Abstracts
of Presentations
(as of 7 March 2003)
KEYNOTE
Science
Communication and Public Policy
David DICKSON, SciDev.Net
[to
be provided]
SESSION
ONE
Legal, Economic, and Technological Framework for Open Access and
Public Domain in Digital Data and Information for Science
Overview of Legal Aspects in the European Union
Thomas DREIER, University
of Karlsruhe, Germany
In the European
Union, the legal framework for access to and use of digital data
and information for science is governed by a number of Directives
(in particular, 96/9/EC on the legal protection of databases, 98/84/EC
on conditional access, and 2001/29/EC on copyright in the information
society). Copyright legislation strikes a balance between proprietary
rights of those who create, and invest in, copyrightable subject
matter, and access and use interests of those who create on the
basis of pre-existing material. This balance is achieved by way
of the idea expression dichotomy, by exceptions and limitations,
and by limiting copyright protection in time, in order to create
a powerful public domain.
However, modern
reproduction and dissemination technologies call for an ever-increasing
level of copyright protection. Moreover, due to convergence of copyrighted
products and services, competition amongst producers of copyrighted
materials is becoming stronger and stronger. Both tendencies create
a danger of lock-in effects of both copyrighted material and material
in the public domain. Finally, in a digital rights management scenario,
technological protection measures can provide a powerful tool which
may benefit rightholders, but it may likewise be detrimental the
access needs of users and scientists in particular. The presentation
will sketch out this legal framework, discuss the issues raised
and propose possible solutions.
The Legal Context in Developing Countries
Alan STORY, University
of Kent Law School, UK
The Legal Context
in Developing Countries
Alan STORY, University of Kent Law School, UK
This paper starts
with a broad overview of the global legal protection of digital
data and information for science and considers, also at a very general
level, the implications of this legal regime (and relevant related
ones, such as that covering computer software) for scientists and
researchers in developing countries (here called " countries
of the South"). The focus is on global intellectual property
protection-and over-protection-of both "original" and
"non-original" databases and information sources, rather
than on domestic legislation in individual countries, specific contractual
issues with regard to databases, or related questions such as encryption
and circumvention.
The main section
analyzes two concepts at the centre of the global protection of
databases: a) national treatment and b) the purported balancing
of interests of database producers/owners and users. Under the terms
of The Berne Convention—the leading global copyright convention,
the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
(TRIPS), and the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty (the latter two giving
legal protection to copyright and databases), all signatories are
required to provide national treatment to copyright-protected work.
National treatment is "a rule of non-discrimination, promising
foreign creators who come within [a] treaty's protection that they
will enjoy the same treatment for their creations in the protecting
country as the protecting country gives to its own nationals."
(Goldstein, 2001) At first glance, this orientation appears to be
both fair and neutral to all concerned; after all, is anyone in
favour of discrimination on the basis of nationality? Yet, upon
closer examination, this approach, which treats a database created
in the United States or Europe "as if" it was created
in, for example, Namibia or Nepal, ends up becoming highly discriminatory
and unfair for scientists researching in, for example, Namibia or
Nepal. As a corollary, this orientation assumes "as if"
Namibian-based scientists were conducting their research in the
United States or Europe (or a developed economy more generally).
For example, what is considered a" fair use" in the United
States or "fair dealing" in the United Kingdom is assumed
also to be "fair" in a country of the South. The reasons
behind this fallacy and its consequences, how formal equality leads
to substantive inequality, are explored.
In its preamble,
the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which also provides database protection,
states that all contracting parties recognise "the need to
maintain a balance between the rights of authors [including of databases]
and the large public interest, particularly education, research
and access to information, as reflected in the Berne Convention."
(italics added). The European Database Directive is also said to
"create a balance." (Gaster, 1995). The central position
given to this purported balancing of interests—for our purposes
here, certain private interests and the global public interest in
databases—mirrors traditional domestic copyright notions of
balancing and equilibrium. Behind this rhetoric we find that that
certain presumptions, such as those concerning private property,
generally trump user interests and that there exists no guaranteed
and consistent user rights or mechanisms to challenge and curb the
over-protectionism of data and databases. The analogy to balancing
and equilibrium is found wanting.
