Intellectual Property Guidelines
- Nicolette delMuro
- Ian Christopher (Deactivated)
Version: 1.0.1
Last Revised: October 2021 (non-substantive copy editing)
Overview
This documentation covers guidelines related to intellectual property in the context of the NSPA Data Standards Initiative. By participating in the NSPA Data Standards Initiative, contributors acknowledge these intellectual property guidelines and agree to comply with these terms.
IP Guidelines
General
The mission of the NSPA is to advance the collective impact of scholarship providers and the scholarships they award. As part of its ongoing work in advancing collective impact, the NSPA has created a Data Standards Initiative, with the intent to simplify life for scholarship providers and their technology partners, to support reporting and research, and to improve the scholarship search and application process for the students our membership ultimately serves.
Copyright
The NSPA Data Standards Initiative follows common (and common-sense) practices regarding copyrights for a standards-development group. Contributions made in the context of the initiative are irrevocably licensed to the NSPA or its designated copyright owner:
To make any contribution available to other contributors and the general public for the purpose of considering its inclusion in a standard.
To distribute any eventual standard with the contribution included, in whole or in part.
To disseminate contributions via technical or nontechnical documentation, white papers, blog posts, or other publications, in whole or in part.
The NSPA or its designated copyright owner will own the copyright of the final standards and publications into which contributions are incorporated.
Confidentiality
Contributions, whether written or verbal, made in the context of the NSPA Data Standards Initiative will not be treated as confidential. The data standards initiative is, by design, collaborative and intended to provide a public resource. So, please do not make any contributions you do not wish disclosed to Initiative participants or the public.
That said, the sharing of information more broadly than the Initiative participants will typically follow the Chatham House Rule. In brief, this means that comments and contributions may be shared, but the person or organization making the comment will not be revealed. For example, a pointed comment might be shared broadly as, “A scholarship listing service vendor raised an objection to using the proposed data structure for the following reasons…” or similar.