What can I do? Academics perceptions on issues concerning licences

Abstract

In this study we aim to understand what people in academia (academics, researchers and students) find challenging regarding the topic of licences. Specifically, we collect discussions from Q&A fora and manually analyse them to unravel what our stakeholders feel compelled to ask about and discuss online. We collect 407 questions and after filtering we analyze 212 of them using thematic analysis techniques. We identify 8 clusters of challenges, that we further determine based on 6 types of questions they can be concerned with (i.e., What, How, Why, Should, Can, and Is there questions). We find that most questions ask what license to pick for different scenarios and the tools available to help with this selection do not take in to consideration that there might already be licensed material in use. Our findings can be used as input to educational material regarding licences or future ”licence helper tools” development, in order to cover what people in academia typically find challenging and ask about in expert Q&A fora.