The conclusions
sum up the contradictions regarding the legal position of "original"
and " non-original" databases for countries of the South-and
scientists and researchers within those countries; they also examine
the conflict over reciprocity in the European Database Directive
regarding the sui generis right and its meaning for researchers
in countries of the South. The paper ends by briefly suggesting
two other items for a future legal reform agenda aimed at strengthening
the public domain: a) how to keep publicly-produced data in the
public domain and b) the notion of the public domain with regard
to traditional (indigenous) knowledge as an example of the dangers
of an over-expansive "freedom rhetoric."
Economic Overview of Open Access and the Public Domain in Digital
S&T Information
Robin COWAN, MERIT/University
of Maastricht, Netherlands
The main input
to the creation of new knowledge and innovation is knowledge itself.
Data, techniques, background, and instrumentation are all central
to the scientific endeavour, and all represent existing knowledge.
The ease with which scientists (and engineers alike) can access
these forms of knowledge can have a big impact on the efficiency
with which new knowledge can be created. This argues for the free
access by scientists to existing knowledge. However, even within
"pure science" itself, creators of knowledge act in response
to incentives and rewards. Within the world of the market, the rewards
and incentives come in the form of financial gain; within the realm
of open science, incentives are more complex, often having to do
with "fame" as much as "fortune," but nonetheless,
the ability of the creator of an idea to get credit for it remains
a central part of the system within which knowledge is created.
Thus we see the central tension with regards to the rights to intellectual
creations-on the one hand we want other creators to be able to use
these creations in their own work,; on the other hand we want to
provide strong incentives to create new knowledge in the first place.
The modern issues tend to surround the fact that knowledge can be
disseminated very quickly electronically. Not only this, but that
it can be quickly searched, sorted, and re-arranged using new information
and communication technologies. This implies that as a public good
knowledge becomes much more valuable-more, people can access and
process it more quickly. This should provide a large impetus to
the scientific endeavour. Ironically, at the same time, however,
universities are seeing their funding arrangements changing. The
flow of free, unfettered funds is shrinking, and universities are
expected more and more to work on a cost recovery basis. This implies
that universities (and other public research institutions that are
in the same position) are feeling pressure to reap whatever market
rewards there may be from the knowledge they create. This lies behind
the well-known Bayh-Dole act in the United States and the push in
other parts of the world to "get the inventions off the lab
bench and into the market." It provides strong incentives for
public research to become more and more private. One can see two
scenarios. The first is simply that it becomes harder and harder
to do science, in the old-fashioned sense of an open activity of
knowledge creation, simply because it becomes more difficult to
use existing knowledge that has been protected as intellectual property.
The other scenario is that consortia emerge in which the top creators
of knowledge join forces and share their innovations. On this scenario
we foresee a divergence within the scientific community of "the
haves and have nots," with the latter more distantly, and more
effectively, isolated from the former. Neither scenario is particularly
appealing. The big issue then is how to resolve this dilemma with
legal means that permit inventors to reap profits without preventing
others from using the new knowledge. This looks like a Gordian knot
that will need a very sharp sword.
UNESCO's Approach to Open Access and Public-Domain Information
Koïchiro
MATSUURA, Director-General, UNESCO
[To be provided]
Economic Considerations for Open Access and Public Domain Availability
of Scientific Information in Developing Countries
Clemente FORERO-PINEDA,
Universities of Andes and Rosario, Colombia
Science in developing
countries is paradoxically akin to fundamental research in developed
countries. The replication of many simple experiments in developing
countries usually requires setting up a whole specialized and costly
laboratory. Entering the circuits of world scientific activity or
building networks of interested peers is accordingly difficult.
