Medizinische Hochschule Hannover

Martin Fenner

Tables and figures contain the data of a scientific paper in condensed
(and often visually appealing) form. This is why they are among the
first thing we look at, and why they are often reused when we discuss
the paper in a presentation or blog post.

<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption">
<img
src="https://blog.front-matter.io/content/images/2022/08/ppat.v06.i08.jpg"
title="PLoS Pathogens" class="kg-image" loading="lazy" width="251"
height="251" />
<figcaption>From https://doi.org/<a
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120525130956/http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1001042">10.1371/journal.ppat.1001042</a>.
Image credit: Thomas J. Hannan, Washington
University.</figcaption>
</figure>

Electronic publication has dramatically simplified the reuse of tables
and figures, and therefore reuse has become very common -- you probably
find reused material in most presentations given in academic
institutions or at conferences.

Most authors will probably be happy that their results are disseminated,
and reuse is likely to lead to more people reading the full paper and
citing the work.

But this reuse has two problems. The first problem is copyright. Many
journals own the copyright of the papers they publish and don't allow
reuse without prior permission. Unfortunately, copyright is a
complicated issue, and also differs between countries. Most researchers
assume "[Fair
use](https://web.archive.org/web/20120525130956/http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html)"
when they reuse material, but this might not apply to all situations,
e.g. presentations at conferences. And many researchers don't understand
that they have often given away the copyright to their own works so that
they can't show a figure from one of their papers without permission.

Many publishers have automated the process of obtaining permissions for
copyrighted work, e.g. using the
[Rightslink](http://www.copyright.com/viewPage.do?pageCode=pu4-n) system
of the Copyright Clearance Center. But it still requires a considerable
investment in time (and often money) to obtain all permissions,
especially since these are usually one-time permissions only. This
combination of unawareness of the details of copyright law and the
required extra work means that many researchers probably don't obtain
permission prior to reuse.

The solution to the copyright problems is obviously to use material with
a [Creative Commons](https://creativecommons.org/) license whenever
possible, as I have done in this blog post. And most Open Access papers
are published under this license, so there is plenty of material to
choose from.

But there is also a second problem with reusing tables and figures. They
were designed to be part of a paper and often look terrible in a
presentation, particularly tables.

<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption">
<img
src="https://blog.front-matter.io/content/images/2022/08/plosone-e1285879245843.png"
title="plosone" class="kg-image" loading="lazy" width="500"
height="402" />
<figcaption>From https://doi.org/<a
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120525130956/http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0006022">10.1371/journal.pone.0006022</a>.</figcaption>
</figure>

The solution to this problem is to provide the data behind the table or
figure, so that the information can be displayed in a way that makes
sense in a presentation. Here we usually have to reduce the amount of
information, but it could also mean that we remix the content with other
sources. The Creative Commons licenses discussed above are [not
appropriate](http://pantonprinciples.org/) for data. Whenever possible,
scientific data should be placed in the public domain.

It is important to distinguish the publication of table and figure data
from the publication of the [whole research
dataset](https://web.archive.org/web/20120525130956/http://blogs.openaccesscentral.com/blogs/bmcblog/entry/bmc_research_notes_wants_your).
The open questions with the latter (e.g. standard data formats,
appropriate repositories, archiving) don't apply to the former. This
means that publishers could start providing these data immediately. I'm
confident that they would see an increase in paper downloads and
citations. But more importantly, I hope this would lead to better
presentations in seminars and at conferences.

Tables and figures contain the data of a scientific paper in condensed (and often visually appealing) form. This is why they are among the first thing we look at, and why they are often reused when we discuss the paper in a presentation or blog post.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

Why can’t I reuse these tables and figures?