Open Data Archives - Creative Commons https://creativecommons.org/category/open-knowledge/open-data/ Mon, 28 Apr 2025 18:09:38 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.5 CC Supports a new Digital Knowledge Act for Europe https://creativecommons.org/2024/02/12/cc-supports-a-new-digital-knowledge-act-for-europe/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cc-supports-a-new-digital-knowledge-act-for-europe Mon, 12 Feb 2024 04:57:48 +0000 https://creativecommons.org/?p=74685 Anonymous, “Prudence, Wisdom and Knowledge”, National Library of the Netherlands, Public Domain Mark.  In December last year, the Communia Association for the Public Domain — of which Creative Commons (CC) is a member —  asked the European Commission and European Parliament to consider the development of a Digital Knowledge Act. In this blog post, we…

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A medieval manuscript representing three richly-clad women in front of a green, hilly landscape with castles in the background.
Anonymous, “Prudence, Wisdom and Knowledge”, National Library of the Netherlands, Public Domain Mark. 

In December last year, the Communia Association for the Public Domain — of which Creative Commons (CC) is a member —  asked the European Commission and European Parliament to consider the development of a Digital Knowledge Act. In this blog post, we offer some background on the proposal and explain why CC fully supports it. 

Rationale for a Digital Knowledge Act

European knowledge institutions (libraries, universities, schools, etc.) as well as researchers face numerous copyright challenges in the digital environment. Access to academic publications, their reproduction for research purposes, text-and-data mining, etc. are all activities that are necessary to conduct serious research but are hampered by misaligned copyright rules, especially where cross-border collaboration is key.  

As top EU institutions are gearing up for a new mandate for the next five years, a Digital Knowledge Act would enable knowledge institutions to fulfill their mission and offer the same services online as offline. Such a regulation could improve copyright law by introducing the following for the benefit of knowledge institutions: 

  • a unified research exception
  • an EU-wide e-lending right
  • a limited liability regime for those acting in good faith
  • reasonable licensing conditions
  • a right to circumvent technological protection measures.

CC’s work on policy and open knowledge

CC recognizes that equitable policy which enables and promotes open access (OA) is pivotal to making knowledge open. For example, in 2022 CC, in partnership with SPARC and EIFL, launched the Open Climate Campaign, a four-year project working to make the open sharing of research the norm in climate science. At the center of this work is partnering with national governments, private funders, and environmental organizations to develop open access policies for their grantees. Another project aims to identify recommended best practices for better sharing of climate data and yet another strives to promote open licensing for life sciences preprints. Through these OA policies and best practices we believe we can change the culture of sharing and promote the adoption of open practices for knowledge to grow and help solve the greatest challenges of our times.  

Why we support this initiative

But discrete open access policies and best practices are not enough. Knowledge institutions need to be able to rely on a clear, harmonized, and supportive legal system that operates across borders. That is why CC’s policy work centers on promoting better sharing of knowledge and culture through global copyright reform. Knowledge institutions are pivotal actors in the fight against climate change and hold many of the keys to unlock knowledge. If we are going to solve the world’s biggest problems, the knowledge about them must be open, and institutions , which hold that knowledge in trust for the public, must be able to operate within a legal framework that is conducive to their core mission and purpose. A Digital Knowledge Act would provide such a structure at an EU-wide scale and would contribute to accelerating research, boosting scientific progress, and spurring knowledge-based innovation for a sustainable future. 

