Hi everyone,
Okay---our new website (osiglobal.org) is live and our old site (osinitiative.org) redirects to it.
On a different topic, with regard to the open spectrum document, thanks for your comments so far. Here are a couple of notes:
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org
From: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2018 12:20 PM
To: 'osi20...@googlegroups.com' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: the open spectrum
Hi Folks,
Two alerts for you:
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org
Sorry for piling on (to myself) here, but thinking about this some more, non-public information artifacts like at Sage may fall short on both the discoverability AND accessibility attributes of DARTS, not just accessibility. So in a numerical system, are we suggesting that anything private (i.e., not public) or fee-based (e.g., memberships, subscriptions) must be limited in value to 0-4? Should free and public information start at a value of 5 on the 0-9 scale? Private artifacts can be exquisitely discoverable to members of the private network but totally invisible outside that network, thus earning a “D” score of 0-4, but if we don’t value these artifacts in context then we’re losing out on the opportunity to learn from (and about) them and apply best practices.
So---again continuing with the clear as mud explanation---we could preface each DART score with letters and symbols that more accurately describe the location and nature of this information---maybe using something like S=Subscription, RN=research network, G=government, I=industry, P=public, F=free, $=nominal price, $$=modest price, $$$=expensive. So a Sage database open only to network researchers might carry a DARTS ID of RN-88999; a subscription database might be S$-88999; and a free public database might be PF-88999.
Without this preface, the DARTS ID for a subscription database with nominal cost might be 00999. Is this preferable (is it too judgemental)? I guess it depends if we define “open” as necessarily being free and public. Doing so knocks a lot of outcomes off the open spectrum, but I understand the argument for doing so.
DISCOVERABLE: Can this information be found online? Is it indexed by search engines and databases, and hosted on servers open to the public? Does it contain adequate identifiers (such as DOIs)?
ACCESSIBLE: Once discovered, can this information be read by anyone? Is it available free of charge? Is it available in a timely, complete, and easy-to-acceess manner (for instance, is it downloadable or machine-readable, with a dataset included)?
Thanks for thinking this through---sorry for the additional spam.
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> what do we call open data that is open for just a specific set of users?
Wouldn’t we call that “closed”?
Rick
From:
<osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Date: Friday, July 27, 2018 at 7:38 PM
To: "osi20...@googlegroups.com" <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: the open spectrum
Okay---our new website (osiglobal.org) is live and our old site (osinitiative.org) redirects to it.
On a different topic, with regard to the open spectrum document, thanks for your comments so far. Here are a couple of notes:
1. “Open” and “open access” are different---in this proposal, open access is a discrete state on the open spectrum that more or less conforms to the variation OA definitions we’re used to seeing (e.g., free, immediate, and no reuse restrictions). The open spectrum includes a multitude of states, including “open access,” while “open” is variously used---as Ilona Miko notes---as both a phenomenon (ex: “to improve the future of open”) and descriptor (ex: “Help guide the future of open”). Clear as mud?
2. With regard to the numbering system, “A” seems to be the most problematic. For instance, what do we call open data that is open for just a specific set of users? Take a research group like Sage Bionetworks. Their data isn’t public, but it is wide open for the researchers who contribute their findings and have the need and expertise to use this data. This is definitely a valuable contribution to open, but if we were scoring this on a 0-9 scale, would the “A” (Access) value be a 5? A more informative solution might be to preface the DARTS number with an X or O, where X indicates paywalled or otherwise limited solution, and O means public. This way, efforts to build out robust private networks of data could be ranked separately from public networks; a Sage database could score an X-99999 instead of a misleading (or at least not clear) 95999. With this approach, we could acknowledge the growth (and needs/shortcomings) of open in industry, subscription, membership, and other “non-public” networks as well as the solely public networks. Another clear as mud paragraph---sorry.
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607
| gham...@nationalscience.org
| nationalscience.org
From: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2018 12:20 PM
To: 'osi20...@googlegroups.com' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: the open spectrum
Hi Folks,
Two alerts for you:
1. I’m anticipating that the new OSI site (osiglobal.org) will go live tomorrow pending approval of the summit group on Friday morning’s summit call. For now, use the password osi2018 to sneak a preview. This site will be a work in progress---more content will be added over time. Let me know at any time if you have recommendations, want to write a post for it, etc. The current site (osinitiative.org) will be redirected to this one---the content on the current site will no longer be visible after tomorrow.
