[open-science] [Open-access] how open is it
Jan Velterop
velterop at gmail.com
Wed Oct 10 20:57:00 UTC 2012
I second that! I wrote to Cameron off-line, but am happy to repeat it here:
"You are summing up and explaining the issues with an almost incredible, and enviable, clarity"
And Mike is right, very tactful, too.
Jan
On 10 Oct 2012, at 21:04, Mike Taylor wrote:
> THANK you, Cameron. I've seen a bunch of anti-CC BY articles recently
> (many of them by Harnad) but just lacked the energy to slap them down.
> I appreciate your taking the time to do it so effectively ... not to
> mention much more tactfully than I would have.
>
> -- Mike.
>
>
>
> On 10 October 2012 17:13, cameronneylon.net <cn at cameronneylon.net> wrote:
>> Heather
>>
>> I can't help but feel you are attacking a straw person here. No one has ever
>> argued that CC BY *defines* Open Access. Many of us argue that is a
>> necessary *part* of open access as defined by the original BOAI and Peter
>> Suber has explicitly said that was the originally intended meaning. The
>> distinction between gratis and libre came later (see Postscript2 in
>> http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/06-02-12.htm).
>>
>> Under the BOAI Open Access is the free, immediate, and unencumbered ability
>> to access, read, use, re-use, and re-mix a work. The license is merely a
>> tool to help ensure that we meet these conditions. It is not sufficient and
>> I don't think anyone has suggested it was but it is precisely as part of the
>> mechanism for ensuring that commercial publishers do reach the standard that
>> we want when they provide open access that it is most useful. DRM is a red
>> herring. No policy would accept anything with DRM on it as acceptable OA.
>> It's actually an argument for repositories as part of OA policy that it
>> creates a testable functional definition - if you can put it in the repo
>> under a specified licence then you're compliant with the policy.
>>
>> What you are proposing as open access is some form of free access for
>> certain defined purposes but it doesn't quality as "open" in any of the
>> senses the word has been used by either the Open Source Definition, the Open
>> Knowledge Definition, or the definition of Free (as defined by FSF and the
>> Free Culture movement). That's fine, and you're free to argue for these
>> things but there is a reason why these definitions converge (and a reason
>> why they differ on specific details).
>>
>> On 5 Oct 2012, at 01:22, Heather Morrison wrote:
>>
>> 4. There are GOOD reasons for scholars not to want to allow derivatives.
>> Scholars need to specify NoDerivs.
>>
>>
>> I can't even begin to understand this. A primary part of my definition of
>> research is that people can and will build on it. This might be through
>> mining, aggregation, indexing, critique, translation, summary, all of which
>> are derivative works. If you can't re-use work it isn't research in my view.
>> It may be art, and perhaps more humanities scholarlship generates artistic
>> rather than research outputs. But the public funding of art is a very
>> different argument to the public funding of resaerch.
>>
>> I'm not going to tackle the non-commercial issue point by point except to
>> say that funders have an obligation to globally optimise outcome on
>> investment and that is why they are shifting to requiring CC-BY. A major
>> driver of the RCUK policy is the aim of supporting innovation including
>> commercialisation and that's why thhe policy is structured the way it is.
>> Infrastructure funding is an issue but the one thing we've learnt from study
>> after study of the effect of restrictions on re-use is that requiring (or
>> even encouraging measures to support) cost recovery is one of the best way
>> of reducing the overall impact of your research investment. Many of the
>> criticisms of various UK and EU initiatives have completely failed to engage
>> with the aims of those governments which I think is unfortunate. I can see
>> people disagree with whether the aims are correct but failing to engage with
>> major stakeholders on their own terms is just bad politics.
>>
>> If people want to do cost recovery on privately or personally funded
>> research then that's their business. I think it's misguided in most cases
>> because it generally leads to less local income as well as less global
>> impact but that's something to look at on a case by case basis. But funders
>> and particularly government funders are well within their rights to place
>> requirements on the money they disburse. Researchers are free to not ask for
>> money if they don't like the conditions. As with the NIH mandate there is
>> always a choice - no-one is forced to do anything here but there are always
>> conditions to accepting money, whether it be research funds or a salary.
>>
>>
>> 9. The CC-BY universe is MUCH smaller than the open access universe.
>> Attempts to force CC-BY on all are, in my opinion, highly likely to cause a
>> major divide in the open access movement.