For additional guidance on open knowledge policy, contact us at info@creativecommons.org

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Recommended Best Practices for Better Sharing of Climate Data https://creativecommons.org/2024/01/29/recommended-best-practices-for-better-sharing-of-climate-data/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=recommended-best-practices-for-better-sharing-of-climate-data Mon, 29 Jan 2024 03:04:30 +0000 https://creativecommons.org/?p=74584 At Creative Commons, we believe that addressing global challenges like the climate crisis requires opening the knowledge about those challenges. We are thrilled to announce the release of our “Recommendations for Better Sharing of Climate Data”— the culmination of a nine-month research initiative from our Open Climate Data project. These guidelines are a result of…

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At Creative Commons, we believe that addressing global challenges like the climate crisis requires opening the knowledge about those challenges. We are thrilled to announce the release of our “Recommendations for Better Sharing of Climate Data”— the culmination of a nine-month research initiative from our Open Climate Data project. These guidelines are a result of collaboration between Creative Commons, government agencies and intergovernmental organizations. They mark a significant milestone in our ongoing effort to enhance the accessibility, sharing, and reuse of open climate data to address the climate crisis. Our goal is to share strategies that align with existing data sharing principles and pave the way for a more interconnected and accessible future for climate data.

Our recommendations offer practical steps and best practices, crafted in collaboration with key stakeholders and organizations dedicated to advancing open practices in climate data. We provide recommendations for 1) legal and licensing terms, 2) using metadata values for attribution and provenance, and 3) management and governance for better sharing.

Opening climate data requires an examination of the public’s legal rights to access and use the climate data, often dictated by copyright and licensing. This legal detail is sometimes missing from climate data sharing and legal interoperability conversations. Our recommendations suggest two options: Option A: CC0 + Attribution Request, in order to maximize reuse by dedicating climate data to the public domain, plus a request for attribution; and Option B: CC BY 4.0, for retaining data ownership and legal enforcement of attribution. We address how to navigate license stacking and attribution stacking for climate data hosts and for users working with multiple climate data sources.

We also propose standardized human- and machine-readable metadata values that enhance transparency, reduce guesswork, and ensure broader accessibility to climate data. We built upon existing model metadata schemas and standards, including those that address license and attribution information. These recommendations address a gap and provide metadata schema that standardize the inclusion of upfront, clear values related to attribution, licensing and provenance.

Lastly, we highlight four key aspects of effective climate data management: designating a dedicated technical managing steward, designating a legal and/or policy steward, encouraging collaborative data sharing, and regularly revisiting and updating data sharing policies in accordance with parallel open data policies and standards.

As we release these recommendations, we extend an invitation to join us in an ongoing journey of collaboration. Together, we can continue to develop policies and practices that open up data, fostering advancements in climate research and innovation. Send us your comments at openclimatedata@creativecommons.org.

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Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Funds New Project to Openly License Life Sciences Preprints https://creativecommons.org/2023/10/04/chan-zuckerberg-initiative-funds-new-project-to-openly-license-life-sciences-preprints/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=chan-zuckerberg-initiative-funds-new-project-to-openly-license-life-sciences-preprints Wed, 04 Oct 2023 19:42:06 +0000 https://creativecommons.org/?p=73940 Creative Commons is excited to announce new programmatic support from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to help make openly licensed preprints the primary vehicle of scientific dissemination.

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A black Chan Zuckerberg Initiative wordmark and red “cz” logo next to a black Creative Commons logo.
CZI brand marks used by permission from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Today, Creative Commons (CC) is excited to announce new programmatic support from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to help make openly licensed preprints the primary vehicle of scientific dissemination.

“We are delighted to have been awarded this new grant to help us leverage our expertise to make life sciences research more open and accessible,” said Catherine Stihler, CC CEO. “From open review to translation to AI and machine-learning applications, realizing the full potential of preprints is predicated on them being openly licensed.”

The eighteen-month grant will enable CC to collaborate with CZI on a project focused on significantly increasing use of the CC BY 4.0 license on preprints in the life sciences by working with funders, preprint servers, and other preprint stakeholders.

“Preprint servers have seen a marked increase in uploads across many scientific disciplines, particularly in the life sciences1, spurred by recognition of the importance of timely, open access to research results during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dario Taraborelli, Science Program Officer at CZI. “Preprints are not only a faster pathway to the dissemination of research results, they also enable the development of an entire scholarly communication ecosystem around them. We are excited to partner with CC to further develop and strengthen this ecosystem and bring together funders, institutions, preprint servers, and other stakeholders to promote openly licensed preprints.”