2. Open resources are a key part of this new site. We’ve discussed the OSI issue briefs. Several of these are in progress---let me know if you’re interested in tackling one. Attached is the draft of an even shorter information piece I’d like to suggest---“key concepts” flyers. This one deals with the open spectrum. The idea behind these is to provide graphic distillations of important concepts in a manner that an be easily printed and shared. The content of this particular flyer also needs to be discussed and vetted by our group. Specifically, we’ve discussed the concept of the open spectrum but haven’t really discussed these two important parts of it:
a. What do we mean by open? Here’s the definition I’m proposing for your consideration: Open means information that has been optimized for sharing with the public or with a particular set of readers. At its most open, this information is available without cost, immediately upon publishing, and includes the right to repurpose without attribution. Other types of open can be more restrictive, including open information that carries limited reuse conditions, limited embargo periods, and/or has less than ideal discoverability. The DARTS Framework, developed by OSI participants, proposes that the openness of information exists along five dimensions: discoverability, accessibility, reusability, transparency, and sustainability. The result is a broad spectrum of open states, not binary open-closed values.
b. How do we measure values on this spectrum? Assigning a 0-9 value for each letter in DARTS would be one way. A perfectly open information artifact would be denoted by 99999; an entirely closed artifact would be 00000; and an artifact that was discoverable, reusable, transparent, and sustainable, but only available via subscription (so with restricted “access”) might be 95999. Over time, including the DARTS value next to the DOI, ORCID ID, and other key values would help give readers an instant snapshot of the openness of a particular information artifact and how/where this openness could be improved (and in doing so, help promote and guide the move toward open).
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607
| gham...@nationalscience.org
| nationalscience.org
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I would call it closed. For scientists certainly all data is available to a closed set – the research group and often it is made available do a slightly wider network of other regular collaborators – “circle of trust”.
Open is open.
Anthony
Notice: This email is from an external sender. Please use caution before clicking links or opening attachments.
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2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org
From: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2018 12:20 PM
To: 'osi20...@googlegroups.com' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: the open spectrum
Hi Folks,
Two alerts for you:
1. I’m anticipating that the new OSI site (osiglobal.org) will go live tomorrow pending approval of the summit group on Friday morning’s summit call. For now, use the password osi2018 to sneak a preview. This site will be a work in progress---more content will be added over time. Let me know at any time if you have recommendations, want to write a post for it, etc. The current site (osinitiative.org) will be redirected to this one---the content on the current site will no longer be visible after tomorrow.
2. Open resources are a key part of this new site. We’ve discussed the OSI issue briefs. Several of these are in progress---let me know if you’re interested in tackling one. Attached is the draft of an even shorter information piece I’d like to suggest---“key concepts” flyers. This one deals with the open spectrum. The idea behind these is to provide graphic distillations of important concepts in a manner that an be easily printed and shared. The content of this particular flyer also needs to be discussed and vetted by our group. Specifically, we’ve discussed the concept of the open spectrum but haven’t really discussed these two important parts of it:
a. What do we mean by open? Here’s the definition I’m proposing for your consideration: Open means information that has been optimized for sharing with the public or with a particular set of readers. At its most open, this information is available without cost, immediately upon publishing, and includes the right to repurpose without attribution. Other types of open can be more restrictive, including open information that carries limited reuse conditions, limited embargo periods, and/or has less than ideal discoverability. The DARTS Framework, developed by OSI participants, proposes that the openness of information exists along five dimensions: discoverability, accessibility, reusability, transparency, and sustainability. The result is a broad spectrum of open states, not binary open-closed values.
b. How do we measure values on this spectrum? Assigning a 0-9 value for each letter in DARTS would be one way. A perfectly open information artifact would be denoted by 99999; an entirely closed artifact would be 00000; and an artifact that was discoverable, reusable, transparent, and sustainable, but only available via subscription (so with restricted “access”) might be 95999. Over time, including the DARTS value next to the DOI, ORCID ID, and other key values would help give readers an instant snapshot of the openness of a particular information artifact and how/where this openness could be improved (and in doing so, help promote and guide the move toward open).
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
<image001.jpg>
Notice: This email is from an external sender. Please use caution before clicking links or opening attachments.
One problem we have as I see it is the for many years advocates and opponents alike of OA saw open access as (well) open access or gratis as Peter Suber called it but now some people now do not accept gratis as true OA and it has to be libre – no barriers on re-use except need to attribute – which was envisaged though not very clearly expressed in the early declarations. So whatever we do there will be some debate about open access. Mike – is open access in the first sense open access or not? Is that what you are complaining about?
