions described by their respective license agreement. If no license agreement is assigned, the data should be considered to be under the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license (restrictions, notices, and legal code can be found here). 

Data citation should include, at a minimum, the specific data sources (i.e., the dataset DOI) and authors, the Ecosystem Modeling and Data Consortium, and the download date. The goal is to acknowledge all scientists and/or organizations that have contributed with data or other products. The citation of the associated peer-reviewed publications is also encouraged. For example, the citation for the ‘Global Soil Carbon Fractions: Managed and Unmanaged Ecosystems’ Dataset would be represented as:

Software policy

Software access and use are allowed for members of the Ecosystem Modeling and Data Consortium and implies that the user has agreed to the Consortium’s Membership Agreement and has received a license from CSU STRATA, and accepted the software’s Terms of Use. Any software available through the Consortium can only be used for commercial purposes if allowed per membership agreement.  Distribution and sublicensing are not permitted unless for academic publishing requirements. The executable files cannot be decompiled and the user agrees to not hold CSU liable for any derivative work, product, costs, expenses, claims, or demands arising from the use of consortium software.

All derivative work created by non-commercial members from the use of the software must be made available to the Ecosystem Modeling and Data Consortium. Any publication of derivative work from the use of the software must credit CSU and include the Copyright Colorado State University 2024. The original license must be included in any publishing requirement.

Disclaimer

Confidential/proprietary data and software on this website are available to members of the SCSC Ecosystem Modeling and Data Consortium. Public domain datasets are available to the broader community. Users are solely responsible for the assessment of the accuracy and applicability of these products for any purpose.

The software is provided "as is." CSU and CSU STRATA make no warranties or representations relating to the software, express or implied, statutory or otherwise, and expressly exclude the warranty of non-infringement of third-party rights, fitness for a particular purpose, or merchantability. CSU and CSU STRATA do not warrant that the software will satisfy user requirements.

Hyperlinks to external resources offered by the Ecosystem Modeling and Data Consortium aim solely at indicating the availability of further information on topics of interest to the community and do not express support or responsibility for the opinions, ideas, data or products, and the validity of the information provided by third parties. Geospatial information available for all products offered by the Ecosystem Modeling and Data Consortium is not an endorsement of the legal status of any country, territory, city, area, or delimitation of frontiers and boundaries.

Definitions

Derivative Work: means modifications which may include, but are not limited to, any source code, object code, path, tool, sample, graphic, specification, manual, documentation, translation to another foreign or computer language, adaptation to another hardware platform, abridgments, condensations, and revisions created by the Recipient and which are modeled after or based in whole or in part on the Software or incorporate all or any part of the Software.

Commercial Purpose: means the sale, lease, license, or other transfer of the Software or Derivative Works to a for-profit organization, or the use of the Software or Derivative Works by the user to perform research or services for a for-profit organization.

External resources: means resources provided from sources other than the Ecosystem Modeling and Data Consortium.