Text and Data Mining (T&DM) Policy

Version dated 28 January 2016

IOP Publishing Limited recognises the importance of allowing researchers good access to the metadata, full text and supplementary data of journal articles. These data are a key resource in the research process. We understand that researchers are becoming increasingly interested in mining the text and data included within that content.

To ensure that the research community can access content without undue interruption or delay, and also to ensure that we provide agreed contractual levels of availability to our subscribers, our IOPscience platform blocks systematic downloading of content through a variety of methods. Researchers seeking to extract large amounts of data for T&DM are therefore required to contact IOP Publishing to arrange for these technical limits to be removed temporarily and for the loads on our servers to be managed. In addition, to protect the investment of the authors and IOP Publishing in our publications, the terms and conditions governing use will depend on the content being mined and the purpose for which the T&DM is being carried out.

Under the T&DM copyright exception that came into force in the UK on 1 June 2014, researchers are permitted to make copies of copyrighted material to which they have ‘lawful access’ for the purposes of non-commercial T&DM.

Articles published under the Subscription model

IOP Publishing allows researchers access to our articles published under the subscription model on IOPscience for the purposes of non-commercial T&DM, provided they, or their institution, have a valid subscription which provides them with access to the IOP Publishing journal they wish to T&DM.

Institutions with current licences with IOP Publishing, which contain clauses allowing T&DM, must comply with the specific terms of those contracts to the extent that they do not conflict with s29A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

To avoid being blocked by the technical protections set up to prevent unauthorised systematic downloading of website content, individuals wishing to T&DM must email textmining@iop.org confirming:

  • their full name;
  • the name of any licensed institution to which they are affiliated
  • the titles of the journals that they wish to mine and, where relevant, the years/issues;
  • the approximate length of time that they need to have access to the IOPscience website to carry out the T&DM; and
  • the purpose for which they want to T&DM.

T&DM for commercial purposes is not covered by the new exception in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Researchers do not have the right to T&DM for commercial purposes even if they have a subscription to the journal.

Articles published under the Gold open access model

All T&DM of articles or journals published under the gold open access model will be governed by the terms of the Creative Commons licence relating to the relevant article.

If the content you wish to T&DM was published by IOP Publishing under the gold open access model under a CC BY licence, then you have the right to T&DM the content of the article for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.

If the content you wish to T&DM was published by IOP Publishing under the gold open access model under a CC BY-NC-SA licence, then you have the right to T&DM the content of the article for non-commercial purposes only.

Again, to avoid being blocked by the technical protections set up to prevent unauthorised systematic downloading of website content, individuals wishing to T&DM will need to email textmining@iop.org confirming:

  • their full name;
  • the names of any licensed institution/organisation to which they are affiliated;
  • the titles of the journals they wish to mine and, where relevant, the years/issues;
  • the approximate length of time that they need to have access to the IOPscience website to carry out the T&DM; and
  • the purpose for which they want to T&DM.

IOP Publishing Terms and conditions for T&DM

These terms and conditions shall be deemed to be accepted by anyone granted access to the IOPscience website for T&DM purposes. They are in addition to any terms included in a separate IOP Publishing licence. Where there is any conflict with any of these terms and the terms of any current IOP Publishing licence, the licence terms shall prevail to the extent that they do not conflict with section 29A Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 currently in force.

  1. T&DM of articles published under the subscription model is only permitted for non-commercial purposes. Any user intending to use the text or data for commercial purposes must bring this to IOP Publishing’s attention and negotiate specific terms for such use;
  2. Output from T&DM can include snippets of up to a maximum of 200 characters from the original text;
  3. The outputs of anything generated directly by the T&DM must be licensed by the user under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND licence, Version 3 (where any subscription content is included) or a Creative Commons CC-BY licence, Version 3 (where only open access content has been data mined); and
  4. Mined text and/or data should include a link to the DOI of the original article wherever reasonably practicable.