Anthony
The problem, though, is that in the real world openness very clearly does exist in degrees. A paper that the author never publishes and never lets anyone see is clearly less “open” (i.e., less available for reading and reuse) than a paper that she publishes under copyright in a toll-access journal. A paper that is published under copyright in a toll-access journal is less available for reading and reuse than one published under copyright in a free-to-read journal. A paper that is published under a CC-BY-NC-ND license is less open than one published under a CC-BY license. And so forth. Each of this situations offers a different degree of public availability for reading and reuse – and if “public availability for reading and reuse” isn’t “openness,” then what is it?
It seems to me that when we promote the idea of “open” as completely binary, what we’re doing is imposing a political or even religious view: “Unless it’s open enough by my standards, it’s not open at all.” That poses all kinds of problems, not least the fact that it asks people to pretend something is true when they can clearly see that it isn’t.
---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication
Marriott Library, University of Utah
Desk: (801) 587-9989
Cell: (801) 721-1687
But Mike, if you don’t consider unrestricted reuse to be an essential component of “truly open,” then your definition is at odds with the one preferred by many (if not most) OA advocates. Why should they adopt your definition?
As for politics: I can see how pretending that openness is binary might have a political benefit. But I have concerns about a political stance that requires people to believe things that they can clearly see aren’t true (such as that openness is binary). That’s the kind of thing totalitarian governments do.
---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication
Marriott Library, University of Utah
Desk: (801) 587-9989
Cell: (801) 721-1687
I am on the outside in all this but looking at this question from the point of view of a researcher on researchers my evidence is that open access is open access (available on the internet) for most researchers.
I accept that unrestricted re-use is what the majority of advocates now consider is necessary but this is really a very different from what advocates were saying a few years ago.
I recently asked a leading European librarian if he and his friends in LIBER had consulted any representative European organisations in the formulation of their demands. He was puzzled. For him “full open access” was crucial because re-use was necessary for innovation and for the EU. I cannot understand why it would give the EU any advantage but that is how he saw it.
How OSI should handle this I do not know. I think Glenn is probably on top of this – maybe the spectrum.
Anthony
Hi Everyone
Here’s the link to the OSI2016 report containing the original DART proposal (the “S” was added by OSI2017): http://osiglobal.org/2016/06/23/report-from-the-what-is-open-workgroup/. Lest we try to relitigate this recommendation here, this report does a good job of explaining why the spectrum approach might help. As Lisa notes succinctly and correctly, “I don't think we're introducing the spectrum idea, I think we're describing it.”
Perhaps it’s too soon to discuss “actualizing” DARTS so we can use it to measure open outputs instead of just describe the spectrum. Getting comfortable with the spectrum might be an important first step. What I do worry about with our current spectrum construct, however----where open means public and free---is what David was zeroing in on: Open efforts themselves exist on a spectrum of openness. The global evolution toward open isn’t just about making public information public and free; it’s also about making proprietary information more available. In many ways, this proprietary information is then “functionally open”---it’s open to the people who need to see it. This is no small accomplishment and needs to be encouraged and cultivated.
In the research world, there is a need for staged rollouts if you will---for a transition from private to public. Understanding this, embracing it, and helping others do the same is a real and important part of making the open spectrum more than just a concept. Let me give you a specific example---I’ve used this before so please pardon my repetition here. In For the past three years, the Gates Foundation has been funding work at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to daylight all HIV/AIDS research work (beginning with work from the CAVD network) with dataspace.cavd.org. This data has gone through several years of “cleaning”---PIs have cross-checked entries and unearthed details that otherwise would have been lost to time; researchers have grown comfortable with the idea of having their data shared; and critically, this data has been integrated and standardized, which is an incredible feat in itself (full disclosure: my wife, Drienna Holman, has managed this project; also on the honor roll is Artifact, which designed the user interface, and LabKey Software, on which the entire system runs). For the first few years this was a “functionally open” system where the entire research community but not the general public could view and use this data. Last week, it became fully public, although the network (and Gates) hasn’t really thought through what might happen when/if someone wants to use this data to publish their own paper. Not everyone has the same level of knowledge about these open issues (CC-BY, etc.) as the people in OSI, so a group like ours can help a group like theirs complete their transition to open. Similarly, a group like theirs can help a group like ours understand the barriers to open so we can help other organizations make this journey. Getting a better understanding of the full open ecosystem---including the proprietary ecosystem---is critically important to our work.