“We are so pleased to have our open access research work further supported by CZI,” said Cable Green, CC Director of Open Knowledge. “Opening preprints is essential to our strategy to support better sharing, which includes helping scientists open and share all the components of their research — without long publication timelines — to support access, text and data mining, reproducibility, and further inquiry.”

This work will complement activities already underway with CC and our partners in the Open Climate Campaign, a multi-year project to promote open access to research to accelerate progress towards solving the climate crisis and preserving global biodiversity, and our Open Climate Data Project, an initiative to help open large climate datasets.

1. See https://github.com/nicholasmfraser/covid19_preprints

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Surveying the Open Climate Data Landscape https://creativecommons.org/2023/08/08/surveying-the-open-climate-data-landscape/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=surveying-the-open-climate-data-landscape Tue, 08 Aug 2023 10:37:17 +0000 https://creativecommons.org/?p=67597 At CC we believe that to solve big problems, the knowledge and culture about those problems needs to be open and freely accessible. In line with our Open Climate Campaign, which focuses on opening up climate research, we recently launched the Open Climate Data project, to facilitate better sharing of climate data on a global…

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A satellite image of the Volga River delta at the Caspian Sea, showing scattered white ice floating in greenish water around patches of brownish land.

Volga River. Caspian Sea (7-03-2023)” by Miguel Masegosa is licensed via CC BY 2.0 and contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2023 processed by Sentinel Hub.

At CC we believe that to solve big problems, the knowledge and culture about those problems needs to be open and freely accessible. In line with our Open Climate Campaign, which focuses on opening up climate research, we recently launched the Open Climate Data project, to facilitate better sharing of climate data on a global scale. Making climate data more open and easily accessible is a crucial step towards addressing the climate crisis.

We started this project by asking a fundamental question: “What climate data exists, and what can I do with it?” To reach an answer, we conducted a landscape analysis to better understand the permissible uses of existing large climate data sets. We surveyed a range of organizations that provide climate data on behalf of national, intergovernmental and/or global populations and are both publishers and sources of climate data. This approach enabled us to assess the current status of major sources of climate data and propose practical ways in which it can be shared more effectively. We hope this initial analysis provides clarity to researchers, policymakers, educators, civil society organizations and advocates.

Read our Landscape Analysis report to learn more about how we analyzed large climate data sources, in accordance with the FAIR data principles: findability, accessibility, technical interoperability, and reusability (as dictated by licensing terms).

As the primary aim of the Open Climate Data project is to facilitate better sharing of climate data, we analyzed a range of data-sharing approaches from multiple sources including: US government, global NGOs, regional international governments, European governments, and global intergovernmental alliances.

Landscape Data Sources

U.S. Government

  • Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Data Center (ARM)
  • Envirofacts
  • Environmental System Science Data Infrastructure for a Virtual Ecosystem (ESS-DIVE)
  • National Centers for Environmental Information at NOAA
  • NASA Earth Science Data Systems

Global NGOs

  • GEOSS Portal
  • International Energy Agency
  • Sensor.Community
  • The World Bank Group Climate Change Knowledge Portal
  • WRI Data

Regional International Governments

  • 3CN Climate Database: Latin America
  • Asia-Pacific Data-Research Center (APDRC): Asia
  • Chinese Academy of Science Earth: China
  • IGAD Climate Predictions and Applications Centre: Africa

European Governments

  • Atmosphere Data Store (ADS)
  • CEDA Archive
  • Climate Data Store
  • European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative
  • Met Office

Global Intergovernmental Alliances

  • European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)
  • European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT)
  • The Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. Geographic Network
  • International Renewable Energy Agency
  • OECD Data
  • UN Environment Programme Global Resource Information Database (GRID) – Geneva

FAIR Data Principles

Given the diverse range of climate data sponsors, publishers, and sources from around the world, we found a wide variety of methods for accessing climate data. Our goal was to understand how their climate data can be accessed in accordance with the FAIR data principles: findability, accessibility, technical interoperability, and reusability (as dictated by licensing terms). We examined how these climate data providers share their data today, and established a baseline of open climate data information by assessing each of these variables.

FAIR Data Characteristics

The left column lists four principles of FAIR data, Rows in the right column list characteristics associated with each principle.

Findability Has its own search function
Appears in external federated searches
Uses DOIs or some standard PID on all its datasets
Relevant metadata available for each dataset
Accessibility: Public Access Available to the public
All datasets are offered for free
No registration/information required
Interoperability: Technical Every dataset is downloadable
No special software required
All their data is hosted on their site; none of the data requires getting it from an external site
Machine-readable file types
Reusability: Legal Permissions Licensed for public domain
Okay for commercial purposes
Specific license reference(s)

This project is dedicated to improving the sharing of climate data, and we place great importance on pursuing this goal collaboratively with the diverse range of stakeholders involved in addressing climate change. Our next step is to establish a dedicated working group of expert practitioners and representatives from regional and global climate data publishers and data source entities, and collectively, to develop a community sharing standard for open climate data. We hope to offer guidance to stewards of large open climate datasets and the broader climate data community — including those not involved in the original data creation — on best practices for sharing climate data in standardized ways that maximize accessibility, reuse and sharing.

We invite you to join us in our ongoing journey of learning and collaboration as we develop policies and practices to open up data for the advancement of climate research and innovation. Stay connected with us by emailing openclimatedata@creativecommons.org and subscribing to our newsletter.

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Patrick J. McGovern Foundation Funds New CC Initiative to Open Large Climate Datasets https://creativecommons.org/2022/12/19/patrick-j-mcgovern-foundation-funds-new-cc-initiative-to-open-large-climate-datasets/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=patrick-j-mcgovern-foundation-funds-new-cc-initiative-to-open-large-climate-datasets Mon, 19 Dec 2022 21:36:02 +0000 https://creativecommons.org/?p=66227 Today, Creative Commons (CC) is excited to announce one million US dollars in new programmatic support from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation (PJMF) to help open large climate datasets. The twelve-month grant will enable CC to conduct key climate data landscape analyses and expand our work, bringing people together to create policy and practices to…

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Today, Creative Commons (CC) is excited to announce one million US dollars in new programmatic support from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation (PJMF) to help open large climate datasets. The twelve-month grant will enable CC to conduct key climate data landscape analyses and expand our work, bringing people together to create policy and practices to open data that advances climate research and innovation.

“We are delighted to have been awarded this new programmatic support to help us play our part in solving one of humanity’s greatest challenges, the climate crisis,” said Catherine Stihler, CC CEO. “By opening up large datasets, we open endless possibilities to further knowledge and greater understanding of the causes and solutions to our climate crisis.”

“By opening up large datasets, we open endless possibilities to further knowledge and greater understanding of the causes and solutions to our climate crisis.”

The work funded by PJMF will complement activities already underway with CC and our partners in the Open Climate Campaign, a multi-year project to promote open access to research to accelerate progress towards solving the climate crisis and preserving global biodiversity.

“Providing scale, accuracy, and granularity, data assets like the ones this partnership makes possible will serve as transformational tools in achieving climate goals and protecting our planet and community,” said Vilas Dhar, President of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. “Our work with Creative Commons advances and accelerates the creation of such open data sets and leverages the best knowledge we have today to create a better future for tomorrow.”

“Providing scale, accuracy, and granularity, data assets like the ones this partnership makes possible will serve as transformational tools in achieving climate goals and protecting our planet and community.

“We are so pleased to have our climate work further supported by the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation,” said Dr. Cable Green, CC Director of Open Knowledge. “Opening large climate datasets is essential to our strategy to support better sharing, which includes helping scientists share all the components of their research – including their data – to support reproducibility and further inquiry.”

CC is recruiting for a new person to join our team, working on opening large climate datasets. Do you want to help with this work? Please see this job opportunity: Open Climate Data Manager.