Environmental, sociometric, and econometric research often demands
initiating the collection of ad-hoc statistical series. The economic
advantages of non-rivalry, usually taken for granted in the case
of information, knowledge, and scientific networking, are not easily
cashed by scientists in these countries. In this respect, science
in developing countries is similar to fundamental or basic research
carried out in developed countries, even when the purpose of the
scientist is obtaining a marginal result.
These characteristics
make reliance on information even more critical in those countries
than it is for normal science in developed countries. Given the
high cost of scientific equipment and reduced budgets for science
in countries of lower income, a comparative advantage for information-intensive
research should direct scientists in these countries towards methodologies
that rely specifically upon open access to information. Theoretical
research in all disciplines; evidence based research, both in medicine
and in social practice; environmental, climatic, econometric and
even genetic research based on internationally available data; and
case-based or best-practices research in management or in technology
applications are types of research that depend more on the availability
and open access to information than on investments on scientific
equipment, and present advantages for developing country scientists.
The economic
and scientific consequences of the legal protection of databases
on the scientific and technological activities of developing countries
should be analyzed in this perspective. Legal protection will no
doubt stimulate new information businesses, both in developed and
developing countries. Nonetheless, simple market analysis allows
predicting that legal protection will make access to protected databases
more expensive on the average. The incentives for the production
of open-access scientific information will accordingly diminish.
If, as shown by Kirkman et al. (2002), access to scientific information
is today more expensive for residents of developing countries, these
shifts tend to further reduce the possibility of access by scientists
in university and government research institutions from developing
countries, especially those where university and public library
budgets have shown a sharper reduction in the past decade.
An issue of
special concern in developing countries is that of legal protection
of non-original databases. While Trade Related Intellectual Property
Agreements (TRIPS) protect original databases, the protection of
non-original databases is granted in the European Union, some northern
European countries, and Mexico. The main concern is that even information
that is in the public domain could be simply reorganized or versioned
and included in proprietary databases. Preliminary analyses made
for Latin American countries show that local production of non-original
databases does not seem to be affected by the absence of legal protection
(Lopez 2002), and that most non-original databases are produced
elsewhere. This could explain the reluctance of most of these countries
to generalize this legal protection in the WIPO discussions of 1996.
Were this trend
towards stronger legal and device protection of databases to prosper,
the end result might not be "the end of scientific collaboration,"
but a new topology of scientific research networks would probably
emerge. Rather than a global commons of science, a collection of
closed and relatively isolated networks would dominate scientific
activities worldwide. In this scenario, the role of researchers
from developing countries in global science would diminish in relative
terms, as a consequence of the narrower availability of scientific
information.
Information
Technology and Data in the Context of Developing Countries
Chrisanthi AVGEROU,
London School of Economics, UK
The grossly
uneven availability of information and communications technologies
(ICT) and data resources around the world is well known, and a matter
for which international development agencies seek to mobilize remedial
action. However, ICT and data tend to be seen and promoted as tools
of objective universal value, capable of desirable socio-economic
effects. In this talk I will argue that the significance of both
ICT and information resources is context-dependent, subject to interpretations
and negotiations of human actors in their socio-economic environment.
I will demonstrate the validity of this argument with the example
of socio-economic indicators that are routinely constructed and
published by development agencies and social science research centres,
such as on "economic development," "human development,"
or "readiness for the information society." I will argue
that mere access to such data does not empower developing countries'
policy makers. What is also needed is a capacity to trace the underlying
meaning of the indicators in relation to the models of development
they stem from, thus to be able to judge their relevance in specific
contexts and negotiate alternatives. However, most developing countries
are weak in social and economic sciences and have little capacity
to identify and negotiate with confidence models of development
and courses of action that are meaningful and effective in their
context. The assumed objectivity and universality of "data,"
in particular numerical data, exacerbates this weakness.
The Opportunities and Challenges of Open Access and Public-Domain
Scientific Information in Developing Countries
SESSION
TWO
Data and Information
in the Public Health Sector
The Ptolemy Project: Delivering Electronic Health Information in
East Africa
Massey BEVERIDGE,
University of Toronto, Canada
The Ptolemy
project, a research partnership between the Office of International
Surgery at the University of Toronto and members of the Association
of Surgeons of East Africa (ASEA), combines the provision of access
to high-quality electronic health information with a process to
evaluate its impact for the participants. It aims to answer the
question, does access to full-text health information have a positive
effect on surgical practice, teaching, and research in East Africa?
