Category Archives: oa.attribution

Advancing Software Citation Implementation (Software Citation Workshop 2022)

Posted on by
Reply

Abstract:  Software is foundationally important to scientific and social progress, however, traditional acknowledgment of the use of others’ work has not adapted in step with the rapid development and use of software in research.

This report outlines a series of collaborative discussions that brought together an international group of stakeholders and experts representing many communities, forms of labor, and expertise. Participants addressed specific challenges about software citation that have so far gone unresolved. The discussions took place in summer 2022 both online and in-person and involved a total of 51 participants.

The activities described in this paper were intended to identify and prioritize specific software citation problems, develop (potential) interventions, and lay out a series of mutually supporting approaches to address them. The outcomes of this report will be useful for the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) community, repository managers and curators, research software developers, and publishers.

GitHub is Sued, and We May Learn Something About Creative Commons Licensing – The Scholarly Kitchen

Posted on by
Reply

“I have had people tell me with doctrinal certainty that Creative Commons licenses allow text and data mining, and insofar as license terms are observed, I agree. The making of copies to perform text and data mining, machine learning, and AI training (collectively “TDM”) without additional licensing is authorized for commercial and non-commercial purposes under CC BY, and for non-commercial purposes under CC BY-NC. (Full disclosure: CCC offers RightFind XML, a service that supports licensed commercial access to full-text articles for TDM with value-added capabilities.)

I have long wondered, however, about the interplay between the attribution requirement (i.e., the “BY” in CC BY) and TDM. After all, the bargain with those licenses is that the author allows reuse, typically at no cost, but requires attribution. Attribution under the CC licenses may be the author’s primary benefit and motivation, as few authors would agree to offer the licenses without credit.

In the TDM context, this raises interesting questions:

Does the attribution requirement mean that the author’s information may not be removed as a data element from the content, even if inclusion might frustrate the TDM exercise or introduce noise into the system?
Does the attribution need to be included in the data set at every stage?
Does the result of the mining need to include attribution, even if hundreds of thousands of CC BY works were mined and the output does not include content from individual works?

While these questions may have once seemed theoretical, that is no longer the case. An analogous situation involving open software licenses (GNU and the like) is now being litigated….”

Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing – OASPA

Posted on by
Reply

“The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) are scholarly organisations that have seen an increase in the number, and broad range in the quality, of membership applications. Our organisations have collaborated to identify principles of transparency and best practice for scholarly publications and to clarify that these principles form the basis of the criteria by which suitability for membership is assessed by COPE, DOAJ and OASPA, and part of the criteria on which membership applications are evaluated by WAME. Each organisation also has their own, additional criteria which are used when evaluating applications. The organisations will not share lists of or journals that failed to demonstrate that they met the criteria for transparency and best practice.

This is the third version of a work in progress (published January 2018); the first version was made available by OASPA in December 2013 and a second version in June 2015. We encourage its wide dissemination and continue to welcome feedback on the general principles and the specific criteria. Background on the organisations is below….”

Revised principles of transparency and best practice released | OASPA

Posted on by
Reply

A revised version of the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing has been released by four key scholarly publishing organizations today. These guiding principles are intended as a foundation for best practice in scholarly publishing to help existing and new journals reach the best possible standards. 

The fourth edition of the Principles represents a collective effort between the four organizations to align the principles with today’s scholarly publishing landscape. The last update was in 2018, and the scholarly publishing landscape has changed. Guidance is provided on the information that should be made available on websites, peer review, access, author fees and publication ethics. The principles also cover ownership and management, copyright and licensing, and editorial policies. They stress the need for inclusivity in scholarly publishing and emphasize that editorial decisions should be based on merit and not affected by factors such as the origins of the manuscript and the nationality, political beliefs or religion of the author.

 

Open peer review is the key to tackling public health misinformation | Times Higher Education (THE)

Posted on by
Reply

“Digital, open access publication helped scientists share data and collaborate for the good of global public health. Greater open data policies have improved access to the data underpinning research discoveries. Meanwhile, preprints have enabled faster communication of research findings. But these shifts have not, by themselves, dispelled the conspiracies. I would also argue that the missing piece of the jigsaw is open, de-anonymised peer review….”

What senior academics can do to support reproducible and open research: a short, three-step guide | BMC Research Notes | Full Text

Posted on by
Reply

Abstract:  Increasingly, policies are being introduced to reward and recognise open research practices, while the adoption of such practices into research routines is being facilitated by many grassroots initiatives. However, despite this widespread endorsement and support, as well as various efforts led by early career researchers, open research is yet to be widely adopted. For open research to become the norm, initiatives should engage academics from all career stages, particularly senior academics (namely senior lecturers, readers, professors) given their routine involvement in determining the quality of research. Senior academics, however, face unique challenges in implementing policy changes and supporting grassroots initiatives. Given that—like all researchers—senior academics are motivated by self-interest, this paper lays out three feasible steps that senior academics can take to improve the quality and productivity of their research, that also serve to engender open research. These steps include changing (a) hiring criteria, (b) how scholarly outputs are credited, and (c) how we fund and publish in line with open research principles. The guidance we provide is accompanied by material for further reading.

 

 

Plan S Archives – iRights.info – Kreativität und Urheberrecht in der digitalen Welt (Open skimming: How scientific publishing changes in the transition to open access)

Posted on by
Reply

From Google’s English:

“Access to scientific texts free of charge and freely – this should soon become the standard. Scientific publishers are also trying to take advantage of the transition to Open Access, for example with fees for authors and data tracking. Tilman Reitz analyzes what the open access transformation means for science and what design options there are.”

Why some researchers oppose unrestricted sharing of coronavirus genome data

Posted on by

“Global-south scientists say that an open-access movement led by wealthy nations deprives them of credit and undermines their efforts….

But a growing faction of scientists, mostly from wealthy nations, argues that sequences should be shared on databases with no gatekeeping at all. They say this would allow huge analyses combining hundreds of thousands of genomes from different databases to flow seamlessly, and therefore deliver results more rapidly.

The debate has caught the attention of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) — which runs its own genome repository, called GenBank — and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has considered encouraging grantees to share on sites without such strong protections, Nature has learnt.

But many researchers — particularly those in resource-limited countries — are pushing back. They tell Nature that they see potential for exploitation in this no-strings-attached approach — and that GISAID’s gatekeeping is one of its biggest attractions because it ensures that users who analyse sequences from GISAID acknowledge those who deposited them. The database also requests that users seek to collaborate with the depositors….

Fears of inequitable data use are amplified by the fact that only 0.3% of COVID-19 vaccines have gone to low-income countries. “Imagine Africans working so hard to contribute to a database that’s used to make or update vaccines, and then we don’t get access to the vaccines,” says Christian Happi, a microbiologist at the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases in Ede, Nigeria. “It’s very demoralizing.” …”

Introducing the CC Search Browser Extension

Posted on by

This is part of a series of posts introducing the projects built by open source contributors mentored by Creative Commons during Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2019. Mayank Nader was one of those contributors and we are grateful for his work on this project.

Creative Commons (CC) is working towards providing easy access to CC-licensed and public domain works. One significant step towards achieving that goal was the release of CC Search in 2019. Through this search and indexing tool, we’re making a plethora of CC-licensed images accessible in one place. As CC Search expands to include more than just images, CC is also developing a suite of applications and interfaces to help users across the world interact, consume, and reuse open access content.

CC Search Extension (1)

The CC Search Browser Extension is one such application. This browser extension is an open-source, lightweight plugin that can be installed and used by anyone with an updated web browser.

Why did we create this browser extension?

Browsers are the gateway to the web, and users often install browser plugins to improve productivity and overall experience. With the CC Search Browser Extension, users can now search for CC-licensed images, download them, and attribute the owner/creator without needing to head over to Flickr, Behance, Rawpixel or any other source of CC-licensed content. The other great feature? The CC Search Browser Extension works across different browsers, providing a familiar and intuitive experience for all users.

Key features of the CC Search Browser Extension: 

  • Search and filter CC-licensed content

You can use the extension filters to filter the content by the source website, types of licenses, and/or use-case.

CC Search Extension (2)

  • One-click attribution

One condition of all CC licenses is attribution. Attributing the owner/creator of CC-licensed content found using the extension is easy with one-click attribution. Both the Rich-text and HTML versions of the attribution are available.

CC Search Extension (3)

  • Download images (and attribution)

Download the image to use it in your works through the extension itself. You can also download the attribution information as a text file along with the image; this can be helpful when downloading multiple images in a single session.

  • Bookmark images

Bookmarking the images will save them in the extension. You can view and remove your bookmarks from the bookmarks section.

CC Search Extension (4)

  • Export and import bookmarks

As a user, you can easily archive and/or transfer your bookmarks. This feature makes sure that the process of archiving and transferring bookmarks is uncomplicated and straightforward.

CC Search Extension (5)

  • User-interface (UI) options available for custom settings

The extension also allows for setting default filters, etc. The “Options” page helps declutter the main popup of the extension, ensuring that it shows only the most necessary information. In the future, this “Options” page will also host additional and updated features.

CC Search Extension (6)

  • Sync your custom settings and bookmarks across devices

Chrome and Firefox have a built-in feature that syncs browser settings and preferences across your logged-in devices. The extension leverages this feature to sync your custom settings and bookmarks. This will make your experience more pleasant and familiar. 

  • Dark Mode

The extension also has a dark mode that you can toggle “on” by clicking the icon in the header. This reduces screen glare and battery consumption. You can set the dark mode as default in the “Options” page.

Future plans and development

  • Find and fix bugs
  • Add a review and feedback tab on the “Options” page
  • Integrate Vocabulary into the extension
  • Develop usability enhancements
  • Remove infinite scrolling and replace it with pagination or voluntary loading
  • Add search syntax for better specificity of results and a search syntax guide
  • Make the code more modular and add more tests
  • Port the features of the CC Search web application that are relevant in the context of the browser plugin

Installation

The latest version of the extension is available for installation via Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera.

Join the community

Community contribution and feedback is an essential part of the development process, so we encourage you to contact us if you have feedback or a specific suggestion. This is an open-source project, you can contribute in the form of bug reports, feature requests, or code contributions.

To install the development version of the extension, read the installation guide on Github.

Finally, come and tell us about your experience on the Creative Commons Slack via the slack channel: #cc-dev-browser-extension.

The post Introducing the CC Search Browser Extension appeared first on Creative Commons.

Introducing the CC Search Browser Extension

Posted on by

This is part of a series of posts introducing the projects built by open source contributors mentored by Creative Commons during Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2019. Mayank Nader was one of those contributors and we are grateful for his work on this project.

Creative Commons (CC) is working towards providing easy access to CC-licensed and public domain works. One significant step towards achieving that goal was the release of CC Search in 2019. Through this search and indexing tool, we’re making a plethora of CC-licensed images accessible in one place. As CC Search expands to include more than just images, CC is also developing a suite of applications and interfaces to help users across the world interact, consume, and reuse open access content.

CC Search Extension (1)

The CC Search Browser Extension is one such application. This browser extension is an open-source, lightweight plugin that can be installed and used by anyone with an updated web browser.

Why did we create this browser extension?

Browsers are the gateway to the web, and users often install browser plugins to improve productivity and overall experience. With the CC Search Browser Extension, users can now search for CC-licensed images, download them, and attribute the owner/creator without needing to head over to Flickr, Behance, Rawpixel or any other source of CC-licensed content. The other great feature? The CC Search Browser Extension works across different browsers, providing a familiar and intuitive experience for all users.

Key features of the CC Search Browser Extension: 

  • Search and filter CC-licensed content

You can use the extension filters to filter the content by the source website, types of licenses, and/or use-case.

CC Search Extension (2)

  • One-click attribution

One condition of all CC licenses is attribution. Attributing the owner/creator of CC-licensed content found using the extension is easy with one-click attribution. Both the Rich-text and HTML versions of the attribution are available.

CC Search Extension (3)

  • Download images (and attribution)

Download the image to use it in your works through the extension itself. You can also download the attribution information as a text file along with the image; this can be helpful when downloading multiple images in a single session.

  • Bookmark images

Bookmarking the images will save them in the extension. You can view and remove your bookmarks from the bookmarks section.

CC Search Extension (4)

  • Export and import bookmarks

As a user, you can easily archive and/or transfer your bookmarks. This feature makes sure that the process of archiving and transferring bookmarks is uncomplicated and straightforward.

CC Search Extension (5)

  • User-interface (UI) options available for custom settings

The extension also allows for setting default filters, etc. The “Options” page helps declutter the main popup of the extension, ensuring that it shows only the most necessary information. In the future, this “Options” page will also host additional and updated features.

CC Search Extension (6)

  • Sync your custom settings and bookmarks across devices

Chrome and Firefox have a built-in feature that syncs browser settings and preferences across your logged-in devices. The extension leverages this feature to sync your custom settings and bookmarks. This will make your experience more pleasant and familiar. 

  • Dark Mode

The extension also has a dark mode that you can toggle “on” by clicking the icon in the header. This reduces screen glare and battery consumption. You can set the dark mode as default in the “Options” page.

Future plans and development

  • Find and fix bugs
  • Add a review and feedback tab on the “Options” page
  • Integrate Vocabulary into the extension
  • Develop usability enhancements
  • Remove infinite scrolling and replace it with pagination or voluntary loading
  • Add search syntax for better specificity of results and a search syntax guide
  • Make the code more modular and add more tests
  • Port the features of the CC Search web application that are relevant in the context of the browser plugin

Installation

The latest version of the extension is available for installation via Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Opera.

