The Power of Open

The Power of Open ist eine Sammlung von Statements mehr oder weniger prominenter Kreativer zu freien Inhalten im Allgemeinen und Creative Commons im Speziellen, unter anderem von DJ Vadim oder Vincent Moon. Das Statement von Mark Patterson (PloS) zu “Research as a public resource”:

When the open access publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS) launched its first scientific journal, PLoS Biology, in 2003, it faced a serious uphill climb. Academics are judged not only by the quality of their work, but also by where that work is published. With career advancement, funding opportunities and reputations on the line, researchers are understandably selective.

“We had many conversations with scientists supportive of openness, but who had concerns about our lack of prestige and standing in the publishing world at that stage,” recalls Mark Patterson, PLoS director of publishing. “Because of our start as an advocacy organization for openness, we had a base of supporters. Eventually, their energy carried the day and soon a few researchers took the leap and published a great piece of their research in our open journal. That gave us the foundation to get to where we are today – a sustainable and growing source of high-quality open access research, publishing hundreds of articles a month.”

The core principle behind open access journals is impact. “We set out to remove all barriers to reusing research and transforming research literature into a resource for further research,” says Patterson. “Open access provides the maximum possible impact for both funders and researchers.”

Patterson now sees a very strong movement toward open access in the publishing field. “There are more open access journals being started, more content being published, and new policies are being developed at funding agencies and within institutions which are driving open access,” he said. “There is movement amongst all stakeholders. The question now is just how quickly can we make it happen.”

Creative Commons licensing has been an integral part of the success of open access publishing, and PLoS publishes all of its journals under the CC BY license. “CC has provided a strong, consistent signal that you can use openly published research to do with what you want,” says Patterson. “Because CC licenses are created by experts and have a solid legal foundation, they have become the gold standard in open access publishing.”

(CC: BY)

An einer Übertragung ins Deutsche wird gearbeitet.

[via CC-Blog]