Category: Open Access

The Open Data Handbook

The Open Knowledge Foundation has released The Open Data Handbook.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

From a basic introduction of the "what and why" of open data, the Handbook goes on to discuss the practicalities of making data open – the "how". It gives advice on everything from choosing a file format and applying a license, to motivating the community and telling the world. Clear explanations, illustrative examples and technical recommendations make the Handbook suitable for people with all levels of experience, from the absolute beginner to the seasoned open data professional.

The Handbook is divided into short chapters which cover individual aspects of open data. It can be read in a single sitting, or dipped into as a reference work.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"A Study of Open Access Journals Using Article Processing Charges"

David J. Solomon and Bo-Christer Björk have self-archived "A Study of Open Access Journals Using Article Processing Charges".

Here's an excerpt:

Article Processing Charges (APCs) are a central mechanism for funding Open Access (OA) scholarly publishing. We studied the APCs charged and article volumes of journals that were listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals as charging APCs. These included 1,370 journals that published 100,697 articles in 2010. The average APC was 906 US Dollars (USD) calculated over journals and 904 US Dollars USD calculated over articles. The price range varied between 8 and 3,900 USD, with the lowest prices charged by journals published in developing countries and the highest by journals with high impact factors from major international publishers. Journals in Biomedicine represent 59% of the sample and 58% of the total article volume. They also had the highest APCs of any discipline. Professionally published journals, both for profit and nonprofit had substantially higher APCs than society, university or scholar/researcher published journals. These price estimates are lower than some previous studies of OA publishing and much lower than is generally charged by subscription publishers making individual articles open access in what are termed hybrid journals.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

"How the Scientific Community Reacts to Newly Submitted Preprints: Article Downloads, Twitter Mentions, and Citations"

Xin Shuai, Alberto Pepe, Johan Bollen have self-archived "How the Scientific Community Reacts to Newly Submitted Preprints: Article Downloads, Twitter Mentions, and Citations" in arXiv.org.

Here's an excerpt:

We analyze the online response of the scientific community to the preprint publication of scholarly articles. We employ a cohort of 4,606 scientific articles submitted to the preprint database arXiv.org between October 2010 and April 2011. We study three forms of reactions to these preprints: how they are downloaded on the arXiv.org site, how they are mentioned on the social media site Twitter, and how they are cited in the scholarly record. We perform two analyses. First, we analyze the delay and time span of article downloads and Twitter mentions following submission, to understand the temporal configuration of these reactions and whether significant differences exist between them. Second, we run correlation tests to investigate the relationship between Twitter mentions and both article downloads and article citations. We find that Twitter mentions follow rapidly after article submission and that they are correlated with later article downloads and later article citations, indicating that social media may be an important factor in determining the scientific impact of an article.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

The Future of Taxpayer-Funded Research: Who Will Control Access to the Results?

The Committee for Economic Development has released The Future of Taxpayer-Funded Research: Who Will Control Access to the Results?.

Here's an excerpt:

This report builds upon that earlier work and delves deeper into the relationship between the traditional means of providing access to federally funded scientific research and the benefits that can be derived from providing greater public access to it. As with virtually any public policy, the benefits and costs of providing public access to federally funded research fall unevenly on different members of society. We find, however, that because public-access policies that make research more open result in accelerated progress in science and faster economic growth, the net societal benefits far outweigh their limited costs.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Call to Action: Support the Federal Research Public Access Act (H.R. 4004 and S. 2096)

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access, whose numerous members include the American Library Association and the Association of College & Research Libraries, has issued a call to action for support of the Federal Research Public Access Act (H.R. 4004 and S. 2096).

Here's an excerpt:

Today (February 9, 2012), Senators Cornyn (R-TX), Wyden (D-OR), and Hutchison (R-TX) and Representatives Doyle (D-PA), Yoder (R-KS), and Clay (D-MO) introduced the Federal Research Public Access Act, a bill that would ensure free, timely, online access to the published results of research funded by eleven U.S. federal agencies.

We currently have a unique opportunity to create change. The Research Works Act, a piece of legislation introduced in December that would ban the government from providing the public access to publicly funded research, has galvanized the research community into acting against practices that restrict access to research articles—reaching the pages of the Economist, the New York Times, Wired, the Guardian, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and many other outlets. . . .

Let Congress know you support FRPAA

With reinvigorated support from the research community and attention from the mainstream media, now is the time to push for this groundbreaking legislation and let Congress know that students—and the rest of the public—deserve access to the research which they paid for and upon which their education depends. . . .