So, was the CAVD system “open” a few years ago? I would argue yes, for all practical purposes. Was it perfectly open? No. But for all practical purposes, any researcher with the appropriate expertise who wanted to get at this data could get at it via free registration. I suppose the simplest DARTS “score” in this case would be to just give it a 1 or 2 on the “access” scale, which would signify some sort of partly closed arrangement. Giving the DARTS score a preface, though (like RN) would allow us to evaluate access on its relative merits.
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
2320 N 137th Street | Seattle, WA 98133
(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org
From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Mike Roy
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2018 8:24 AM
To: Lisa Hinchliffe <lisali...@gmail.com>
As the report notes, though, Mike, there may be varying degrees of discoverability in open outputs, as well as varying degrees of access, degrees of reusability, degrees of transparency, and degrees of sustainability (of the open solution). So, unless this is observation is wrong (and maybe that’s what you’re suggesting?), then your premise that there is open that simply has varying degrees of access captures on part of the variation. Here's the table from the 2016 paper:
Dimension | Attributes include | Description |
Discoverable |
| This may be the most fundamental baseline condition of open (meaning that if an object is not discoverable, it is not open). However, there is a wide range here, including open with bad metadata or links and no or faulty identifiers. |
Accessible |
| Generally drives whether we currently consider something to be open, although many variations exist (taking into account embargoes and other conditions). |
Reusable |
| Openness is advanced by having fewer restrictions on reuse, dissemination and modification. |
Transparent |
| Serves the research lifecycle, given that outputs of research become inputs. Some of the factors that affect transparency include the software used, inclusion of data, the transparency of the peer review process and analytical methods, and more. |
-----Original Message-----
From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Mike Roy
> And Rick, what I'm saying here is that we should agree on a definition
> of Open and stick with that, and that to introduce the idea of degrees
> of Open is a bad idea.
I understand what you’re saying, Mike, but what I’m pointing out is that we’re not “introducing” the idea of degrees of openness here. Degrees of openness are an objective phenomenon that occurs in the real world: some articles are more freely available to read and reuse, and some are less so. We can deny that fact all we want (whether for political purposes or not), but we won’t be able to convince other people not to see what they see.
Though to be fair, what I think you’re really suggesting is that we identify one point on the spectrum of openness and say “this is the only point that we should call ‘open’; everything else should be called ‘closed’.” That’s a less totalitarian (:-)) approach, but it’s one that poses another problem: what about everyone who disagrees with us, and who has no less authority to make such pronouncements than we do?
---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication
Marriott Library, University of Utah
Desk: (801) 587-9989
Cell: (801) 721-1687
From: Mike Roy <md...@middlebury.edu>
Date: Saturday, July 28, 2018 at 10:02 AM
To: Rick Anderson <rick.a...@utah.edu>
I’m going to reply to my reply---sorry. This is an interesting conversation and maybe even one that hasn’t happened before---certainly not here. The open world already has lots of definitions, but this conversation suggests that it may benefit from having a few more still. For instance:
In a very real way though, Scott, descriptive is or will become proscriptive. When we publish your brief saying that open exists along a spectrum, we are making both an observation and a policy recommendation that UNESCO will advocate to the rest of the world. This will be significant because the world needs to know what open means, not just that it means a variety of things to a variety of people (to Rick’s point from this week’s summit call). And clarifying this will help all open efforts move forward. We need to be using the same vocabulary---otherwise, good people with passionate beliefs will just continue to speak past each other instead of work with each other toward their common goals.
Is this a problem? I don’t think so. I think the key is recognizing that we’re talking about different things here---“open” as an ill-defined noun and a verb, versus “open access” as a discrete, well-defined, widely-recognized outcome on the open spectrum. The former is what’s used in a wide variety of ways and is best described by the spectrum---the latter is much narrower and exists in a much narrower range.
From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of T Scott Plutchak
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2018 10:37 AM
To: Lisa Hinchliffe <lisali...@gmail.com>
But Glenn, I think this is the heart of the problem:
> “open” as an ill-defined noun and a verb, versus “open access” as a discrete,
> well-defined, widely-recognized outcome on the open spectrum.
“Open access” isn’t a term with a single definition that is anything like universally accepted. I don’t think OSI is going to change that unilaterally – the world is not looking to us to tell them what OA “really” means. The best we can hope to do is say something like “When we, in OSI, say ‘open access,’ we mean [definition X].” We can also urge others to accept our preferred definition, of course.