Methods: One
hundred proxy server accounts at the University of Toronto Library
were created for participants, most of whom were members of the
ASEA. In order to conform to subscription agreements with the various
publishers, participants fitting the inclusion criteria were appointed
as "research affiliates" of the University's Office of
International Surgery. Usage data from the proxy server accounts
are recorded and user surveys are used to assess the impact Ptolemy;
information has acquired in three areas of practice: clinical service,
teaching and research. The results of a survey conducted in August
2002 are presented here.
Result: Sixty-seven
of 97 Ptolemy participants were eligible for the study and 53 of
the 67 responded during a two-week response period (response rate
of 79%). Of the 53 respondents, 68% spend more than one hour per
week using Ptolemy resources; 68% reported Ptolemy had enhanced
or greatly enhanced their clinical, teaching and research work and
77% reported the content they found was relevant or very relevant.
Full-text journals were the most valued resource and 86% of respondents
were satisfied or very satisfied with Ptolemy's overall performance.
Conclusions:
Ptolemy delivers useful, timely and relevant content to surgeons
in Africa, and it has made an immediate, positive impact on their
clinical, teaching and research work. Ptolemy is a simple model
that links an existing end-user community with a large university
library. It is a simple, practical and replicable model for bridging
the digital divide in order to build clinical, teaching, and research
capacity in East Africa.
Health Information for Disaster Preparedness in Latin America
Jean Luc PONCELET,
Pan American Health Organization, USA
In Latin America,
disaster vulnerability is high due to the significant risk of natural
disasters, poverty, poor planning, and a weak institutional framework
for disaster management. For example, Hurricane Mitch left 8,000
dead and 9,000 missing in Honduras and Nicaragua in 1998. In 2001,
earthquakes in El Salvador left 1,000 dead and 650,000 homeless.
Following these
disasters, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the Pan American
Health Organization (PAHO) developed a project to rebuild and improve
the health information infrastructure in Honduras, Nicaragua, and
El Salvador. In 2000, NLM supported the Foundation for the Coordination
of Information Resources for Disaster Prevention (FundaCRID), a
non-governmental organization that operates the Regional Disaster
Information Center for Latin American and the Caribbean (CRID),
to help these countries develop a system for collecting and disseminating
health information related to disasters.
This initiative has strengthened participating libraries and organizations
in three areas: technological infrastructure (Internet connectivity
and computer equipment); information Management (librarian training);
and information product development (digital libraries and Web sites).
Honduras, Nicaragua,
and El Salvador have established Disaster Information Centers designed
to enable health professionals, government agencies, and non-governmental
organizations to access vital information that was previously unavailable.
These organizations have acquired the knowledge and technological
resources to promote the delivery of reliable information to health
providers. The establishment of these centers should facilitate
long-term improvement of disaster prevention activities. The NLM/PAHO/CRID
collaboration is also a model for disseminating health information
in underserved, disaster-prone environments, and for managing non-traditional
literature regarding health aspects of disasters.
Bioline International and the Journal of Postgraduate Medicine:
A Collaborative Model of Open Access Publishing
D.K. SAHU, JPGM Managing
Editor, India, and Leslie CHAN,
Bioline, Canada
Bioline
International (BI) was set up in 1993 as a result of increasing
dissatisfaction among scientists about the way research publications,
particularly those from developing countries, were (or were not)
distributed. Managed by scientists, librarians, and information
professionals on a not-for-profit basis, BI provides electronic
publishing and distribution services for publishers of biomedical
journals from developing countries who wish to increase the visibility,
accessibility, and impact of their publications. With limited print
circulation, journals from developing countries usually do not reach
the global readers who would benefit from the content. An online
presence with a common search platform for multiple journals offers
the desirable visibility for such journals. With this in mind, in
2002, the Journal of Postgraduate Medicine (JPGM) joined BI as an
open access journal. JPGM is a quarterly biomedical publication
of Staff Society of Seth G.S. Medical College and K.E.M. Hospital,
in Mumbai, India. The collaboration of BI and JPGM sets an example
for the ways in which journals from developing country can benefit
from low-cost shared technology and extend accessibility to their
content. In this presentation, we discuss technical as well as policy
issues pertaining to such collaboration. In particular, we highlight
the importance of adopting open standards and protocols in order
to maximize interoperability between databases, provide an example
of how to promote open access to and sharing of public scientific
resources while considering new funding opportunities and the rights
of authors, and illustrate the importance of institutional collaborations
in the advancement of knowledge building and sharing on a truly
global scale.
SESSION THREE
Data and Information in the Environmental Sector
Geospatial
Information for Development
Mukund RAO, Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO)
Use of spatial
information for resource management and developmental support is
limited only by the imagination on how to generate, integrate, and
visualise the different spatial data sets. The spatial information
sets are vital to make sound decisions at the local, regional, state,
and central level planning; implementation of action plans; infrastructure
development; disaster management support; and business development.
Natural resources management, flood mitigation, environmental restoration,
land use assessments, and disaster recovery are just a few examples
of areas in which decision-makers are benefiting from spatial information.
With the availability of satellite-based remote sensing data and
the organisation of spatial databases around a geographical information
systems (GIS), combined with the Global Positioning System (GPS),
the process of semantic spatial information systems has now became
a reality. This has led to a new endeavour—Spatial Data Infrastructures
(SDI).
The SDI encompasses
the policies, organisational remits, data, technologies, standards,
delivery mechanisms, and financial and human resources necessary
to ensure the availability and access to spatial data. The SDI is
visualised as virtual network of standardized, spatial databases
of varieties of spatial information that enables easy access and
major support to decision-support and sustainable economic growth.
Establishment of a SDI to support efficient production and easy
access to and shared use of accurate, high-quality spatial data
to meet developmental needs is an urgent requirement of any nation.
A National SDI (NSDI) will ultimately emerge as a major driver for
impetus to development activities and also enable the emergence
of an information business sector that will promote economics and
commerce activities. However, the SDI has opened up various policy
issues that can impinge on the use of spatial data for national
development. One needs to address public access, copyright, privacy,
liability, costing, and other issues related to the SDI and access
of spatial data.
India has, over
the past years, produced a rich base of map information through
systematic topographic surveys, geological surveys, soil surveys,
cadastral surveys, various natural resources inventory programmes,
and the use of the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) images.
Encapsulating these maps and images into a NSDI is the main national
aim and the programme of NSDI has been taken up by India. India
realises that spatial information is a national resource and citizens,
society, private enterprise, and government have a right to access
it, appropriately. Only through common conventions and technical
agreements, standards, metadata definitions, and network and access
protocols will it be easily possible for the NSDI to come into existence.
This paper addresses
the policies, design and utilisation of a NSDI. The NSDI is visualised
as a virtual network of standardized, spatial databases of varieties
of spatial information that enables easy access and major support
to development and sustainable economic growth. The paper also discusses
how the convergence of policies, technologies and applications get
strategised in SDI-specifically of Earth observation images, GIS
technologies, and integrated modelling and how individuals, society,
nations, and the world community would benefit from access to these
datasets.
A Comparative Analysis of Data Access Policies in Meteorology
Peter WEISS, U.S. National
Weather Service, USA
Many nations
are embracing the concept of open and unrestricted access to public-sector
information-particularly scientific, environmental, and statistical
information of great public benefit. Federal information policy
in the United States is based on the premise that government information
is a valuable national resource and that the economic benefits to
society are maximized when taxpayer funded information is made available
inexpensively and as widely as possible. This policy is expressed
in the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 and in Office of Management
and Budget Circular No. A-130, "Management of Federal Information
Resources." This policy actively encourages the development
of a robust private sector, offering to provide publishers with
the raw content from which new information services may be created,
at no more than the cost of dissemination and without copyright
or other restrictions.
