Hello Peter, Peter and everyone, I was just searching for the link Peter Suber provided above (found it at http://www.plos.org/cms/node/58#comment-76 , as a comment to a similar discussion), and wish to say that I fully support the idea as well. I have contacted http://www.eurodoc.net/ as a possible partner, and set up http://open-thesis.okfnpad.org/initial-thoughts for brainstorming.
Daniel On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 6:22 PM, Peter Suber <[email protected]> wrote: > I support Peter MR's proposal. > For a longer version of the case for open theses, see my article from 2006. > > http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/07-02-06.htm#etds > The article responds to some objections raised against the idea in the past, > and includes some strategies for avoiding the copyright problems Peter MR > envisions. > Peter S. > Peter Suber > www.bit.ly/suber > > > On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 11:50 AM, Peter Murray-Rust <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Greetings all, >> >> I believe there is a real need for a communal effort in making academic >> theses more Open and would like the OKF to set up a project along these >> lines. I believe that the OKF is the most appropriate organization to >> address this issue (and perhaps the only one capable of doing it!). I am >> posting this to okfn-discuss (after recent meta-discussions) but am also >> happy for it to be re-copied and reformulated on >> [email protected] (and indeed this could act as the first trial of >> that). As the process is new I'm writing this slightly more discursively and >> occasionally in the first person, but obviously if this goes anywhere it >> would be communally owned. >> >> Motivation >> ======== >> My motivation is that over several years (e.g. attending meetings of ETD >> (Electronic Theses and Dissertations ) and OR(OpenRepositories) and more >> recently an ETHOS meeting (JISC) that the university and HE sector does not >> fully address the issue of making theses Open. I should make it clear that >> they have all done a huge amount of good things - such as promoting >> born-digital theses and promoting repositories, and the OpenThesis project >> is intended to be entirely complementary. >> >> The problem arises from the fact that theses are by their nature protected >> by copyright. (There is an important additional point that much of a modern >> thesis may be more suitably regarded as "data" or "code" or "metadata" but I >> believe that OpenThesis will subsume these concerns by addressing the larger >> problem of copyright). Theses are often handled by University Libraries (who >> also often manage the repositories) and they naturally and responsibly >> address the problem of copyright. Too frequently, however, the actual rights >> are poorly represented, especially at the machine-understandbility level. >> There is often a single copyright notice on a repository which takes a >> (perhaps forgivable) approach that everything is forbidden unless permitted >> explicitly. Licences are often unnecessarily restrictive (e.g. ND-NC). There >> are excellent cases where libraries and authors are pro-active in >> encouraging licences to be embedded in theses but the normal case is that >> there are no explicit machine-readable rights on a per-work basis. >> >> Theses also have a commercial value and there are organizations which >> provide cataloguing and dissemination of theses or extract and republish of >> material. These derivative works are usually protected and there is a >> tendency for their rights to be applied to the orginal work by implication. >> >> I am one of many who would like machine-discoverable and machine-readable >> (i.e. semantic) theses. The original theses are often born in semantic form >> (HTML, DOCX/OOXML or TeX) but then flattened into PDF. Many theses are only >> available on a per-thesis basis, controlled by a portal/gatekeeper, which >> destroys any possibility of Linked open data. >> >> I am sure that most of the current lack of Linked Open Theses (LOT) is due >> to ignorance of the value of Openness. I think that if we can explain >> carefully and compellingly the value of LOT then many authors and many >> instituitions will welcome it. >> >> This is a global challenge. Institutions are regulated by local degree >> regulations (and these must be of course be honoured). Countries can only >> act for themselves (e.g. JISC, SURF(NL) and similar bodies elsewhere). The >> OKF can do something that they cannot easily do: >> * show the global vision >> * create exemplars >> * find and extol early adopters (and they already exist) >> * support and coordinate the actual authors (many of whom want their >> theses to be open). >> * provide accurate and compelling information >> >> Proposal >> ======= >> (a) set up an open-Thesis mailing list and project/pirate page >> >> (b) evolve a similar approach to the Panton Principles which applied to >> theses. It would be something like: >> 1 author: make a clear statement of your wishes (do NOT rely on formal >> licences to convey this) >> 2 author: identify which parts of your work do not involve third party >> rights (e.g. graphic images or transcluded text). Label these clearly and in >> machine-readable form; institution: support the author in this process >> 3 author (with institutional help): select an appropriate licence or set >> of licences. (theses may contain text, source code, data and these all >> require different licences. >> 4 institution: display the thesis and metadata and licences in machine >> readable-form. Make it trivial for machines to ascertain that (a) this is a >> thesis (b) what rights the machine-reader has to re-use the material. >> Promote discovery of theses (e.g. through tables of contents). >> 5 institution: label theses as Open (e.g. with an OKF OpenThesis button) >> >> (c) create exemplars for demonstration and advocacy >> (d) engage with early-adopter repositories >> (e) engage with regulators/funderadvocacy SPARC, JISC, Wellcome, SURF, >> NSDL, OR, ETD, etc. >> (f) design and populate an OpenThesis Bibliography (Table Of Contents) by >> a mixture of crawling repositories and crowdsourcing. I would not expect >> this to violate any rights >> >> Support and funding >> ================ >> >> The OKF is now a fundable body so I would expect that engagement with >> generic funders (JISC, SURF, ARDS, NSDL, etc.) would be appropriate. I would >> also hope that research funders (e.g. Wellcome, RCUK) would be sympathetic. >> >> Technical Requirements >> =================== >> (a) mailing list >> (b) project pages >> (c) probably some exemplars in CKAN or a special resource >> >> I would see the technology being developed on openbiblio-dev and >> #jiscopenbib as almost excelty what we need. It will create an Open >> ThesisTOC and will also allow us to annotate individual theses for Openness. >> I'd suggest this was organised by Country => Institution (=>Department). An >> attraction of this is we get a formal list of institutions as a result. >> >> Risks >> ==== >> >> I think the IP risks are small but should be considered. With goodwill >> from the community they are negligible. >> >> It's ambitious but it can easily be scaled per country or even per >> institution. This would distribute most of the human involvement. >> >> Many OKF people are probably actively involved in theses (doing research, >> writing up, just submitted, etc.) so there is a large pool of talent! >> >> P. >> >> >> >> -- >> Peter Murray-Rust >> Reader in Molecular Informatics >> Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry >> University of Cambridge >> CB2 1EW, UK >> +44-1223-763069 >> >> _______________________________________________ >> okfn-discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss >> > > > _______________________________________________ > okfn-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss > > -- http://www.google.com/profiles/daniel.mietchen _______________________________________________ okfn-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss
