Say I wanted to data mine 10,000 articles. I'm at a university, but I am co-funded by a pharmaceutical company and there is a possibility that the research that I'm doing may result in a new drug discovery, which that company will want to take to market. The 10,000 articles are all 'open access', but they are under CC-BY-NC-SA licenses. What mechanism is there by which I can contact all 10,000 authors and gain permission for my research?
David David C Prosser PhD Executive Director, RLUK Tel: +44 (0) 20 7848 2737 Mob: +44 (0) 7825 454586 www.rluk.ac.uk RLUK Twitter feed: RL_UK Director's Twitter feed: RLUK_David Maughan Library and Information Services Centre, King's College London, Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1LR Registered Company no: 2733294 Registered Charity no: 1026543 On 14 Mar 2012, at 16:40, Heather Morrison wrote: > Following are my comments to the RCUK open access consultation. > > > Dear RCUK Open Access Policy group, > > First of all let me say congratulations and thank you to RCUK for your > continuing inspiring leadership on open access policy. Following are my > comments, based on many years of experience in open access policy advocacy, > my work as a professional librarian and adjunct faculty at the University of > British Columbia's School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, where > I have developed and taught courses on scholarly communication, and my > doctoral studies (communications, in progress) in the area of scholarly > communication and open access. > > Overall, from my perspective this draft policy introduces two important > innovations: reducing the permitted embargo period, and pushing towards libre > open access (e.g. allowing use for data and text-mining). In brief, I > recommend strengthening the language on shortening embargo periods, and > eliminating reference to CC-BY in favor of broader language against > restrictions and requiring formats usable for text and data-mining purposes. > Also, I recommend that the policy specify immediate deposit, with optional > delayed release to accomodate the permitted embargoes. > > With respect to the embargo period, I recommend strengthening the language > indicating that any permitted embargo periods are designed as a temporary > measure to give publishers time to adjust to an open access environment, with > a view to eventually requiring open access immediately on publication. This > language can be found on page 4, I recommend including this in the > introductory language to underscore this point. > > Kudos to RCUK for adopting a leadership position on libre open access. > However, I would recommend against specifying the Creative Commons CC-BY > license. While many open access advocates understandably see CC-BY as the > expression of the BOAI definition of open access, my considered opinion is > that CC-BY is a weak license for libre OA which fails to protect OA > downstream and will not accomplish the Budapest vision of open access,. My > perspective is that the best license for libre open access is Creative > Commons - Attribution - Noncommercial - Sharealike (CC-BY-NC-SA), as this > protects OA downstream (recognizing that the current CC NC definition is > problematic, and noting that commercial rights should be retained by authors, > not publishers). As one example of where open access might need such > protection, because CC-BY allows for resale of open access materials: if all > of PubMedCentral were CC-BY, a commercial company could copy the whole thing, > perhaps add some value, and sell their version of PMC. They could not legally > stop PMC from providing free access. However, I very much doubt that CC-BY > could prevent such a company from lobbying to remove funding for the public > version. If this sounds ludicrous and unconscionable, may I present as > evidence that just such a scenario is realistic: 1) the efforts a few years > ago by the American Chemical Society to prevent the U.S. government from > providing PubChem on the grounds that this was competition with a private > entity; 2) the Research Works Act, and 3) the current anti-FRPAA lobbying in > the U.S., which, similarly to the Research Works Act, claims that published > research funded by the public is "private research works" which should belong > solely to the publisher. > > Another reason for avoiding CC-BY is that while the contributions of funders > are very important, so are the contributions of scholar authors. Many > scholars do not wish to see others who have contributed nothing to a > scholarly work sell their work and pocket the money; I certainly don't. For > example, Peter Suber recently posted this note to the SPARC Open Access Forum > which expresses the distress of an author who published CC-BY in a BMC > journal and then found a bogus publisher selling her article for $3. > https://groups.google.com/a/arl.org/group/sparc-oaforum/browse_thread/thread/fc977cabd0d59bcc#. > The more work that is published CC-BY, the more I believe we can expect to > see this kind of scam, and this risks turning researchers off OA. Also, when > faculty members develop their own open access policies (e.g. Harvard, MIT), > they insist that articles not be sold for a profit. Links to these and other > institutional repositories are available through the Registry of Open Access > Material Archiving Policies (ROARMAP) at http://roarmap.eprints.org/. > > To illustrate how CC-BY does not necessarily result in the Budapest open > access initative's vision of "sharing of the poor with the rich and the rich > with the poor": those who give away their work for commercial purposes may > not be able to afford the results. For example, if a scholar from a poorer > area gives away their medical articles as CC-BY, images and other elements > from these articles could be used to develop point-of-care tools that could > be sold at prices that the health care professionals serving the scholar and > their families could not afford. That is, despite the best of intentions, > CC-BY could easily result in a one-way sharing of the poor with the rich. > This is one of the reasons why I strongly recommend that the developing world > avoid CC-BY. > > I cover this topic in more depth in the third chapter of my draft thesis - > from the link below, search for open access and creative commons: > http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/chapter-3-open-access-as-solution-to-the-enclosure-of-knowledge/ > > For practical reasons, to further text and data-mining I would suggest that > the article format is more to the point than licensing. An author's final > manuscript may be more likely to meet this requirement than the so-called > "Article of Record". For example, an author's own version in an open format > that allows for text and data-mining, with no licensing language, is much > better for text and data-mining purposes than a publisher's "Article of > Record" in a locked-down PDF format with a CC-BY license. My recommendation > is to specify useable format rather than license. Also, I would recommend > against encouraging deposit of the "Article of Record", as scholarly > communication needs to evolve beyond the print-based journal article format, > and this specification may tend to further entrench a system that needs some > shaking up. > > Regarding p. 5 - working with individual institutions to develop open access > funds from indirect costs - good!!! I recommend looking at the Compact for > Open Access Publishing Equity http://www.oacompact.org/compact/ for guidance, > and for institutions to join. When such funds are developed, it is very > important to build in efficiencies to prevent against double dipping, avoid > paying excessive costs, and planning for education about the growing pool of > open access scam companies is an area that is growing in importance. I differ > from some of my colleagues in recommending against funding agencies paying OA > article processing fees. > > What RCUK might want to consider if, similar to North America, some of the > publishers experiencing difficulty transitioning are the smaller society > publishers, is a journal subsidy program. Canada's Social Sciences and > Humanities Research Council has such a program, called Aid to Scholarly > Journals. If RCUK does not yet have such a program, that would make it much > easier to start up with stronger OA expectations than SSHRC has been able to > do to date. Canada also has a program to help scholarly journals transition > to the online environment called Synergies which is a good model. In North > America, most academic libraries nowadays are providing journal hosting and > support services. This sector is by far the most efficient in scholarly > publishing, with costs on average less than 10% of the current system. See > chapter 4 of my draft thesis for details > http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/chapter-4-economics-of-scholarly-communication-in-transition/). > > Finally, a minor point: the introductory paragraph, talking about benefits of > open access, appears to prioritize business interest. I fully agree that > scholarship and open access to scholarship is a huge potential benefit to > business, but would submit that this is not, nor should it be, the main point > of scholarship and research. May I suggest that the final sentence of the > first paragraph refer to the public first and foremost, and then perhaps > speak to business benefits? > > Many thanks for the opportunity to comment, and best wishes to RCUK in the > next stage of your leadership on OA policy. > > Heather Morrison > Doctoral Candidate, Simon Fraser University School of Communication > http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/ > > > > <ATT00001..txt> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/attachments/20120318/7e137b09/attachment.html
