Abstract: The ideal information resource would feature high quality of content (i.e., be accurate and complete) as well as high accessibility (i.e., excel in availability, ease of use, and interactivity). This very programmatic paper first describes these various features and their implications. Then it applies the set of features to some extant resources, arguing that the ideal information resource does not yet exist. The paper speculates that, in the future, there will be little debate whether a startlingly new and better information resource is possible, because that much will be taken for granted; the debate will concern what the resource’s main features should be. Aiming to foster this debate, the paper concludes with a list of topics needed to be addressed to fully justify an answer to the question, “What would the ideal information resource look like?”
From the body of the article:
Outside of a few corporate talking heads and curmudgeons, there has been little opposition to open source and open content, probably because there is no good reason to be opposed to making freely-distributed information as widely available as possible—but also because the profits of proprietary projects have not yet seen much threat from these projects. It seems unlikely that all of the world’s information will be open content in the future; as long as authors, artists, and coders perceive no other viable model but traditional intellectual property to support their work, many of them will be opposed to simply “giving away” their work. But increasingly large segments of academe, government, and the general public, whose livelihoods do not depend on payment for specific pieces of work, have shown themselves to be perfectly willing to release their work under a license that makes it as widely available as possible. This trend is thriving.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/28/2006 07:28:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