We then have a corollary question to answer: are we willing to accept a future world in which OA (however we decide to define it) is less-than-universally accepted – or, in other words, a diverse environment of access models? Or are we working towards a world in which open access is the only kind of access to scholarship and science (or, in other words a world of total OA)?
Those are two separate questions.
---
Rick Anderson
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Marriott Library, University of Utah
Desk: (801) 587-9989
Cell: (801) 721-1687
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Boy---if we want to raise the ire of our colleagues in this space, I can’t think of a better way than to trademark “open.” And trying to maintain (or even find) trust as we seek a common ground and common road forward is really where we’re at in this conversation.
Rick, to your points:
There are both practical and political benefits to this approach. Practically speaking, we’re not trying to shoehorn information into a particular state of open---we’re just trying to improve the open world and improve the ability of open advocates to work together toward their common goals. And politically speaking, we’re not co-opting or redefining anything, which is hugely important. I can’t imagine making any progress with this initiative whatsoever if we come out of the gate saying “move aside, there’s a new sheriff in town.” That’s never what we intended, it’s not what we want, and this approach wouldn’t do any good anyway. What we’re trying to say is that the open access movement reflects one end of the open spectrum, but that there’s a lot more spectrum to understand, learn from, and improve, plus a world of information---past and future---that isn’t even on this spectrum yet. The amount of common ground and common interest here absolutely dwarfs any disagreement we might have (which is almost trivial by comparison) about the definition of “open access.”
I hope this makes sense---happy to keep yapping but I don’t want to drown out other voices.
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
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From: JJE Esposito <jjoh...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2018 1:02 PM
To: Rick Anderson <rick.a...@utah.edu>
Cc: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>; T Scott Plutchak <splu...@gmail.com>; Lisa Hinchliffe <lisali...@gmail.com>; Mike Roy <md...@middlebury.edu>; David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>; The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>; Anthony Watkinson <anthony....@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: the open spectrum
Speaking as a former dictionary publisher, it's a fool's errand to get people to agree on how a word can be used. The language has its own physics and is resistant to top-down taxonomies. When I first got interested in open access publishing about 20 years ago, I did a search on the term and found that the term was most often used to refer to a kind of hospital service in California.
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Boy---if we want to raise the ire of our colleagues in this space, I can’t think of a better way than to trademark “open.” And trying to maintain (or even find) trust as we seek a common ground and common road forward is really where we’re at in this conversation.
Rick, to your points:
- You wrote: “Open access” isn’t a term with a single definition that is anything like universally accepted. I don’t think OSI is going to change that unilaterally – the world is not looking to us to tell them what OA “really” means. The best we can hope to do is say something like “When we, in OSI, say ‘open access,’ we mean [definition X].” We can also urge others to accept our preferred definition, of course.
- We don’t need to change a thing, nor should we even try---this isn’t our definition to mess with. We can, and should, acknowledge that open access means different things to different people, and we can mention that to many, the preferred definition is BOAI. But in practice, there’s wiggle room in what gets labeled as OA (although it’s all probably on the far right end of the open spectrum---somewhere in the 77777 and higher range of DARTS). This is all just observational, not prescriptive.
- You write: We then have a corollary question to answer: are we willing to accept a future world in which OA (however we decide to define it) is less-than-universally accepted – or, in other words, a diverse environment of access models? Or are we working towards a world in which open access is the only kind of access to scholarship and science (or, in other words a world of total OA)?
- Again, I would argue that we’re actually talking about two different things here---“open” and “open access.” Are we willing to accept a future world in which OA is less than universally accepted? Absolutely. This isn’t our fight---it isn’t even a fight. The real struggle here is to understand and improve “open” writ large---we can’t move forward without understanding and embracing what open means. Only then can we work effectively together to get more information on the open spectrum, learn what works and what doesn’t, share best practices, unite communities of effort, and in doing so push more information toward the right end of the open spectrum over time. Whether this right end gets labeled “OA” or whatever is irrelevant---this is just a label.
