Creative Commons For Science

chrisspurgeon writes "The folks at Creative Commons are rolling out a new project aimed at improving the dissemination of scientific publications and data. The National Institutes of Health is already proposing mandated Open Access to all NIH-funded research, and many scientists welcome the free redistribution of their papers, they just don't know the legal details of how to do it. The Science Commons project will take on the copyright problems unique to scientists (things like pre and post prints, and electronic vs. paper journal distribution)."

Comments

Go Larry

[cloudspot]

The battle for accessible culture is important, but the battle for accessible science is more important (IMO).

Keep up the good work!

past discussions

[LegendOfLink]

With all the discussions in previous years regarding the government trying to decide what scientists can and cannot post in journals, I am hoping this can further put the government at a distance and allow free information to remain, well, free.

It won't affect for-profit science though...

[jacobcaz]

Do you think Eli Lilly will allow its scientists to publish under this creative commons license? Of course not, because then everyone could (potentially) have access to the next Prozac.

I think this is excellent, but only academic and possibly government funded research will use this. The pharmaceutical and bio-tech companies will continue to do their own thing and make billions.

BBC Radio 4

[JaxWeb]

BBC Radio 4 did a radio program about the publish problems in Science, especially Physics, recently. I thought it was very good.

You can listen to it online from the BBC website. It requires Real Player, however.

Peer review is not everything

[October_30th]

Peer review is an absolute prerequisite for publishing any serious science, but even after a peer review I'd feel uncomfortable publishing my research in a free access journal.

I don't know. Maybe it's just because most free access journals are unknown startups with no established history. If you submit a manuscript to one of the established and prestigious scientific journals such as Science, Nature or PRL (at least in my field), it's not only going to be peer reviewed but it's going to be subjected to a peer-review-from-hell. That, on the other hand, is unlikely to happen if you submit it to a free access journal...

You may thank RMS for this (in part)

[ponos]

This is the idea of "free" as in speech, people. And this is why the free software paradigm is more important than just getting stuff done and providing low-cost solutions. Bio-research is extremely heavily encumbered with patents and costs. I'm extremely happy to see several initiatives (see for example the BIOS initiative and the open access initiative) slowly gain momentum.

Hell, we had to pay to get an article published (quite common) and then pay another 30$ to get a copy of the journal issue (and, no, there is not such thing as free internet access for high-profile journals) to read our own article.

I really want publishers and research companies to make money, but public funded research must be free for all. This is humanity's intellectual property, not the coca-cola recipe!

P.