Raise awareness of and build support for FRPAA

  • Sign the ATA Petition in support of FRPAA. Click here to view signatories of the petition. . . .
  • Tweet at or post of the Facebook wall of your legislators to ask them to support and co-sponsor FRPAA; or, if they're already a sponsor, thank them for their leadership. . . .

Background. . . .

Now before both the House of Representatives and the Senate, FRPAA would require those agencies with annual extramural research budgets of $100 million or more to provide the public with online access to research manuscripts stemming from such funding no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The bill gives individual agencies flexibility in choosing the location of the digital repository to house this content, as long as the repositories meet conditions for interoperability and public accessibility, and have provisions for long-term archiving.

The bill specifically covers unclassified research funded by agencies including: Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation.

Further information: "SPARC FAQ for University Administrators and Faculty FRPAA 2012" and "Support FRPAA Banners."

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Open Access: Federal Research Public Access Act of 2012

Representative Mike Doyle (D-PA) and others have introduced the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2012 in the House. The bill has also been introduced in the Senate.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Federal Research Public Access Act would require federal agencies with an extramural research budget of $100 million or more to make federally-funded research available for free online access by the general public, no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

The Federal Research Public Access Act would:

  • Require federal departments and agencies with an annual extramural research budget of $100 million or more, whether funded totally or partially by a government department or agency, to submit an electronic copy of the final manuscript that has been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
  • Ensure that the manuscript is preserved in a stable digital repository maintained by that agency or in another suitable repository that permits free public access, interoperability, and long-term preservation.
  • Require that each taxpayer-funded manuscript be made available to the public online and without cost, no later than six months after the article has been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

"OA by the Numbers"

The Open Access Directory has released "OA by the Numbers."

Here's an excerpt:

OA journals (Gold OA)

  • 7,311. November 28, 2011. The number of peer-reviewed OA journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
  • 1,728. November 28, 2011. The number of CC-licensed journals in the DOAJ.
  • 830. November 28, 2011. The number of SPARC Europe seal journals in the DOAJ. (The SPARC Europe seal requires a CC-BY license.)
  • 4.4. November 28, 2011. Average number of new journals added each day in 2010 to the DOAJ. . . .

OA repositories (Green OA)

  • 2,145. November 28, 2011. Number of OA, OAI-compliant repositories listed by OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories).
  • 2,584. November 28, 2011. Number of OA, OAI-compliant repositories listed by ROAR (Registry of Open Access Repositories).
  • 3,946. November 28, 2011. Number of OA, OAI-compliant repositories listed by OpenArchive.edu

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Collaborative Yet Independent: Information Practices in the Physical Sciences

The Research Information Network, the Institute of Physics, Institute of Physics Publishing, and the Royal Astronomical Society have released Collaborative Yet Independent: Information Practices in the Physical Sciences.

Here's an excerpt:

In many ways, the physical sciences are at the forefront of using digital tools and methods to work with information and data. However, the fields and disciplines that make up the physical sciences are by no means uniform, and physical scientists find, use, and disseminate information in a variety of ways. This report examines information practices in the physical sciences across seven cases, and demonstrates the richly varied ways in which physical scientists work, collaborate, and share information and data.

| Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

California Digital Library and Public Knowledge Project Form Partnership to Advance Open Access Publishing

The California Digital Library and the Public Knowledge Project have formed a partnership to advance open access publishing through the development of open source publishing tools.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

As a result of this agreement, the CDL will assist with PKP’s ongoing development and support of its open source software suite&,dash;Open Journal Systems (OJS), Open Conference Systems (OCS), and Open Harvester System (OHS), with Open Monograph Press (OMP) due for release in the coming year.

The California Digital Library, in partnership with the University of California campus libraries, supports and encourages open access publishing initiatives within the UC system through its eScholarship publishing and institutional repository platform. eScholarship provides a suite of open access, scholarly publishing services and research tools that enable departments, research units, publishing programs, and individual scholars associated with the University of California to have direct control over the creation and dissemination of the full range of their scholarship. Home to 45 peer-reviewed journals (http://escholarship.org/uc/search?smode=browse;browse-journal=aa), eScholarship has recently transitioned to OJS as its journal management and submission system and has integrated OJS with its pre/post-print, books and working papers repository, which contains more than 45,000 UC-affiliated publications. . . .

PKP is dedicated to improving the scholarly and public quality of research. With more than 11,500 installations of Open Journal Systems (OJS); Open Conference Systems (OCS); and Open Harvester Systems (OHS) around the world, the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) has proven that open source software can be a game changer in scholarly publishing.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

"The Influence of the National Institutes of Health Public-Access Policy on the Publishing Habits of Principal Investigators"

Nancy Pontika has released her doctoral dissertation, "The Influence of the National Institutes of Health Public-Access Policy on the Publishing Habits of Principal Investigators."