There are both practical and political benefits to this approach. Practically speaking, we’re not trying to shoehorn information into a particular state of open---we’re just trying to improve the open world and improve the ability of open advocates to work together toward their common goals. And politically speaking, we’re not co-opting or redefining anything, which is hugely important. I can’t imagine making any progress with this initiative whatsoever if we come out of the gate saying “move aside, there’s a new sheriff in town.” That’s never what we intended, it’s not what we want, and this approach wouldn’t do any good anyway. What we’re trying to say is that the open access movement reflects one end of the open spectrum, but that there’s a lot more spectrum to understand, learn from, and improve, plus a world of information---past and future---that isn’t even on this spectrum yet. The amount of common ground and common interest here absolutely dwarfs any disagreement we might have (which is almost trivial by comparison) about the definition of “open access.”
I hope this makes sense---happy to keep yapping but I don’t want to drown out other voices.
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
<image001.jpg>
On Jul 28, 2018, at 3:33 PM, Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:
Boy---if we want to raise the ire of our colleagues in this space, I can’t think of a better way than to trademark “open.” And trying to maintain (or even find) trust as we seek a common ground and common road forward is really where we’re at in this conversation.Rick, to your points:
- You wrote: “Open access” isn’t a term with a single definition that is anything like universally accepted. I don’t think OSI is going to change that unilaterally – the world is not looking to us to tell them what OA “really” means. The best we can hope to do is say something like “When we, in OSI, say ‘open access,’ we mean [definition X].” We can also urge others to accept our preferred definition, of course.
- We don’t need to change a thing, nor should we even try---this isn’t our definition to mess with. We can, and should, acknowledge that open access means different things to different people, and we can mention that to many, the preferred definition is BOAI. But in practice, there’s wiggle room in what gets labeled as OA (although it’s all probably on the far right end of the open spectrum---somewhere in the 77777 and higher range of DARTS). This is all just observational, not prescriptive.
- You write: We then have a corollary question to answer: are we willing to accept a future world in which OA (however we decide to define it) is less-than-universally accepted – or, in other words, a diverse environment of access models? Or are we working towards a world in which open access is the only kind of access to scholarship and science (or, in other words a world of total OA)?
- Again, I would argue that we’re actually talking about two different things here---“open” and “open access.” Are we willing to accept a future world in which OA is less than universally accepted? Absolutely. This isn’t our fight---it isn’t even a fight. The real struggle here is to understand and improve “open” writ large---we can’t move forward without understanding and embracing what open means. Only then can we work effectively together to get more information on the open spectrum, learn what works and what doesn’t, share best practices, unite communities of effort, and in doing so push more information toward the right end of the open spectrum over time. Whether this right end gets labeled “OA” or whatever is irrelevant---this is just a label.
There are both practical and political benefits to this approach. Practically speaking, we’re not trying to shoehorn information into a particular state of open---we’re just trying to improve the open world and improve the ability of open advocates to work together toward their common goals. And politically speaking, we’re not co-opting or redefining anything, which is hugely important. I can’t imagine making any progress with this initiative whatsoever if we come out of the gate saying “move aside, there’s a new sheriff in town.” That’s never what we intended, it’s not what we want, and this approach wouldn’t do any good anyway. What we’re trying to say is that the open access movement reflects one end of the open spectrum, but that there’s a lot more spectrum to understand, learn from, and improve, plus a world of information---past and future---that isn’t even on this spectrum yet. The amount of common ground and common interest here absolutely dwarfs any disagreement we might have (which is almost trivial by comparison) about the definition of “open access.”I hope this makes sense---happy to keep yapping but I don’t want to drown out other voices.Best,GlennGlenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
Sorry, to clarify: the question “are we willing to accept a future world in which OA is less-than-universally accepted” is from me, and when I said “we” I meant “OSI, the organization.”
The other quotes are from Glenn.
---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication
Marriott Library, University of Utah
Desk: (801) 587-9989
Cell: (801) 721-1687
From:
T Scott Plutchak <splu...@gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, July 28, 2018 at 2:46 PM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Cc: JJE Esposito <jjoh...@gmail.com>, Rick Anderson <rick.a...@utah.edu>, Lisa Hinchliffe <lisali...@gmail.com>, Mike Roy <md...@middlebury.edu>, David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>, The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>,
Anthony Watkinson <anthony....@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: the open spectrum
But when you say "we’re not trying to shoehorn information into a particular state of open” or "That’s never what we intended, it’s not what we want…” I’m much less clear about who you think that “we” refers to. Surely some subset of the OSI participants agree with that, but just as surely some don’t.
Scott
On Jul 28, 2018, at 3:33 PM, Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:
Boy---if we want to raise the ire of our colleagues in this space, I can’t think of a better way than to trademark “open.” And trying to maintain (or even find) trust as we seek a common ground and common road forward is really where we’re at in this conversation.