Join the community

Community contribution and feedback is an essential part of the development process, so we encourage you to contact us if you have feedback or a specific suggestion. This is an open-source project, you can contribute in the form of bug reports, feature requests, or code contributions.

To install the development version of the extension, read the installation guide on Github.

Finally, come and tell us about your experience on the Creative Commons Slack via the slack channel: #cc-dev-browser-extension.

The post Introducing the CC Search Browser Extension appeared first on Creative Commons.

Using ORCID to Re-imagine Research Attribution | ORCID

Posted on by

“The objective of Rescognito is not to “disrupt” or to “dis-intermediate”, but to work with existing scholarly societies and other participants, keeping them at the heart of research evaluation and reputation management. Rescognito does not store content, it is not a social network nor workflow system; it is just a thin layer exclusively focused on recognition of a wide variety of research contributions. 

Using our platform, recognition is attributed using a counter called a “COG” (short for ReCOGnition) and the ORCID iD of the person granting the recognition. By themselves COG totals are a relatively superficial metric; but because they are open, transparent and attributable, we anticipate that layers of analytics, visualization and possibly AI will provide valuable insights into research trends and people.

We use the CRediT taxonomy, supplemented with a continuously-evolving list of home-grown recognition reasons (feedback welcome!) useful for recognizing non-article-based contributions and non-science works in the humanities and arts….

Thanks to ORCID our system can reliably identify research professionals (for example, the aforementioned Stephen Curry, along with his works: https://rescognito.com/0000-0002-0552-8870)….

Rescognito also allows self-recognition as a way to claim/assign CRediT for a previously published work (for example, https://rescognito.com/0000-0002-0673-1360)….”

Breaking down the walls of scientific secrecy | CBC News

Posted on by

“Getting scooped by a competing researcher is one of a scientist’s biggest fears. And some of the most important discoveries in medical history have been tainted by competitive controversy.

Back in 1952, before he co-discovered the structure of DNA, James Watson got access to Rosalind Franklin’s revolutionary X-ray image of DNA without her knowledge.

That image, known as Photo 51, was a major clue that helped Watson and Francis Crick complete their Nobel Prize-winning discovery. The lack of credit given to Franklin remains a stain on the story of their breakthrough.

But what if Franklin had been informally publishing her research notes all along?

“She would have gotten credit instantly for her contribution,” said Susan Lamb, a historian of medicine who holds the Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine at the University of Ottawa….”

Credit data generators for data reuse

Posted on by

“Much effort has gone towards crafting mandates and standards for researchers to share their data1–3. Considerably less time has been spent measuring just how valuable data sharing is, or recognizing the scientific contributions of the people responsible for those data sets. The impact of research continues to be measured by primary publications, rather than by subsequent uses of the data….

To incentivize the sharing of useful data, the scientific enterprise needs a well-defined system that links individuals with reuse of data sets they generate4….

A system in which researchers are regularly recognized for generating data that become useful to other researchers could transform how academic institutions evaluate faculty members’ contributions to science….”

Data sharing and how it can benefit your scientific career

Posted on by

“Ecologist Thomas Crowther knew that scientists had already collected a vast amount of field data on forests worldwide. But almost all of those data were sequestered in researchers’ notebooks or personal computers, making them unavailable to the wider scientific community. In 2012, Crowther, then a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, began to e-mail and cold-call researchers to request their data. He started to assemble an inventory, now hosted by the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative, an international research collaboration, that contains data on more than 1 million locations. Data are stored in CSV files (plain-text files that contain a list of data) on servers at Crowther’s present laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and on those of a collaborator at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana; he hopes to outsource database storage to a third-party organization with expertise in archiving and access.

After years of courting and cajoling, Crowther has persuaded about half of the data owners to make their data public. The other half, he laments, say that they support open data in principle, but have specific reasons for keeping their data sets private. Mainly, he explains, they want to use their data to conduct and publish their own studies.

Crowther’s database challenges reflect the current state of science: partly open, partly closed, and with unclear and inconsistent policies and expectations on data sharing that are still in flux….”

Increase transparency by adding CRediT to workflow with PubSweet : Collaborative Knowledge Foundation

Posted on by

“In the PubSweet Community we are about contribution and reuse. Meanwhile, the CRediT taxonomy is all about transparently recognizing contributions to research. As such, we are pleased to announce that CRediT is implemented within CalTech’s Wormbase Micropublications platform, which is developed using PubSweet. This means that all other organizations within the community who are also building PubSweet platforms can leverage this modular component in their workflow. This is what we mean when we say that contributed components enrich the offering (and can speed development time) for all organizations joining and developing platforms subsequently….”