open access publishing: from commons to community

MATTHEW K. GOLD / OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING: FROM COMMONS TO COMMUNITY

Matthew K. GoldNYC College of Technology & CUNY Graduate Center

mkgold.net @mkgold

OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING: FROM COMMONS TO COMMUNITY

CC-licensed untitled photo from nicepix25216: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24343741@N06/5712547947/28 October 2011

Friday, October 28, 11

http://www.flickr.com/photos/furiousgeorge81/177926979/



The Open Access Knowledge Commons

From Commons to Community

Case Study: Debates in the Digital Humanities

Prospective Design Principles for Social Repositories



What is a commons?



What is a commons?

a shared resource



The Land-Based Commons

Natural resource -- plot of land

CC-licensed photo: “Cow in Niederbauen” http://www.flickr.com/photos/akane86/182443256//





3 Phases of English Common Land Tenure

1. Saxon Age before Norman conquestmost village lands held and worked in common.

2. After Norman conquestvillage lands belong to local manor, rights of the common granted on condition of fealty to manor lord

3. Age of enclosure - early 18th century - end of 19th centurycommon land divided up, fenced, converted to private property in modern sense.

(Source: Louise Hyde, Common as Air)

Friday, October 28, 11source: Lewis Hyde, Common as Air


Knowledge as a Commons

Friday, October 28, 11new types of knowledge commons -- esp. law (intellectual property) and scholarly resources. Increasingly, scholarly communications.


Libertarian vs. Associational Commons



CUNY

CUNY



2011 vs. 2007



Thing-BasedRepositories

2007


MATTHEW K. GOLD / THE UNIVERSITY AND THE COMMONS

photo by FredR http://www.flickr.com/photos/fredr/262344284/

THE INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORYFriday, October 28, 11

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fredr/262344284/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fredr/262344284/


social networks

middle-state publishing

emphasis on process

2011



“The common is not to be construed, therefore, as a particular kind of thing, asset or even social process, but as an unstable and malleable social relation between a particular self-defined social group and those aspects of its actually existing or yet-to-be-created social and/or physical environment deemed crucial to its life and livelihood. There is, in effect, a social practice of commoning.” -- David Harvey

Friday, October 28, 11“The common is not to be construed, therefore, as a particular kind of thing, asset or even social process, but as an unstable and malleable social relation between a particular self-defined social group and those aspects of its actually existing or yet-to-be-created social and/or physical environment deemed crucial to its life and livelihood. There is, in effect, a social practice of commoning. This practice produces or establishes a social relation with a common whose uses are either exclusive to a social group or partially or fully open to all and sundry. At the heart of the practice of commoning lies the principle that the relation between the social group and that aspect of the environment being treated as a common shall be both collective and non-commodified - off limits to the logic of market exchange and market valuations.” (Emph added)


What is a commons?

a shared space for creating

resources with a community



What is a commons?

a dynamic space for sharing and creating resources with (and within) a community



“the process of creating public knowledge [is] an additional good,because such work builds social capital, strengthens communities, and gives people skills that they need for effective citizenship.”-- Peter Levine

Friday, October 28, 11“For the most part, the other chapters of this book treat knowledge as a good. The authors advocate better ways to create, disseminate, preserve, and organize knowledge as a common resource. While I certainly share the goals of those chapters, the focus here is somewhat different. I take the process of creating public knowledge as an additional good,because such work builds social capital, strengthens communities, and gives people skills that they need for effective citizenship. If this is correct, then we should aim to include as many people as possible in the collaborative creation of “free” (i.e., open-access) knowledge. Not only scholars and librarians, but ordinary people should be knowledge creators.” -- Peter Levine


CUNY PIE

DiFara’s!DiFara’s!



“the cornucopia of the commons”: more value is created as more people use the resource and join the social community. The operative principle is “the more, the merrier.”

Friday, October 28, 11Indeed, many information commons exemplify what some commentatorshave called “the cornucopia of the commons,” in which morevalue is created as more people use the resource and join the social community.12 The operative principle is “the more, the merrier.”





Challenges, Possibilities, and Principles for Social Repositories



Challenges



A GROUP OF SILOED REPOSITORIES

Challenges



INTERACTION FATIGUE

Challenges



PROPRIETARY PLATFORMS

Challenges



Challenges

SECONDARY ENCLOSURES, THREATS TO COLLABORATION:

PATENTS, TRADEMARKS, COPYRIGHT

“MONOPOLIES OF INVENTION”



Possibilities

BUILD SOCIAL REPOSITORIES

Friday, October 28, 11cuny ac -- email stats. Siva.


Possibilities

BUILD GENERATIVE SPACES



“Generativity is a system’s capacity to produce unanticipated change through unfiltered contributions from broad and varied audiences. . . . Generativity pairs an input consisting of unfiltered contributions from diverse people and groups, who may or may not be working in concert, with the output of unanticipated change.”

– Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It (2008)



Build generative commons spacesthat talk to one another



Federated models



Open APIs



Linked Data



Possibilities

OUR COMMUNITIES

ARE OUR RESOURCES



What is a commons?

a shared space for creating

resources with a community



What is a commons?

Not (just) the park, but the

human microphone



Matthew K. GoldNYC College of Technology & CUNY Graduate Center

mkgold.net @mkgold

OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING: FROM COMMONS TO COMMUNITY

CC-licensed untitled photo from nicepix25216: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24343741@N06/5712547947/28 October 2011