Rick, to your points:
· You wrote: “Open access” isn’t a term with a single definition that is anything like universally accepted. I don’t think OSI is going to change that unilaterally – the world is not looking to us to tell them what OA “really” means. The best we can hope to do is say something like “When we, in OSI, say ‘open access,’ we mean [definition X].” We can also urge others to accept our preferred definition, of course.
o We don’t need to change a thing, nor should we even try---this isn’t our definition to mess with. We can, and should, acknowledge that open access means different things to different people, and we can mention that to many, the preferred definition is BOAI. But in practice, there’s wiggle room in what gets labeled as OA (although it’s all probably on the far right end of the open spectrum---somewhere in the 77777 and higher range of DARTS). This is all just observational, not prescriptive.
· You write: We then have a corollary question to answer: are we willing to accept a future world in which OA (however we decide to define it) is less-than-universally accepted – or, in other words, a diverse environment of access models? Or are we working towards a world in which open access is the only kind of access to scholarship and science (or, in other words a world of total OA)?
o Again, I would argue that we’re actually talking about two different things here---“open” and “open access.” Are we willing to accept a future world in which OA is less than universally accepted? Absolutely. This isn’t our fight---it isn’t even a fight. The real struggle here is to understand and improve “open” writ large---we can’t move forward without understanding and embracing what open means. Only then can we work effectively together to get more information on the open spectrum, learn what works and what doesn’t, share best practices, unite communities of effort, and in doing so push more information toward the right end of the open spectrum over time. Whether this right end gets labeled “OA” or whatever is irrelevant---this is just a label.
Fair question. But clearly there’s some kind of a “we” here. We’re a group of people – most of whom are not formally affiliated with SCI – who are trying to do something or other. So I guess when I said “we” I was referring to that group of people. Or at least the “we” who are on this email list and party to this discussion.
After three years, I’m still trying to figure out what our goal is. I bring the question up every so often, but I don’t feel like we’ve ever really answered it. Maybe another way of putting the question would be “How will we [those of us involved with the OSI initiative] know when our work is accomplished? What will the scholcomm ecosystem look like when our work is done?”
Please note that the desired goal doesn’t have to be strictly achievable – it can be an unachievable ideal that just keeps us moving in the right direction. But I’d find it really helpful if I knew at least what the ideal outcome is. I’m particularly concerned with the question of whether or not our ideal outcome would continue to feature freedom of choice for authors.
Rick
Funnily enough OSI (the Open Source Initiative) has long made use of trademarks.
https://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines
Richard Poynder
There’s probably a spectrum of we’s here 😊 I suppose most of these uses can refer to OSI as an entity (whether or not we have complete agreement within OSI), the larger scholcomm community, or society at large. But as I mentioned in an email yesterday, I think it’s important that we---OSI as an entity and not necessarily all OSI participants as individuals--- agree on a fundamental set of principles---to wit, that open is here to stay, open exists on a spectrum, open should work for everyone everywhere, and we can only get there by working together. Richard Gedeye even suggested creating an OSI badge that people can download, signifying agreement with these core principles (whatever we take these to be). This inclusiveness and globalness is a cutting edge perspective in scholcomm, but it really isn’t controversial internally---is why most of us joined this effort to begin with (and it’s why our funders have stood behind us).
As for OSI’s goals, is our new website already an utter failure or have folks just not had time to look at it yet? I’ve tried to summarize these a number of different ways---the main one (added yesterday) is that we (OSI) are “working together in partnership with UNESCO to develop broadly accepted, comprehensive, sustainable solutions to the future of open scholarship that work for everyone everywhere.” I hope our site does a reasonable job of explaining OSI’s goals, but if not, please do let me know. The question of when we’ll be done is “we’ll get there when we get there.” We have eight more years of UNESCO commitment but I don’t think it will take eight more years to start seeing some real improvement stemming from our efforts.
Joyce, with regard to the numbering system, this is just a thought---as I mentioned earlier, it may take time to get used to the DARTS concept first (and this concept may undergo transformation) before we start describing it quantitatively.
Best,
Glenn
>As for OSI’s goals, is our new website already an utter failure or have folks just
> not had time to look at it yet? I’ve tried to summarize these a number of
> different ways---the main one (added yesterday) is that we (OSI) are “working
> together in partnership with UNESCO to develop broadly accepted,
> comprehensive, sustainable solutions to the future of open scholarship that
> work for everyone everywhere.”
