The open access movement is set to liberate scientific publishing. Science is contingent upon the free exchange of ideas; global communication networks enable it. Yet, in traditional publishing, copyright law is used to impede the distribution of even the most relevant scientific findings. Pioneering open access publishers such as the Public Library of Science and BioMed Central publish their findings under Creative Commons licenses -- specifically, licenses which permit free distribution, modification, and even commercial use.
These are the same principles of free content followed by the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization which operates Wikipedia and its sister projects. All Wikimedia project content is freely licensed, with the exception of fair use images....
What are the synergies between those two movements? This is what we want to explore in a moderated dialogue. Specifically:
Which open access licenses are compatible with Wikimedia content?
What types of open access content are potentially relevant to Wikimedia projects?
Which file formats, feeds and protocols should be used?
How can we make sure that relevant content is detected and used?
How could Wikimedia's reliability and accuracy potentially benefit from the open access community?
Beyond Wikimedia, where do wikis as tools fit in the open access movement?
Edit this page and add your agenda item!
We will meet on Sunday, December 17, 21:00 UTC (time conversion). The chat is set to have an official duration of 2 hours; after that, people will of course continue to be able to mingle. The chat will be moderated by initiator Erik Möller, who is a member of the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation....
For more connection details, see the rest of the announcement.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/12/2006 10:37:00 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.