Here's an excerpt:

The NIH public-access policy did not cause either an increase in the PIs' open-access awareness or a change in their publishing habits. The open-access advocates were supporters of the immediate free access to scientific information before the policy and provided their manuscripts free-of-cost before the policy’s mandate. The non-open-access advocates choose their publications based on quality criteria such as the journal’s prestige, impact factor, speed of publication and the attracted audience, while the article’s open-access availability is considered to be a plus. Furthermore, since a large number of journals comply with the NIH-policy, the participants did not have to change their publishing habits.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Access to Scholarly Content: Gaps and Barriers

The Research Information Network has released Access to Scholarly Content: Gaps and Barriers.

Here's an excerpt:

The overall aim of this study is to investigate and quantify the extent to which members of different communities in the UK can gain ready access to formally-published scholarly literature, in particular journal articles and conference proceedings. . . .

Much of the information presented here is based on an online survey of researchers and knowledge workers from UK universities and colleges, medical schools and health providers, industry and commerce, and research institutes. . . .

Other information in this report comes from a detailed analysis of the literature and secondary data analysis of the Labour Force Survey in an attempt to quantify the size of the UK professional knowledge worker sector.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Open Access: White House OSTP Releases Public Comments to the RFI on Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications Resulting from Federally Funded Research

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has released public comments to the "Request for Information: Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications Resulting from Federally Funded Research."

Here is a selection of comments:

Publishers

Scholarly Professional Associations

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Open Access: Online Survey on Scientific Information in the Digital Age

The European Commission has released the Online Survey on Scientific Information in the Digital Age.

Here's an excerpt:

Respondents were asked if there is no access problem to scientific publications in Europe: 84 % disagreed or disagreed strongly with the statement. The high prices of journals/subscriptions (89%) and limited library budgets (85%) were signalled as the most important barriers to accessing scientific publications. More than 1,000 respondents (90%) supported the idea that publications resulting from publicly funded research should, as a matter of principle, be in open access (OA) mode. An even higher number of respondents (91%) agreed or agreed strongly that OA increased access to and dissemination of scientific publications. Self-archiving ("green OA") or a combination of self-archiving and OA publishing ("gold OA") were identified as the preferred ways that public research policy should facilitate in order to increase the number and share of scientific publications available in OA. Respondents were asked, in the case of self-archiving ("green OA"), what the desirable embargo period is (period of time during which publication is not yet open access): a six-month period was favoured by 56% of respondents (although 25% disagree with this option).

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

Faculty of 1000 to Launch F1000 Research Open Access Publishing Program

The Faculty of 1000 has announced that it will launch its F1000 Research open access publishing program later this year.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement :

F1000 Research will diverge from traditional journal publishing as follows:

  1. Immediate publication (beyond an initial sanity check) upon submitting to the repository. . . .
  2. Open, post-publication peer review. . . .
  3. Revisioning of work. . . .
  4. Raw data repository. . . .
  5. "Article" format is not predefined. . . .
  6. "Article" content is not predefined. . . .

Many questions remain as F1000 Research is fine-tuned to break new ground in scholarly publishing.

  • How much formal refereeing is required?
  • What is an article amendment versus an update?
  • What incentives are required to encourage post-publication refereeing, author response and revisions, and sharing of raw but template data?
  • What author fees are appropriate for the different types of content?

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Open Access: We the People Petition to Oppose the Research Works Act

A petition for the Obama administration to oppose the Research Works Act (H.R. 3699) is up at the White House's We the People website.

Here's an excerpt:

HR 3699, the Research Works Act will be detrimental to the free flow of scientific information that was created using Federal funds. It is an attempt to put federally funded scientific information behind pay-walls, and confer the ownership of the information to a private entity. This is an affront to open government and open access to information created using public funds.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Ten Library, Publishing, and Advocacy Organizations Oppose the Research Works Act in Letter

Ten library, publishing, and advocacy organizations have opposed the Research Works Act in a letter sent to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Here's an excerpt:

We fully respect copyright law and the protection it affords content creators, owners, and users. The NIH Public Access Policy operates fully within current U.S. Copyright law as articles reporting on NIH funded research are copyrightable, and the copyright belongs to the author. The NIH Policy requires only the grant of a non-exclusive license to NIH, fully consistent with federal policies such as Circular A-110 and Circular A-102. The author is free to transfer some or all of the exclusive rights under copyright to a journal publisher or to assign these anywhere they so choose—a freedom crucial to the authors of scientific articles, who rightly want to determine where and how their work is distributed.