Right, but what I’d really like to know is what we’re hoping those solutions will look like, and how we’ll know when we’ve achieved them. “Broadly accepted, comprehensive, and sustainable” are definitely general characteristics that I can support, but they don’t tell us anything about what the solutions actually are towards which we’re working. We can’t even agree (yet) on what we mean by “open.”
I want to be clear that I’m not blaming this lack of clarity on you, Glenn, or on anyone else in particular. It just seems like we as a group don’t have a strong desire to nail this down. Three years ago the general response was “it’s too soon.” Today I’m not sure that response continues to apply. At the same time, I do recognize the risk inherent in getting specific about our goals: as long as our goals are vague, our tent can remain maximally big and inclusive. As soon as we say “We’re trying to achieve X and not Y,” those who really want either both X and Y or Y and not X will probably fall away.
---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication
Marriott Library, University of Utah
Desk: (801) 587-9989
Cell: (801) 721-1687
I see what you mean now Rick. And I think the answer is still that it’s too soon to know. I think there is tremendous merit on simply agreeing on what our goals framework will look like at this juncture---open, inclusive, collaborative, and spectrum. That alone helps define possible solutions, or at least points us in the right direction. Once we all start rowing in the same direction, I think the particular details of what common ground we can find and what workable, sustainable solutions we can develop will gradually become more and more apparent.
The analogy here might be a group of people who gather together to fight for the independence of their country. In every case throughout history, the exact tools and goals became more apparent over time---constitutions, administrations, currency reform, laws, and so on. Revolutions aren’t won with all these details decided in advance---these details are worked out over time as needs, resources, and capabilities become more apparent. Sorry if this sounds grandiose---less grandiose analogies are welcome 😊
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
When I a publisher and subsequently teaching publishing law at UCL I came to the view (which I still hold) that trademarks were not appropriate for the scholarly publishing industry but that legal action could always be taken on the ground of “passing off” i.e. pretending your product was the same as someone else’s. I do not think trademarks (which I know are big in the USA) are appropriate for OSI – not at all. Nor are we much bothered about “passing off” unless someone attributes ideas to use which are not our ideas.
I am only adding to a debate as someone who has thought about issues raised – in the past.
Anthony
ICYMI, there’s a preprint from Martín-Martín et al on arXiv which illustrates the definitional challenge. Reflecting that the ways documents are being made freely accessible no longer adheres to Budapest/Bethesda/Berlin definitions, the preprint (which has yet to be peer-reviewed) proposes a conceptual model of OA comprising 6 dimensions: cost, authoritativeness, user rights, stability, immediacy and peer-review. Since each dimension is present in one way or another with any published object, there must be at least 720 OA variants. When customers are given many choices they hit “choice paralysis” and often choose nothing at all – so perhaps we’ve reached OA paralysis?
Martín-Martín, A et al (2018) Unbundling Open Access dimensions: a conceptual discussion to reduce terminology inconsistencies (preprint). https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1806/1806.05029.pdf
Schwartz: Choice isn’t always better. Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2006/06/more-isnt-always-better
Hi Joyce, Toby,
This is interesting---thanks much. Personally, what I like about the Martin-Martin model is that it does a better job than DARTS of unbundling what’s important to open access (as opposed to open) as defined by BOAI. What I think DARTS does better, though, is group together what’s important to the broader spectrum of open outcomes (including but not limited to open access). Both of these constructs cover the same basic ground. They just use different groupings in places to highlight what’s important to each. DARTS, for instance, includes cost, immediacy and peer-review as subsets of “Access,” in addition to qualities such as downloadability, and machine-readability. Martin-Martin, on the other hand, breaks out each of these qualities as separate categories.
If we were to adopt DARTS as our go-to model (whether this is represented by a spectrum or a multidimensional space or some other graphic), we could also recommend models like Martin-Martin or SPARC (“How open is it?”) to evaluate the openness of products endeavoring to achieve BOAI-OA.
And I’m drawing a blank at the moment but weren’t there also a few other graphical and/or conceptual representations of the open space we’ve discussed here? We may want to ask the DARTS teams (from 2016 and 2017) to look at these and see if the DARTS model needs to be improved, merged, etc., in light of all these additional insights and proposals. If these teams would be willing, I could try to coordinate a one-hour Zoom call toward the end of August to talk through some of these issues. In the meantime, I’ll set up a Slack space for this at #DARTS.
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)