Open Data is research data that:
- Is freely available on the internet;
- Permits any user to download, copy, analyse, re-process, pass to software or use for any other purpose; and
- Is without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.
Open Data typically applies to a range of non-textual materials, including datasets, statistics, transcripts, survey results, and the metadata associated with these objects. The data is, in essence, the factual information that is necessary to replicate and verify research results. Open Data policies usually encompass the notion that machine extraction, manipulation, and meta-analysis of data should be permissible.