>>
>>
>> Actually not true. I've been doing some analysis using DOAJ and Crossref as
>> a data source and CC BY dominates the published OA journal literature. The
>> numbers aren't perfect but as a percentage of all OA in journals that have a
>> registered licence type with DOAJ that have DOI registrations CC BY is about
>> 80% of the total. CC-BY numbers are growing around 20% year on year whereas
>> CC-NC/CC-NC-SA are not. Obviously there are a lot of journals with no
>> licence but they actually don't publish that many articles.
>>
>> As far as divides go, I actually think it's inevitable. As the movement
>> succeeds and changes policy it is inevitable that all the cracks in what
>> was always a lot of different groups pointing in roughly the same direction
>> will start to emerge. It's the nature of revolutions. In one sense its a
>> good thing. It means we've won. That we disagree on implementation should
>> come as a surprise to no-one, the agendas and aims are far too different for
>> agreement to hold right across the movement.
>>
>> As an aside I think its ironic that the objections that often frame the
>> discussion as how actually paying the costs of publication or requiring CC
>> BY are inimical to the needs of the humanities, yet humanists (and social
>> scientists) are always concerned that funders and government don't
>> appreciate the impact they have. Actually I think the arguments are even
>> stronger in the humanities that maximising impact through enabling re-use
>> will help make the case for continued appropriate funding.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Cameron
>>
>>
>> best,
>>
>> Heather Morrison
>> Open Access Advocate / Opponent of Forced CC-BY
>>
>>
>> On 2012-09-25, at 11:59 AM, Jonathan Gray wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 8:54 PM, cameronneylon.net <cn at cameronneylon.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> On 25 Sep 2012, at 19:03, Jonathan Gray wrote:
>>
>> * "Generous reuse & remixing rights (CC-BY license)" - The allusion
>>
>> to CC-BY is helpful, but it would also be good if this box explicitly
>>
>> mentioned OpenDefinition.org as a standard for fully open licenses -
>>
>> e.g. for cases where there may be bespoke or custom licenses.
>>
>>
>> Without wishing to re-open old wounds, the OpenDefinition isn't really
>> appropriate in this context as it isn't strong enough as a definition for
>> interoperability of bespoke licences. We're adopting the BOAI original
>> definition alongside the recommendations of BOAI10 here that CC-BY is best
>> practice (for journal *articles*...not really referring strongly to data
>> here) ie share-alike is not "open enough" in this domain.
>>
>>
>> Point very much taken Cameron. In which case - what about
>>
>> "OpenDefinition compliant 'attribution style' licensing" which
>>
>> shouldn't cause interoperability issues?
>>
>>
>> Or perhaps it isn't worth broadening from CC-BY (as it might have been
>>
>> a few years ago) as people are much more likely to use CC-BY than to
>>
>> roll their own, which of course should be encouraged.
>>
>>
>> J.
>>
>>
>> But feel free to comment!
>>
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>>
>> Cameron
>>
>>
>> J.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 6:54 PM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 4:53 PM, Tom Olijhoek <tom.olijhoek at gmail.com>
>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> A very important announcement I think
>>
>>
>> judge for yourself
>>
>>
>> http://www.arl.org/sparc/media/HowOpenIsIt.shtml
>>
>>
>>
>> YES. It's about time something like this happened - SPARC has been quiet and
>>
>> I look to them for some guidance. I haven't read the booklet, but comment on
>>
>> the abstract
>>
>>
>>
>> • Move the conversation from “Is It Open Access?” to “How Open Is It?”
>>
>> • Clarify the definition of OA
>>
>> • Standardize terminology
>>
>> • Illustrate a continuum of “more open” versus “less open”
>>
>> • Enable people to compare and contrast publications and policies
>>
>> • Broaden the understanding of OA to a wider audience
>>
>>
>> These are all critical. Until recently there was nowhere they could be
>>
>> discussed without the discussion being destroyed.
>>
>>
>> But now we have OKF open-access !!
>>
>>
>> Let's offer this organ to the world and let's finally try to get a decent
>>
>> discussion going.
>>
>>
>> P.
>>
>>
>>
>> TOM
>>
>>
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>>
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>>
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>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> 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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>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Jonathan Gray
>>
>>
>> Head of Community
>>
>> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>>
>> http://www.okfn.org
>>
>>
>> http://twitter.com/jwyg
>>
>>
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>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Jonathan Gray
>>
>>
>> Head of Community
>>
>> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>>
>> http://www.okfn.org
>>
>>
>> http://twitter.com/jwyg
>>
>>
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