Science Commons

The Science Commons is a project by the Creative Commons initiative to explore how the Creative Commons licenses can be used to support Open Access for scientific literature.

The concept probably has a broader meaning as well as the part of the Information Commons that is related to scientific knowledge. Here's is an intro on sharing in science

URL = http://sciencecommons.org/about/scbackground

It is associated with a Material Transfer Agreement Project.

Description

"Science Commons is not a license, it is a new project.

From the website: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5695

Science Commons works on these problems: inaccessible journal articles, tools locked up behind complex contracts, socially irresponsible patent licensing, and data obscured by technology or end-user licensing agreements. We translate this into projects, with work in three distinctly different project spaces: publishing (covered by copyright), licensing (covered by patent and contract) and data (in the US, covered only by contract). We work on agreements between funders and grant recipients, between universities and researchers and between funders and universities—all in the service of opening up scientific knowledge, tools and data for reuse. We also promote the use of CC licensing in scientific publishing, on the belief that scientific papers need to be available to everyone in the world, not simply available to those with enough resources to afford subscription fees."

The Science Commons Protocol

"In December 2007, Science Commons released their Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data. This protocol, written in the same style as a Request For Comment (RFC), outlines a legal standard for open access to data based on three principles:

• the protocol must promote legal predictability and certainty

• the protocol must be easy to use and understand

• the protocol must impose the lowest possible transaction costs on users

Guided by these three principles and Science Commons' experience in maintaining their database FAQ on Creative Commons licences and data, they arrived at an approach that calls for waiver of relevant IPRs so that data could be treated as close to being in the public domain (without IPRs) as possible. Thus the protocol calls for waiver of:

• copyright

• the sui generis database right in the European Union mentioned above and similar protections

• implied contract rights and rights in tort or delict such as unfair competition or trade secrets

This protocol gets enforced through the use of an "Open Access Data Mark", which will be managed by Science Commons and the sister organisation Creative Commons. They will limit use of the mark to licensing schemes that comply with the protocol, so that users can be assured that the data labeled with the mark meets the criteria of waiving IPRs. The Science Commons protocol thus sets a standard that any licensing scheme can implement." (http://www.osbr.ca/ojs/index.php/osbr/article/view/516/475)

Background

John Wilbanks: "Science Commons (SC) was launched in early 2005. SC is a part of Creative Commons - think of us as a wholly owned subsidiary - drawing on the amazing success of CC licenses, especially the CC community and iCommons. But we're also a little different. Whereas CC focuses on the individual creators and their copyrights, SC by necessity has a broader focus. That necessity is caused by, for example, the fact that most scientists sign employee agreements that assign intellectual property rights to a host institution. Another example is that scientific journals regularly request that scientific authors sign over their copyrights, and scientists eagerly do so in return for citations in what are called "high impact" journals. There's a very real collective action problem here: no one individual or institution has strong incentives to change the system.

But the system is causing problems in the scientific and academic communities. Scientific articles are locked behind firewalls, long after their publishers have realized economic returns. This means that the hot new article about AIDS research can't be redistributed much less translated into other languages (where it might inspire a local researcher to solve a local problem). The difficulties faced in relation to the "open access" of publications are easy compared to those presented when we consider access to tools and data. Published research indicates that nearly half of all geneticists have been unable to validate research from colleagues due to problems with secrecy and legal friction.

So Science Commons works on these problems: inaccessible journal articles, tools locked up behind complex contracts, socially irresponsible patent licensing, and data obscured by technology or end-user licensing agreements. We translate this into projects, with work in three distinctly different project spaces: publishing (covered by copyright), licensing (covered by patent and contract) and data (in the US, covered only by contract). We work on agreements between funders and grant recipients, between universities and researchers and between funders and universities—all in the service of opening up scientific knowledge, tools and data for reuse. We also promote the use of CC licensing in scientific publishing, on the belief that scientific papers need to be available to everyone in the world, not simply available to those with enough resources to afford subscription fees." (http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5695)

More Information

Essay in MIT's Innovations Journal, at http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/itgg.2007.2.3.137?cookieSet=1