Under H.R. 3699, authors of articles reporting on federally funded research would face a new restriction. The proposed bill requires authors to seek the permission of a publisher before their work can be distributed through an online, networked government channel such as NIH’s PubMed Central, even if they themselves—as the author of the work and the relevant rights holder—have already consented to do so, potentially limiting the authors ability to distribute their work as widely as they may wish.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Survey on Open Access in FP7

The European Commission has released Survey on Open Access in FP7

Here's an excerpt:

In May 2011, the Commission identified the 811 projects designated at the time with Special Clause 39 in their grant agreement and sent a questionnaire to all project coordinators in order to collect feedback on experiences of both the implementation of the pilot and the reimbursement of open access publishing costs. The objective was to provide input for the future of the open access policy and practices in Horizon 2020, which is the future EU framework programme for research and innovation, and for the preparation of a communication from the Commission and a recommendation to Member States on scientific publications in the digital age.

The online questionnaire was open between 29 June and 26 August 2011 and enabled the collection of a total of 194 responses (success rate: 24 %). Many respondents used the possibility to answer ‘no opinion’ to some questions, but this constitutes valuable information. The final report was prepared in October/November 2011. Annexes include tables of statistical results in each FP7 research area.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

Open Access: Freedom for Scholarship in the Internet Age (Draft)

Heather Morrison has released a draft of her doctoral thesis Freedom for Scholarship in the Internet Age.

Here's an excerpt:

The purpose of this thesis is to further the work of transitioning to an open access scholarly communication system designed to support and prioritize scholarship and the public good rather than profit. The method will involve analysis of key underlying historical trends in society and how they impact scholarly communication, as well as original empirical work on the growth of open access, economic analysis to inform economic aspects of transition, and a case study of scholarly communication in the discipline of communication.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

Open Access: PEER Economics Report [Final Report]

PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) has released the final version of the PEER Economics Report.

Here's an excerpt:

This study considers the effect of large-scale deposit on scholarly research publication and dissemination (sharing of research outputs), beginning with the analysis of publishers and institutions managing repositories and their sustainability. The study associates costs with specific activities, performed by key actors involved in research registration, certification, dissemination and digital management: authors, the scholarly community, editors, publishers, libraries, readers and funding agencies. Contrary to most of the existing literature, the study analyses cost structures of individual organizations. The focus of this study is therefore to provide context for the costs to specific organizations and to their choices in terms of scale and scope. . . .

This study analyses 22 organizations involved with journal article publication and dissemination. Data were gathered via literature and public document analysis, as well as through individual in-depth interviews in order to assess the cost structure of publishers, OA journal publishers and institutions managing repositories and the conditions for their sustainability.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

Michael Nielsen Named as SPARC Innovator

Michael Nielsen has been named as a SPARC Innovator.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

While Nielsen is not alone in promoting the open sharing of data and research to advance science, he has been in the spotlight this fall as an advocate for the cause. The Open Society Foundations supported sending him on an awareness-raising tour on Open Science. In three months, Nielsen did 33 talks in 17 cities—from small gatherings of high school students in Lithuania to a 1,000-plus audience in Canada. (The recording on ted.com of his presentation at TEDxWaterloo has received more than 150,000 hits.). . .

For being a thought leader of how doing science in the open can promote change and bringing the discussion to a new level, SPARC honors Nielsen as the January 2012 SPARC Innovator. "Michael is an incredibly bright scientist and researcher in his own right," says Heather Joseph, executive director of SPARC. "But he also has a view beyond 30,000 feet of the entire scientific enterprise, and the value that open brings to the table." Nielsen has found a way to engage the general public in this issue to understand why it matters. In his push to open up the scientific process, he has helped advance the entire open-access movement. "He is a voice into the mainstream that has been sorely lacking," says Joseph.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

ARL, Johns Hopkins University Libraries, and SPARC Reply to White House RFI on Public Access to Digital Data

The Association of Research Libraries, the Johns Hopkins University Libraries, and SPARC have replied to the White House's Request for Information: Public Access to Digital Data Resulting from Federally Funded Scientific Research.

Here's an excerpt:

Question 1

What specific Federal policies would encourage public access to and the preservation of broadly valuable digital data resulting from federally funded scientific research, to grow the U.S. economy and improve the productivity of the American scientific enterprise?

