In Part 1 of this essay, I gave an outline of the scholarly publishing practice/philosophy known as Open Access; here I want to examine ways in which the central concept of OA, the "open" part, is being expanded to encompass all of science....
Open science is variously defined, but tends to connote (a) full, frank, and timely publication of results, (b) absence of intellectual property restrictions, and (c) radically increased pre- and post-publication transparency of data, activities, and deliberations within research groups....
Best and most open of all (in my opinion), Jean-Claude Bradley has coined the term Open Notebook Science, by which he means:
...there [exists] a URL to a laboratory notebook (like this) that is freely available and indexed on common search engines. It does not necessarily have to look like a paper notebook but it is essential that all of the information available to the researchers to make their conclusions is equally available to the rest of the world. Basically, no insider information....
For what I am calling Open Science to work, there are (I think) at least two further requirements: open standards, and open licensing....
Metadata and associated standards are going to be increasingly necessary to scientific communication and analysis as more and more of it takes place online and as datasets grow ever larger and more complex....
In a similar vein, Open Licensing also provides a kind of infrastructure -- in this case, for dealing with intellectual property issues....
In short, Open (Access + Data + Source + Standards + Licensing) = Open Science....
[In the] third installment...I will try to show what Open Science looks like now, in its infancy, and to sketch some of the directions in which it might grow.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/27/2006 09:06:00 AM.
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.
