knowledge sharing in the sciences - 8jpl

knowledge sharing in the sciences

kaitlin thaneyprogram manager, science commons

barcelona, spain - 1 july 2009

This presentation is licensed under the CreativeCommons-Attribution-3.0 license.

information sharing is at the root of scholarship and science

the system of print publishing is a system of sharing knowledge

then came the move to digital ...

the web revolutionized search, commerce, collaboration

sharing became cheaper, easier technically

costs of copying, moving, storing ... down to nearly zero

ability to link between nodes of information (dating back to 1980s)

yet ... most of the useful knowledge

is inaccessible.

most of the useful knowledge is in the wrong technology.

we don’t have enough people working on the problem(s).

(0) the “research web”

(1) step 1: opening access

(2) step 2: access to research tools

(3) step 3: access to data

(4) step 4: open cyberinfrastructure

(5) what’s next?

make sharing easy, legal and scalable

integrated approach

building part of the infrastructure for knowledge sharing

the “research web”

making the web work better for science

integrating disparate knowledge sources

make better use of existing information in the digital form

knowledge?

journal articlesdata

ontologiesannotations

plasmids and cell lines

have capability to drastically increase sharing at lower cost ...

... though, still roadblocks ...

silos of knowledge, walls of cost, secrecy, lagging incentive system for

collaboration and sharing

... it all starts with access to the scientific content and data ...

step one

scientific revolutions occur when a sufficient body of data accumulates to

overthrow the dominant theorieswe use to frame reality

a so-called paradigm shift

- from thomas kuhn

scholarship entrenched in idea of transmitting knowledge via paper

mentality reflected even in the way we describe “papers”

static, one-dimensional documents

in the digital world, “papers” can become living, breathing works

no longer static PDF documents

linking to data sets, other relevant papers, information, plasmids, genes

oldest scientific journal

published in english-

speaking world

1665

need to change the way we think of scholarly publishing,

of knowledge sharing

paradigm shift

begin thinking of “papers” as containers of knowledge

IGFBP-5 plays a role in the regulation of cellular senescence via a p53-dependent pathway and in aging-associated vascular diseases

“papers”

IGFBP-5 plays a role in the regulation of cellular senescence via a p53-dependent pathway and in aging-associated vascular diseases

“networked knowledge”

content needs to be legally and technically accessible

we’ll start with legal ...

thinking of “papers” more as containers of knowledge

copyright locks that container

traditional transfer of copyright agreement

Open Access (OA)

“ By open access to the literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting users to

read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any

other lawful purpose, without financial, legal or technical barriers other than those inseparable from

gaining access to the internet itself.”

Image from the Public Library of Science, licensed to the public, under CC-BY-3.0

“The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and

cited.”

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

legal implementation

access to research tools from funded research

step two

examples:lab mice, cell lines, DNA, stem cells

... the physical materials

office supplies for science

ideally ...

contact author, obtain material, recreate experiment

build on the existing work, publish

and repeat ...

the reality ... materials difficult to find, fulfill, lack

resources

reagents and assays often re-invented or reverse engineered

locked in contracts, bureaucracy, deliberate withholding, “club mentality”

no office superstores for science

no internet marketplacesfor science

another way to think of it ...

solves the access problem via contract

SLA

SCMTA

UBMTA (standardized material transfer agreements, or

MTAs)

standard icons, CC methodology, metadata

data and the public domain

step three

legal issues:

“it’s complicated”

copyright and databases

what’s protected? is it legal?

facts are free

to what extent is there creative expression?

database protections based on jurisdiction

sui generis, “sweat of the brow”

Crown copyright

the list goes on ....

social issues:

protection instinct / culture of control

PD relinquishes much of this control, even control in the service of freedom

“my data”, interpretation issues

fear, uncertainty, doubt (FUD)

issue of license proliferation

whatever you do to the least of the databases, you do to the integrated system

(the most restrictive wins)

need for a legally accurate and simple solution

reducing or eliminating the need to make the distinction of what’s protected

requires modular, standards based approach to licensing

our solution ...

reconstruction of the public domain

create legal zones of certainty for data

attribution through accompanying norms

3.1 The protocol must promote legal predictability and certainty.

3.2 The protocol must be easy to use and understand.

3.3 The protocol must impose the lowest possible transaction costs on users.

For the full text: http://sciencecommons.org/projects/publishing/open-access-data-protocol/

CC Zero waiver + SC norms

waive rights public domain

attribution / citation through community norms, not a contract

a protocol, not a license

calls for data providers to waive all rights necessary for data extraction and re-use

requires provider place no additional obligations (like share-alike) to limit

downstream use

request behavior (like attribution) through norms and terms of use

public domain = license, cannot be made “more free” - only less free

PD = the original commons

at least make metadata open, if one can’t make data itself open

early adopters, committing to make their data open

using CC0

(1) Tranche - free, open source (2) Personal Genome Project

(3) Digg, Flickr, WhiteHouse.gov(4) EMBL SIDER, TDI Kernel

technical considerations:

persistent URLsopen, stable namespaces

standards, standards, standardsfacilitate integration, interoperability

and more ...

invest in open cyberinfrastructure

step four

data without structure and annotation is a lost opportunity.

data should flow in an open, public, and extensible infrastructure

support recombination and reconfiguration into computer models, queryable by search

engine

treated as public good

traits of legal protocols:

legally accuratesimple for scientists

low transaction costsfacilitate interoperability

business and user friendly

change requires a new legal infrastructure to encourage collaboration

what can you do?lead by example ...

design for maximum reuse

ensure the freedom to integrate

leverage existing open infrastructure

allows for snap together integration of the tools, data, research literature

what’s needed?

common standards, right softwareaccessible data and content

open infrastructurebuild for network effects

thank youkaitlin@creativecommons.org

sciencecommons.orgneurocommons.org