Comment 1

The most effective Federal policies in this regard would mandate digital data deposit into publicly accessible repositories. In the absence of such policies, there are already cases of digital data which have been lost or remain inaccessible or accessible only with high barriers. While laudable efforts such as the NSF and NIH data management plans move the community in the direction of supporting U.S. economic growth and productivity, the reality is that many researchers continue to strictly interpret the requirement as sharing data based on specific requests or personal provisions. The Federal policy framework should move public access to digital data away from the current idiosyncratic environment to a systematic approach that lowers barriers to data access, discovery, sharing and re-use.

Instead of relying upon individual investigators to interpret and support public access through a point to point network (e.g., researcher provides digital data upon request), Federal policies should ensure that public access can occur through well managed, sustained, preservation archives that enable a legally and policy compliant peer to peer model for sharing. A useful metric for full-fledged public access to digital data is whether someone (or some machine) other than the original data producer can discover, access, interpret and use the digital data without contacting the original data producer.

See also Columbia University Libraries/Information Services' reply and the Creative Commons' reply.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"From Stacks to the Web: The Transformation of Academic Library Collecting"

College & Research Libraries has released a preprint of "From Stacks to the Web: The Transformation of Academic Library Collecting" by David W. Lewis.

Here's an excerpt:

The existence of a ubiquitous and cheap worldwide communication’s network that increasingly makes documents easily and freely available will require a transformation of academic library collecting practice. It will be driven by a number of specific developments including: the digitization of content; the development of print repositories; the development of e-readers and print-on-demand publishing; the growth of open access; challenges to establish academic publishing organizations; and the growth of new forms of scholarship based on openness and social productivity. If academic libraries are to be successful, they will need to: deconstruct legacy print collections; move from item-by-item book selection to purchase-on-demand and subscriptions; manage the transition to open access journals; focus on curating unique items; and develop new mechanisms for funding national infrastructure.

| E-science and Academic Libraries Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Research Works Act (H.R. 3699) Threatens Open Access to Publicly Funded Research

Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) have introduced the Research Works Act (H.R. 3699), which is aimed at eliminating federal open access policies such as the NIH Public Access Policy. The key passage of the bill states:

No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that—

  1. causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher of such work; or
  2. requires that any actual or prospective author, or the employer of such an actual or prospective author, assent to network dissemination of a private-sector research work.

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access has issued a call to action and a draft letter that can be modified and sent to legislators. Here's an excerpt from the call:

Supporters of public access need to speak out against this proposed legislation. We strongly urge you to contact these offices to express your opposition TODAY, or as soon as possible. To support you, draft letter text is available.

Also, don’t miss a key opportunity to express support for the expansion of the NIH public-access policy to other federal science and technology agencies. There are six days left to respond to the White House requests for information (RFI) on public access to scholarly publications and data (http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/action/action_access/11-1117.shtml).

Read more about it at "Publishers Applaud 'Research Works Act,' Bipartisan Legislation to End Government Mandates on Private-Sector Scholarly Publishing," "Research Works Act H.R.3699: The Private Publishing Tail Trying to Wag the Public Research Dog, Yet Again," and "Trying to Roll Back the Clock on Open Access: Research Works Act Introduced."

[Regular DigitalKoans posts resume on 1/17/12.]

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

"Is Free Inevitable in Scholarly Communication? The Economics of Open Access"

Caroline Sutton has published "Is Free Inevitable in Scholarly Communication? The Economics of Open Access" in College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

In this article I would like to make the case that a change in the delivery of scientific content and in the business models for delivering scholarly communication was inevitable from the moment journals moved online, even if much of this change is yet to come. By applying a thesis put forth by Chris Anderson in his 2009 book Free, I will argue that given that scholarly journals are now digital products, they are subject to very different economic principles and social forces than their print ancestors.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

"The Open Knowledge Foundation: Open Data Means Better Science"

Jennifer C. Molloy has published "The Open Knowledge Foundation: Open Data Means Better Science" in PLoS Biology.

Here's an excerpt:

Data provides the evidence for the published body of scientific knowledge, which is the foundation for all scientific progress. The more data is made openly available in a useful manner, the greater the level of transparency and reproducibility and hence the more efficient the scientific process becomes, to the benefit of society. This viewpoint is becoming mainstream among many funders, publishers, scientists, and other stakeholders in research, but barriers to achieving widespread publication of open data remain. The Open Data in Science working group at the Open Knowledge Foundation is a community that works to develop tools, applications, datasets, and guidelines to promote the open sharing of scientific data. This article focuses on the Open Knowledge Definition and the Panton Principles for Open Data in Science. We also discuss some of the tools the group has developed to facilitate the generation and use of open data and the potential uses that we hope will encourage further movement towards an open scientific knowledge commons.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |