Archives des mots-clés : open data

Assessing Social Value in Open Data Initiatives: A Framework

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“Open data initiatives are characterized, in several countries, by a great extension of the number of data sets made available for access by public administrations, constituencies, businesses and other actors, such as journalists, international institutions and academics, to mention a few. However, most of the open data sets rely on selection criteria, based on a technology-driven perspective, rather than a focus on the potential public and social value of data to be published. Several experiences and reports confirm this issue, such as those of the Open Data Census. However, there are also relevant best practices. The goal of this paper is to investigate the different dimensions of a framework suitable to support public administrations, as well as constituencies, in assessing and benchmarking the social value of open data initiatives. The framework is tested on three initiatives, referring to three different countries, Italy, the United Kingdom and Tunisia. The countries have been selected to provide a focus on European and Mediterranean countries, considering also the difference in legal frameworks (civic law vs. common law countries).”

URL : Assessing Social Value in Open Data Initiatives: A Framework

Alternative URL : http://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/6/3/498

 

The evolution of open access to research and data in Australian higher education

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“Open access (OA) in the Australian tertiary education sector is evolving rapidly and, in this article, we review developments in two related areas: OA to scholarly research publications and open data. OA can support open educational resource (OER) efforts by providing access to research for learning and teaching, and a range of actors including universities, their peak bodies, public research funding agencies and other organisations and networks that focus explicitly on OA are increasingly active in these areas in diverse ways. OA invites change to the status quo across the higher education sector and current momentum and vibrancy in this area suggests that rapid and significant changes in the OA landscape will continue into the foreseeable future. General practices, policies, infrastructure and cultural changes driven by the evolution of OA in Australian higher education are identified and discussed. The article concludes by raising several key questions for the future of OA research and open data policies and practices in Australia in the context of growing interest in OA internationally.”

URL : The evolution of open access to research and data in Australian higher education

Alternative URL : http://journals.uoc.edu/index.php/rusc/article/view/v11n3-picasso-phelan

Open exchange of scientific knowledge and European copyright: The case of biodiversity information

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“Background. The 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development is helping the European to prepare for an integrative system for intelligent management of biodiversity knowledge. The infrastructure that is envisaged and that will be further developed within the Programme “Horizon 2020” aims to provide open and free access to taxonomic information to anyone with a requirement for biodiversity data, without the need for individual consent of other persons or institutions. Open and free access to information will foster the re-use and improve the quality of data, will accelerate research, and will promote new types of research. Progress towards the goal of free and open access to content is hampered by numerous technical, economic, sociological, legal, and other factors. The present article addresses barriers to the open exchange of biodiversity knowledge that arise from European laws, in particular European legislation on copyright and database protection rights.

We present a legal point of view as to what will be needed to bring distributed information together and facilitate its re-use by data mining, integration into semantic knowledge systems, and similar techniques. We address exceptions and limitations of copyright or database protection within Europe, and we point to the importance of data use agreements. We illustrate how exceptions and limitations have been transformed into national legislations within some European states to create inconsistencies that impede access to biodiversity information.

Conclusions. The legal situation within the EU is unsatisfactory because there are inconsistencies among states that hamper the deployment of an open biodiversity knowledge management system. Scientists within the EU who work with copyright protected works or with protected databases have to be aware of regulations that vary from country to country. This is a major stumbling block to international collaboration and is an impediment to the open exchange of biodiversity knowledge. Such differences should be removed by unifying exceptions and limitations for research purposes in a binding, Europe-wide regulation.”

URL : Open exchange of scientific knowledge and European copyright

Alternative URL : http://www.pensoft.net/journals/zookeys/article/7717/abstract/open-exchange-of-scientific-knowledge-and-european-copyright-the-case-of-biodiversity-information

Towards an understanding of Web growth an empirical…

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Towards an understanding of Web growth: an empirical study of socio-technical web activity of Open Government Data :

“This thesis proposes a new interdisciplinary approach to understanding how the World Wide Web is growing, as a socio technical network, co-constructed by interrelationships between society and technological developments. The thesis uses a longitudinal empirical case study of Web and offline activity surrounding the UK Open Government Data communityto explore the Web as a socio-technical `networks of networks’. It employs a mixed methods framework, underpinned by sociological theory but also drawing on computer science for technical approaches to the problem of understanding theWeb. The study uses quantitative and qualitative sources of data in a novel analysis of online and offline activities to explore the formation and growth of UK Open Government Data and to understand this case, and the Web itself. The thesis argues that neither technology nor `the social’ alone is sufficient to explain the growth of this network, or indeed the Web, but that these networks develop out of closely co-constructed relationships and interactions between humans and technology. This thesis has implications not only for how the Web is understood, but for the kinds of future technological design and social activity that will be implicated in its continued growth.”

URL : http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/362306/

De l’Open data à l’Open research data : quelle(s) politique(s) pour les données de recherche?

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Le mouvement du libre-accès aux publications scientifiques s’élargit de plus en plus aux données de la recherche. Des initiatives pour garantir l’accessibilité et la complète réutilisation de ces données sont prises par une grande diversité d’acteurs – États, agences de financement de la recherche, éditeurs, communautés scientifiques.

L’ouverture des données de la recherche est rendue possible par la définition de politiques incitatives ou contraignantes, l’adoption de solutions juridiques et techniques, mais repose avant tout sur de bonnes pratiques de gestion des données. Tandis que la France s’insère progressivement dans la dynamique de l’Open research data, les universités sont appelées à définir leur politique de données.

Les bibliothécaires ont un rôle majeur à jouer dans l’élaboration de ces politiques, peuvent contribuer à identifier les besoins des chercheurs et les assister sur le volet « métadonnées ». Aussi, la question de l’ouverture des données de recherche offre une opportunité unique à ces professionnels de la documentation : celle de remodeler, à l’échelle des établissements de recherche, leur(s) lien(s) avec la communauté des chercheurs.”

URL : De l’Open Data à l’Open research data

URL alternative : http://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/notices/64131-de-l-open-data-a-l-open-research-data-quelles-politiques-pour-les-donnees-de-recherche

Sustaining Domain Repositories for Digital Data A White…

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Sustaining Domain Repositories for Digital Data: A White Paper :

“The last few years have seen a growing international movement to enhance research transparency, open access to data, and data sharing across the social and natural sciences. Meanwhile, new technologies and scientific innovations are vastly increasing the amount of data produced and the resultant potential for advancing knowledge. Domain repositories — data archives with ties to specific scientific communities — have an indispensable role to play in this changing data ecosystem. With both content-area and digital curation expertise, domain repositories are uniquely capable of ensuring that data and other research products are adequately preserved, enhanced, and made available for replication, collaboration, and cumulative knowledge building. However, the systems currently in place for funding repositories in the US are inadequate for these tasks. Effective and innovative funding models are needed to ensure that research data, so vital to the scientific enterprise, will be available for the future. Funding models also need to assure equal access to data preservation and curation services regardless of the researcher’s institutional affiliation. Creating sustainable funding streams requires coordination amongst multiple stakeholders in the scientific, archival, academic, funding, and policy communities.”

URL : http://datacommunity.icpsr.umich.edu/sites/default/files/WhitePaper_ICPSR_SDRDD_121113.pdf

Study on the protection of research data and…

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Study on the protection of research data and recommendations for access and usage :

“This study is basically divided into four parts. Its objective is to examine the legal requirements for different kinds of usage of research data in an open access infrastructure, such as OpenAIREplus, which links them to publications.
Within the first part, the requirements for legal protection of research data are analysed. In the process, the existing legal framework regarding potentially relevant intellectual property (IP) rights is analysed from different perspectives: first from the general European perspective and subsequently from that of selected EU Member States (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK).
It should be noted that the European legal framework is partly harmonised in the field of copyright and largely harmonised in the field of the sui generis database protection right by EU directives. Thus, the national regulations are quite similar in many respects. National differences are described following the section on national implementation in Chapter 2.5.
Despite European harmonisation, the perhaps surprising outcome of the analysis is that there are some areas of dis-harmonisation between the different Member States. One very significant example of dis-harmonisation is the “exception for scientific research” to the sui generis database right. It is not mandatory for this exception to be introduced into national legislation and it seems that every Member State has its own interpretation of the underlying directive. As it is drafted at the moment, the exception is to all intents and purposes useless.
Another area that causes difficulties is the question of who becomes the rightholder of the sui generis right in a database that is created by a public body or in the course of publicly funded research. Indeed it is far from clear. Some might say the research institution or the funding agency or both become the rightholder. But of the legal regimes under consideration in this study, the only jurisdiction with clear regulation on this matter is the Netherlands and it generally denies a public authority the right to exercise the exclusive database right.
Additionally, it is still unclear whether linking, or at least deep linking, should be seen as a relevant act of communication to the public. There are contradictory judgments at the level of the Member States. However, at least this question will soon be clarified in the scope of an actual reference to the European Court of Justice(ECJ).

The second part of the study is dedicated to the scope of protection of the potentially relevant IP rights. First there is an analysis of whether different types of usage, such as linking, access or mining, infringe the different kinds of IP rights. Secondly, a “legal prototype of an e-infrastructure”, based on selected usage scenarios that may occur during the use of e-infrastructures such as OpenAIREplus, is evaluated in more detail. The main outcome of this second part is that by far the most important IP right in the context of e-infrastructures such as OpenAIREplus is the sui generis database right, and that it is very likely not possible to use all the described einfrastructure features without the consent of the respective rightholder(s).

The third part is an examination of some relevant licensing issues. Within this part of the study, different licence models are analysed in order to identify the licence that is best suited to the aim of Open Access, especially in the context of the infrastructure of OpenAIREplus. The result is that the upcoming CC License version 4.0 will probably be the one best suited to this kind of infrastructure. Within the last part, some recommendations are given on improving the rights situation in relation to research data. To respond to the fact that the scientific research exception as presently formulated is rather useless, it is suggested that a new and broader mandatory research exception be introduced on a European level. To achieve legal interoperability of different databases and e-infrastructures, it is recommended that all of them should license their data under the upcoming CC License version 4.0.”

URL : Study on the protection of research data and recommendations for access and usage