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Press Release: New Four-Year, $4 Million Open Climate Campaign Will Open Knowledge to Solve Challenges in Climate and Biodiversity https://creativecommons.org/2022/08/30/press-release-new-four-year-4-million-open-climate-campaign/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=press-release-new-four-year-4-million-open-climate-campaign Tue, 30 Aug 2022 16:00:06 +0000 https://creativecommons.org/?p=65766 Mountain View, CA 30 Aug 2022: Creative Commons, SPARC and EIFL today announce a new 4-year, $4-million (USD) grant from Arcadia, to fund the Open Climate Campaign. This grant, which builds on $450,000 (USD) in planning funds from the Open Society Foundations, will fund a four-year campaign to accelerate progress towards solving the climate crisis…

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Mountain View, CA 30 Aug 2022: Creative Commons, SPARC and EIFL today announce a new 4-year, $4-million (USD) grant from Arcadia, to fund the Open Climate Campaign.

This grant, which builds on $450,000 (USD) in planning funds from the Open Society Foundations, will fund a four-year campaign to accelerate progress towards solving the climate crisis and preserving global biodiversity by promoting open access to research.

“While the reality of climate change and the resulting loss of biodiversity is certain, the research about these global challenges and the possible actions to tackle them are too often not publicly accessible. In order to solve these pressing problems, the knowledge about them must be made immediately and freely open to all,” said Heather Joseph, Executive Director at SPARC.

“The Campaign has assembled experts from across the fields of climate change, biodiversity, open science, scholarly publishing and open education to develop a campaign that we believe will lead to the open sharing of research outputs as the norm for researchers, governments, funders and environmental organizations,” said Rima Kupryte, Director at Electronic Information for Libraries.

The Campaign will:

  • Bring attention to the issue of access to knowledge on climate change and biodiversity.
  • Work directly with national governments, funders and environmental organizations to create open access policies and make it easier to share their climate change content.
  • Identify, engage and contribute to draft international frameworks to include open access policy recommendations.
  • Identify important existing climate and biodiversity research publications not already open access and help them move to open access where possible. We will also explore tactics to facilitate changes in publisher actions to ensure climate and biodiversity research is open access.
  • Engage with researchers, universities and policy makers in traditionally excluded geographical regions to ensure inclusive outcomes throughout.

“Climate change is the most pressing global challenge facing humanity. When research and data are closed behind paywalls and people are excluded from the conversation, progress is stifled and we all lose out. This campaign will ensure inclusive, just and equitable access to the essential knowledge we will all need to fight the climate crisis,” said Catherine Stihler, CEO at Creative Commons.

“OSF is thrilled to partner with the Arcadia Fund to support Creative Commons, SPARC, and EIFL, global leaders of the open access movement, to launch the Open Climate Campaign. The quick response from the international research and publishing communities to make all research on COVID-19, and now monkeypox, openly available, demonstrates that to properly address the world’s greatest challenges, research needs to be open. OSF has called for all research to be made openly available, since we helped to define open access to research twenty years ago. I believe the Open Climate Campaign will serve as a model for opening research in other critical fields,” said Melissa Hagemann, Senior Program Officer at the Open Society Foundations.

More information can be found at openclimatecampaign.org.

About

Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that helps overcome legal obstacles to the sharing of knowledge and creativity to address the world’s pressing challenges.

SPARC
SPARC is a non-profit advocacy organization that supports systems for research and education that are open by default and equitable by design.

EIFL
EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) works with libraries in Africa, Asia Pacific and Europe to enable access to knowledge for education, learning, research and sustainable community development.

Arcadia
Arcadia supports charities and scholarly institutions that preserve cultural heritage and the environment. Arcadia also supports projects that promote open access and all of its awards are granted on the condition that any materials produced are made available for free online. Since 2002, Arcadia has awarded more than $910 million to projects around the world.

Open Society Foundations
The Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, are the world’s largest private funder of independent groups working for justice, democratic governance, and human rights.

Media Contact
Nate Angell <press@creativecommons.org>
Director of Communications & Community
Creative Commons

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A Big Win for Open Access: United States Mandates All Publicly Funded Research Be Freely Available with No Embargo https://creativecommons.org/2022/08/26/a-big-win-for-open-access/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-big-win-for-open-access Fri, 26 Aug 2022 13:00:57 +0000 https://creativecommons.org/?p=65747 Today the United States White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued dramatic guidance to all US federal agencies: update all policies to require that all federally funded research and data is available for the public to freely access and re-use “in agency-designated repositories without any embargo or delay after publication.” Creative Commons…

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Today the United States White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued dramatic guidance to all US federal agencies: update all policies to require that all federally funded research and data is available for the public to freely access and re-use “in agency-designated repositories without any embargo or delay after publication.”

Creative Commons celebrates this big news along with the wider open community that we have worked with for so long to ensure publicly funded resources are freely available and openly licensed (or dedicated to the public domain) by default. The public deserves to have uninhibited, equitable and immediate access to use and re-use the research, data, educational resources, software and other content it funds. Our collective ability to create and share digital public goods to create a better world requires it. This new OSTP guidance realizes essential elements of that vision.

An orange open padlock icon sandwiched by the words open and access.

Importantly, this memo removes the current 12-month embargo period for access to federally funded research, and it makes the research data openly available in machine readable formats. All US agencies have up to three years to fully implement their updated policies, including ending the optional 12-month embargo. See OSTP’s blog posts for more detail on this historic announcement (1 / 23).

This action is in line with the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science and brings the US Government in line with other governments who have established open access policies and principles to ensure their public investments support the public good.

The US government spends over $80 billion each year funding research in order to cure diseases, mitigate climate change, advance green energy, and more. Governments around the world do the same. Yet the copyright to publicly funded research is often turned over to commercial journals, placed behind paywalls, and then sold back to the public which has already paid for it. This model has always been unacceptable, and the need for governments to ask commercial journals to provide temporary open access to COVID-19 and monkeypox research has made it even more so.

Beyond systematically opening access to existing knowledge, the OSTP memo also requires US federal agencies to expand who contributes to new knowledge. As our colleagues at SPARC explain, the guidance “asks agencies to take measures to reduce inequities in both the publishing of and access to federally funded research publications and data, especially among individuals from underserved backgrounds and those who are early in their careers.”

Working to establish inclusive, just and equitable knowledge is at the heart of CC’s strategy to go beyond just sharing to enable better sharing. If we want to solve the world’s most pressing problems, knowledge about and contributions to those problems must be open. How can we possibly come up with global solutions for climate change, cancer, poverty, clean water and more if everyone is not able to access and contribute to the research, data and educational resources about these challenges? Answer: we cannot.

This OSTP policy memo is a significant win for open access research, and we hope more national governments around the world implement similar open policies. This is a critical step toward the scientific knowledge sharing model we all need, and there is more work to do. If we want to move beyond mere access and towards better sharing of the knowledge we collectively produce and use, we need to work toward (1) open licensing to ensure open re-use rights, and (2) community owned and managed public knowledge infrastructure.

Open Re-Use Rights

CC has, for 20 years, called for open access research policies that require the CC BY license on research articles, CC0 on the research data, and a zero embargo period. The OSTP memo does not specifically call for open licensing, but instead indicates agency plans should describe: “The circumstances or prerequisites needed to make the publications freely and publicly available by default, including any use and re-use rights, and which restrictions, including attribution, may apply.” While this is a good start, CC looks forward to working with the ​Subcommittee on Open Science (which will decide which agency public access plans are compliant with the new guidance) and to provide direct support to US agencies on best practices for open licensing and attribution as they update their public access plans. By requiring full re-use rights, publicly funded research outputs can be broadly shared and analyzed by other experts and technology to fully leverage taxpayer investments.

Public Knowledge Infrastructure

As the scholarly research community and libraries continue to struggle with high subscription fees and/or expensive article processing charges (APCs), Diamond Open Access is emerging as an interesting model for ensuring inclusive and equitable access to both read and submit research articles to community / academic owned and maintained open infrastructure. CC recently endorsed the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access. CC looks forward to partnering with governments, civil society organizations and researchers to examine and redesign unjust, inequitable knowledge systems, and guide open communities to new, equitable open knowledge models that are designed for the public good. We’ll be writing more about Diamond Open Access and Diamond Open Education models in future posts.

As we continue to work toward fully open re-use rights in every country and global public knowledge infrastructure, Creative Commons congratulates the Biden-Harris Administration for their ongoing leadership on this critical policy issue. CC stands ready to support OSTP and US agencies as they update and implement their open access policies over the coming years. For support from Creative Commons, please contact: Dr. Cable Green, Director of Open Knowledge.

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UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science Ratified https://creativecommons.org/2021/12/02/unesco-recommendation-on-open-science-ratified/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=unesco-recommendation-on-open-science-ratified Thu, 02 Dec 2021 17:56:10 +0000 https://creativecommons.org/?p=64344 Graphic on page 11. UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science. CC BY IGO 3.0 Creative Commons (CC) applauds the unanimous ratification of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science at UNESCO’s 41st General Conference. This landmark document is a major step forward towards creating a world in which better sharing of science is open and inclusive by…

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UNESCO Open Science (circle)

Graphic on page 11. UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science. CC BY IGO 3.0

Creative Commons (CC) applauds the unanimous ratification of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science at UNESCO’s 41st General Conference. This landmark document is a major step forward towards creating a world in which better sharing of science is open and inclusive by design.

CC is honored to have been part of the global community that drafted, reviewed and revised the Recommendation. We firmly believe open access to knowledge is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition to solving big, complex problems. Better sharing of scientific articles, data and science educational resources is a necessary condition to make progress on solving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the global grand challenges we face today.

As the COVID pandemic and climate change have exemplified, there is an urgent need to accelerate change in how we produce, share, and communicate scientific knowledge. The UNESCO Recommendations on Open Science and Open Educational Resources are international frameworks that can guide national governments, funders, educational institutions, scientists, educators, and civil society organizations as we work to create a world in which open access to knowledge is a basic human right.

The Recommendation sets an international standard for the definition of open science and associated policies and practices to drive better sharing throughout the global science community. It details seven broad areas for action:

  • Promoting a common understanding of open science and its benefits and challenges, as well as diverse paths to open science
  • Developing and enabling a policy environment for open science
  • Investing in open science infrastructures and services
  • Investing in human resources, training, education, digital literacy and capacity building
  • Fostering a culture of open science and aligning incentives
  • Promoting innovative approaches for open science across the scientific process
  • Promoting cooperation in the context of open science to reduce digital, technological and knowledge gaps

For details on the multi-stakeholder consultations, the open science advisory committee, and the UNESCO global open science partnership, please visit the Recommendation on Open Science website.

Of course, adopting the Recommendation for Open Science is just the first step. The real work is in the implementation of the actions. Broad implementation success will require governments to: prioritize this work, partner with international NGOs and other stakeholders working in open science, and work with and learn from other governments. Creative Commons stands ready to partner with national governments, UNESCO, NGOs, and the global research community to implement the actions detailed in this Recommendation to build a brighter future for everyone, everywhere.

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Open Minds Podcast: Audrey Tang, Digital Minister of Taiwan https://creativecommons.org/2021/07/13/open-minds-podcast-audrey-tang-digital-minister-of-taiwan/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=open-minds-podcast-audrey-tang-digital-minister-of-taiwan Tue, 13 Jul 2021 21:24:51 +0000 https://creativecommons.org/?p=63546 We’re back with another episode of CC’s podcast, Open Minds … from Creative Commons! In this episode, I speak with Audrey Tang, who is the Digital Minister of Taiwan, as well as an influential free software programmer and hacker. Tang is a vocal proponent of openness and is working to manifest a vision for how…

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We’re back with another episode of CC’s podcast, Open Minds … from Creative Commons!

