Transcript Moving from Restrictive Dissemination of PubliclyFunded Knowledge to Open Knowledge Environments: A Case Study in Microbiology Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research.

Moving from Restrictive Dissemination of PubliclyFunded Knowledge to Open Knowledge Environments:
A Case Study in Microbiology
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC
8 October 2009
by
Paul F. Uhlir
Director, Board on Research Data and Information
National Research Council, U.S.
Washington, DC
[email protected]
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
Acknowledgements
Presentation based on forthcoming monograph by Jerome
Reichman, Tom Dedeurwaerdere, and Paul Uhlir, Designing the
Microbial Research Commons: New Strategies for Accessing,
Managing, and Using Essential Public Knowledge Assets.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the National
Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy under grant
no. 5P50 G003391-02.
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
Comparison of some key characteristics of the print dissemination
and digitally networked paradigms:
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PRINT
(pre) Industrial Age
fixed, static
rigid
physical
local
linear
limited content and types
distribution difficult, slow
copying cumbersome, not perfect
significant marginal distribution cost
single user (or small group)
centralized production
slow knowledge diffusion
GLOBAL DIGITAL NETWORKS
post-industrial Information Age
transformative, interactive
flexible, extensible
“virtual”
global
non-linear, asynchronous
unlimited contents and multimedia
easy and immediate dissemination
copying simple and identical
zero marginal distribution cost
multiple, concurrent users/producers
distributed and integrated production
accelerated knowledge diffusion
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
Advantages of open access to and unrestricted reuse of publicly generated
or funded data and information on digital networks for science:
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Promotes interdisciplinary, inter-institutional, and international research;
Enables automated knowledge discovery;
Avoids inefficiencies, including duplication of research;
Promotes new research and new types of research;
Reinforces open scientific inquiry and encourages diversity of analysis and opinion;
Allows for the verification of previous results;
Makes possible the testing of new or alternative hypotheses and methods of analysis;
Supports studies on data collection methods and measurement;
Facilitates the education of new researchers;
Promotes citizen scientists and serendipitous results, enabling the exploration of
topics not envisioned by the initial investigators and the primary research community;
Permits the creation of new data sets when data from multiple sources are combined;
Promotes capacity building in developing countries and global research;
Supports economic growth and social welfare; and
Generally provides greater returns from public investments in research.
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
Principles for deconstruction of institutional mechanisms for
scholarly communication and reconstruction in networked context:
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Maximize public good aspects of publicly funded research data and info
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Avoid monopolies and artificial markets (service, not captured product)
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Take advantage of zero marginal cost for global dissemination
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Support freedom of inquiry and collaborative research
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Optimize content for automated knowledge discovery tools
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Maintain characteristics that are essential to the research community and
the progress of science (quality control, reputational benefits, research
impact, speed of publication, ease of access, long-term preservation and
sustainability).
Conclusion: Open access online and unrestricted reuse of research data
and information produced from public funding is in most cases far
superior to proprietary and restricted dissemination, which maximizes
value for the disseminating organizations rather than for the content
producer and user community. The question is: How to get there?
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
Principal findings from our research on journals in microbiology and
related life sciences:
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About 30% full open access (OA), including hybrid (both purchased
immediate OA and subscription); 20% read-only; 50% subscription.
80% of subscription journals allow author self-archiving on personal
websites, but almost 90% do not allow archiving on the author’s
institutional websites and most are silent on external repository
deposits (e.g., on PubMedCentral).
98% of subscription journals require transfer of copyright.
About 75% of all journals surveyed are published by for-profit
publishers.
96% of subscription journals give no direct discount to developing
country subscribers (but some may participate in group discounts to
libraries through the INASP or HINARI programs).
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
Findings from research on databases used in microbial research:
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Many molecular biology databases (genomic, proteomic) and
taxonomic databases are openly available and free to use.
Molecular biology data in specialized research (e.g., energy and
environment) not deposited and not available.
Legal/policy/economic pressures to keep data secret either because of
commercial potential, strategic advantage, or burden of making the
data useful to others.
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
The inhospitable statutory legal environment:
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Traditional copyright law under print paradigm more user friendly
(e.g., first sale doctrine), facts in public domain
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Trend is for intellectual property rights (IPRs) to be longer (term of
protection continually increased), broader (more material formerly in
public domain protectable), and stronger (much stronger civil and
even criminal penalties).
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Digital copyright allows TPM protection of all material, even material in
the public domain.
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Database protection regimes in EU and other countries provide strong
exclusive rights protection to factual compilations, even in
government.
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Restrictive contracts can override any statutory limitations and
exceptions that would otherwise favor users and add other
restrictions.
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
Potential top-down solutions by legislatures and research funders:
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More robust limitations and exceptions (L&Es) to traditional copyright
law for non-profit, publicly funded research, including: (1) a more
widely adopted idea-expression dichotomy (excluding ideas and facts from
protection); (2) a more broadly adopted and strengthened “fair use”
exception; (3) a total exemption for computational research; (4) a statutory
exemption from copyright protection of all government works outside the
US, placing all such works in the public domain.
Allowing greater access and use for public research in digital
copyright, including: allowed circumvention of TPMs (reverse notice and
take down); limiting contractual overrides of statutory L&Es (a “public
interest unconscionability doctrine”); and adding all copyright L&Es to
database protection law in the EU and other jurisdictions.
Research funder mandates (with enabling legislation) for author
deposits, copyright retention with the authors, and expressed preferences
and funding for publishing in OA journals.
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
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Bottom-up Initiatives—existing digital commons models and emerging
open knowledge environments:
Open-source software movement (e.g., Linux and 10Ks of other programs
worldwide, many of which originated in academia for research applications);
Distributed Grid computing or e-science (e.g., LHC@Home);
Open data centers and archives (e.g., GenBank, Uniprot);
Federated open data networks (e.g., Global Biodiversity Information
Facility);
Open access journals (e.g., PLOS + > 4300 scholarly journals, many in
developing world—SciELO, Bioline International, Hindawi Press);
Open repositories for an institution’s scholarly works (+ > 300 formally
registered globally on Open DOAR, plus 1000s more not registered)
Open repositories for publications in a specific subject area (e.g., the
physics arXiv, CogPrints, PubMedCentral in US and UK);
Free university curricula and lectures online (e.g., the MIT
OpenCourseWare);
Emerging discipline or applications commons, peer production of info, and
integrated thematic open knowledge environments (e.g., virtual
observatories, wiki encyclopedias, subdiscipline OKEs).
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
Vision for open knowledge environments (OKEs) at universities
The restructuring of the print paradigm journal system through the formation
of thematic OKEs in universities:
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Organized around OA journals, gray literature, databases, OSS, and peer
production of information in a focused thematic area.
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Supporting and integrating the university mission of public knowledge
creation, dissemination and use, and of education (enhanced U.S. law
school prototype).
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Common use licensing of content and tools (e.g., CC, GNU), and technically
optimized (semantic web) for broad access and reuse.
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In-house and external OA content augmented by interactive collaboration
tools in OKE, coupled with effective social networking and outreach.
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Managed by academic departments that integrate domain discipline(s),
computer engineers, information scientists, libraries, and other collaborating
departments at one or more universities (a partnership or consortium).
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Involving professors, students, and external consultants and services (e.g.,
STM publishers, but that do not capture the content).
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
Limitations on creating OKEs at universities:
 Implementation and acceptance of new policy and institutional
frameworks, frequently with conservative management and sociocultural milieu.
 Development of adequate incentives for participation in OKE
formation and use at the individual, community, institutional, and
governmental levels.
 Long-term financial sustainability of different OKE models (university
OKEs should have low cost, high positive externalities).
 Overcome pressures in universities to commercialize the OKE (e.g.,
by University Presses).
 In all cases, must balance with legitimate countervailing values and
legal restrictions (protection of national security, privacy,
confidentiality, and IPRs in bona fide commercial opportunities).
Symposium on Designing the Microbial Research Commons
Additional works on various aspects of this topic (available freely online):
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Bits of Power: Issues in Global Access to Scientific Data (NAS, 1997)
The Role of S&T Data and Information in the Public Domain (NAS,
2003).
Reichman, J.H. and Paul F. Uhlir, “A Contractually Reconstructed
Research Commons for Scientific Data in a Highly Protectionist
Intellectual Property Environment, 66 Law & Contemporary Problems
315-462 (2003).
Paul F. Uhlir, “Policy Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of
Governmental Public Domain Information” (UNESCO, 2004).
Open Access and the Public Domain in Digital Data and Information
for Science (NAS, 2004).
Uhlir, “The emerging role of open repositories for scientific literature
as a fundamental component of the public research infrastructure”
(Polimetrica, 2006).
Uhlir & Schröder, “Open Data for Global Science”, Data Science
Journal, CODATA, (2007).