[open-science] Discussion of Open Access and CC licences in science

Mon Dec 12 11:19:04 UTC 2011

Peter

Thanks for the distinctions, and for setting the boundary for this
important discussion, to which I agree.

Essential to science  however, is 'creative and independent thinking'
(Feynman talks about it), with that consideration I used the word creative
in previous posts..
and not in relation to 'creative works of art' which I agree would be out
of scope

ref.
http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2007/06/14/9-lessons-richard-feynman-taught-us-about-creativity/

Thanks for the opportunity to clarify and focus thoughts accordingly

Cheers

PDM

On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 9:03 AM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> I am pleased to see strong discussion on OKF lists. Several issues have
> been raised (some by me). It may be useful to draw some distinctions.
>
> * The context of the discussion is largely scholarly publication. If we
> step outside this then I think there will be littel consensus
> * There is a distinction between monographs and articles in serials. Open
> Access for monographs is much less advanced than for serials.
> * Most scholarly publication occurs in science and most of that is funded
> directly or indirectly from the public purse (including charities). We can
> exclude companies publishing their work.
> * The public purse expects "Open" publication. It spends (world wide)
> about 100,000,000,000 -> 1,000,000,000,000 USD on the research (I have
> tried to get better figures). The public purse spends about 10,000,000,000
> USD on publication (author and reader-sides).
>
> The particular issue is that funders require Open Access and many
> publishers resist this. Large amounts are spent on funded Open Access (up
> to  5000 USD per article). There is no consensus on what funders or authors
> get for this sum (a wide variety of licences are used - see Ross' fantastic
> spreadsheet). My personal view is that 5000 USD for a NC licence (as
> opposed to a free Green copy of the author's manuscript) represents almost
> no added values.
>
> If arts and humanities feel that CC-NC meets their needs - where there is
> no implicit or explicitly funder - then I probably shan't challenge this.
> But if CC-NC is used for science we shall have monumentally reduced the
> value of the work that has been funded.
>
> I suggest that we restrict a major part of our discussion to the area I
> have outlined above - funded research isn scientific serials. If others
> wish to discuss monographs, etc. then let's label them as separate
> discussions.
>
> The urgent issue for science is to urge that all funded publication of
> scientific articles should be CC-BY. The arguments about creative artists
> protecting their work may be valid elsewhere but should not spill over into
> science.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Peter Murray-Rust
> Reader in Molecular Informatics
> Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
> University of Cambridge
> CB2 1EW, UK
> +44-1223-763069
>
> _______________________________________________
> open-science mailing list
> open-science at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-science
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-science/attachments/20111212/f4f744c3/attachment-0001.html>