In this episode, I speak with Audrey Tang, who is the Digital Minister of Taiwan, as well as an influential free software programmer and hacker. Tang is a vocal proponent of openness and is working to manifest a vision for how open data and radical transparency can result in positive, productive collaboration between government and civil society.

Last year, Taiwan was frequently credited with having one of the world’s best responses to COVID 19. There were a lot of reasons for their success, but it was due in large part to a digital strategy that emphasized information crowdsourcing and open data projects that kept people informed and up-to-date. WIRED published a great article about Tang last year that goes deep on all this: “How Taiwan’s Unlikely Digital Minister Hacked the Pandemic.”

Tang will be one of the keynote speakers at this year’s CC Global Summit (happening September 20-24, 2021), which is Creative Commons’ annual event that brings together leading activists, artists, technologists, educators, lawyers, librarians, and others for discussion, panels, workshops, and community building. Register now!

Please subscribe to the show in whatever podcast app you use, so you don’t miss any of our conversations with people working to make the internet and our global culture more open and collaborative.

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An Open Letter to President-elect Biden https://creativecommons.org/2020/12/02/an-open-letter-to-president-elect-biden/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=an-open-letter-to-president-elect-biden Wed, 02 Dec 2020 16:06:12 +0000 https://creativecommons.org/?p=62565 Dear Mr. President-elect, First, I’d like to offer my sincere congratulations to you and to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. This has been such a difficult year for so many around the world, and in this time of extreme polarization it is encouraging to hear you both talk about bringing people together to meet our common…

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Dear Mr. President-elect,

First, I’d like to offer my sincere congratulations to you and to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. This has been such a difficult year for so many around the world, and in this time of extreme polarization it is encouraging to hear you both talk about bringing people together to meet our common challenges. For many years I was a Member of the European Parliament, and I know how incredibly important it is to build bridges and work collaboratively with people we don’t always agree with.

I’m writing today as the leader of Creative Commons, a global nonprofit organization focused in part on making valuable scientific research and educational resources freely and openly available to the public. We work with universities, companies, governments, and institutions around the world to develop solutions for providing unencumbered access to knowledge.

In your 2016 speech to the American Association for Cancer Research, you quoted an article written by our then-CEO, Ryan Merkley, about the unnecessary barriers to publicly funded research. You noted that “taxpayers fund $5 billion in cancer research every year, but once it’s published, nearly all of [it] sits behind walls.” You correctly suggested that better treatments might be developed more quickly if cancer researchers, as well as the general public, had access to the rich trove of publicly funded research and data that is locked up behind prohibitive paywalls.

The COVID-19 health crisis has underscored the urgent need for scientific research and data to be shared freely and openly with others. Several of the most significant funders of scientific research, including the National Institutes of Health, the Gates Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust have long-standing open access policies. But many others do not, and as a result, many of the diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics, medical equipment, and software solutions currently being developed in the fight against the pandemic will not reach and benefit as many people as quickly and effectively as they should.

Additionally, as you are very well aware, the pandemic has massively disrupted the lives of over a billion students around the world. For many, access to educational materials is a daily struggle even in normal times. Because of a myriad of barriers, such as the prohibitive cost of learning resources, or the legal maze of convoluted copyright rules and exceptions, many students are denied their fundamental human right to education.

This year’s shift to online learning has introduced many new complexities for both students and educators. While some educators can post their existing learning materials online for their students, for others, the move to online requires access to, and the legal rights to perpetually use and adapt materials developed by others. This has brought into focus the essential need for both broad access to Open Educational Resources (OER) and broad copyright limitations and exceptions (L&E) for educators and students to freely and legally use copyright works so all students everywhere can learn.

At Creative Commons, we believe that open access to knowledge is critical—especially during times of crisis. For nearly 20 years, we have collaborated closely with entities including the US government to make the world more equitable by overcoming obstacles to the sharing of knowledge. In these unprecedented times, our mission is more important than ever, and I look forward to working with you and your administration in developing solutions that unlock knowledge and make it possible for anyone, anywhere to access and build upon it.

Sincerely,
Catherine Stihler
CEO, Creative Commons

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