[okfn-discuss] Proposal for OpenThesis Project

Mon Jul 12 05:40:49 UTC 2010

Graham,
Extremely useful.

On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 4:43 AM, Graham Higgins <gjh at bel-epa.com> wrote:

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> On 12 Jul 2010, at 02:28, Peter Murray-Rust wrote:
>
>  So, apart from the name clash (which is unfortunate and we may need to
>> think about) there isn't much in common unless you know diferently
>>
>
>
> Probably a wise move to consider a name change, "Openthesis" seems to have
> picked up some negative associations already.
>
> Openthesis.org is discussed in the latter half of this blog post from
> February:
>
> http://scienceblogs.com/bookoftrogool/2010/02/academic_samizdat.php
>
> The post references a "dustup" on EDT-L list about an apparent harvesting
> of thesis metadata and associated content,

This is by Dorothea Salo - worth reading

She argues that OpenThesis.org has violated copyright by downloading against
restrictions from the institutions (which apparently have special
dispensations). I'm not clear that OT has actually downloaded theses in mass
(I may just not have read far enough).(I think there is too much
conservatism about legal issues in this.) But anyway that's not what I
suggest OKF does

My analysis is that OKFThesis (let's start with that) downlloads the
metadata from the repositories. If THAT's illegal then I am happy to be the
first in line for the jail. It then decides whether the object pointed to is
Open. This might be done by licence - more likely by crowdsourcing. It then
adds this metadata to the OKFT Toc.

> the referenced discussion carries a pointer to this abstract of James
> Ryley's summary of the Openthesis rationale:
>
> http://conferences.library.pitt.edu/ocs/viewabstract.php?id=759&cf=7
>
> And this from searching for "Patents Online, LCC James Ryley":
>
> "This site was started by a former patent searcher, James Ryley, who was
> not happy with the service or prices available from other patent data
> providers. James happened to have a background in web programming and web
> design, so he decided to solve the problem himself by building a better
> patent searching site. So, this site started out as a labor of love, and
> something James felt would be valuable to the community. Initially the site
> was completely built and financed by James. But, as the site has grown
> numerous people have become involved in various aspects of the site, and we
> are currently investigating business models that will allow the site (or at
> least the vast majority of the site) to remain free while defraying our
> development, hosting, and hardware expenses."
>
> http://www.freepatentsonline.com/help/topic/Who-runs-this-site-and-why.html
>

Patents are actually the easiest place to start with. The info is by
definition Open. We have a program which downloads all the EPO patents for
chemistry and indexes them. We think it's miles ahead of any other
technology. It's not 100%. So we can create an open patents database. (No,
I'm not proposing TWO OKF projects in the same day - I believe that if you
propose something you have to be part of the heavy lifting and I'll do that
for theses)
.
So I currently suggest OKFTheses or OKTheses to avoid the name clash, but
that's just a start.

P.

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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