In other countries,
particularly in Europe, publicly-funded government agencies treat
their information holdings as a commodity to be used to generate
revenue in the short-term. They assert monopoly control on certain
categories of information in an attempt—usually unsuccessful—to
recover the costs of its collection or creation. Such arrangements
tend to preclude other entities from developing markets for the
information or otherwise disseminating the information in the public
interest. The U.S. government and the world scientific and environmental
research communities are particularly concerned that such practices
have decreased the availability of critical data and information.
And firms in emerging information dependent industries seeking to
utilize public sector information find their business plans frustrated
by restrictive government data policies and other anticompetitive
practices. This presentation will provide a comparative analysis
of these different data access policies and discuss some implications
for developing countries.
Recent
Developments in Environmental Data Access Policies in the Peoples'
Republic of China
LIU Chuang, Chinese Academy
of Sciences, China
China has experienced
four different stages in the development of scientific public-domain
data policies during the last quarter century. Before 1980, most
of the government-funded scientific data, including environmental
data, were free to be accessed and the services received a good
reputation from the scientific community. Most of the data were
recorded then on paper media, so it took considerable time for them
to be accessed. With the computer developments in the earlier part
of the 1980s, digital data and databases began to increase rapidly.
The data holders began to realize that their digital data could
be important resources for scientific activities. The policy to
charge for scientific data was developed from the early 1980s to
1993. During this time period, new problems in data management arose
that China never experienced before. For example, there was parallel,
duplicate work in database development, the data handled by individual
scientists resulted in a high risk of losing the data, and the price
of access to the data became very expensive. From 1994-2000, the
scientific community asked for data policy reform and for lowcost
access to government funded databases for non-profit applications.
The Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) set up an investigating
group for China's scientific data sharing practices and policies
in 2001 and initiated a new program for scientific data sharing.
This represented a new milestone for enhancing access to and application
of public-domain scientific data. This new program, together with
a new data policy and support system, will be greatly promoted during
next decade. This presentation will focus on the development of
access policies and practices concerning environmental data, in
particular.
Tuesday, 11 March
SESSION
FOUR
Basic Sciences and Higher Education
Information Needs for Basic Research: An African Perspective
Andrew KANIKI, National
Research Foundation, South Africa
The effective
research and development or innovation system in any country the
world-over depends on a strong base of basic research. One of the
main challenges that Africa faces is human resource development
to deal with a magnitude of problems, and challenges of the continent
and contribution towards the world economy. Basic research and the
management of the research endeavour contribute to both the development
of the much-needed human resources and to the generation of knowledge
for solving problems and dealing with challenges that Africa and
the world face. In the course of conducting and participating in
basic research, researchers and managers of research and innovations
experience a variety of information needs. By their very nature
information needs are affected by various factors including economic,
social, psychological, and geographical location or context within
which a category of people like researchers and research managers
work. To facilitate basic research and thus enhance research and
development or a consolidated a system of innovation, various inputs
are required. Key among these is the identification and satisfaction
of the information needs of stakeholders who are involved in basic
research. This presentation explores the information needs of researchers
in Africa. In setting the scene for this discussion, definitions
of key concepts like basic research, research and development and
information needs are provided. The presentation highlights the
context within which African researchers and research managers operate,
and how these in turn influence and determine research information
needs. It then provides some practical solutions for dealing with
research information needs.
International
Transfer of Information in the Physical Sciences
R. Stephen BERRY, University
of Chicago, USA
Ready exchange
of information, ranging from raw data to completed manuscripts and
compilations of evaluated data, has been a standard, recognized
practice in physical sciences for many years. The ways this has
been carried out, the levels of informality in particular, have
varied from one field to another, but the overall style has been
one of openness. The extreme of ready exchange is exemplified by
the history of such exchanges in high-energy physics, in which exchanges
of hardcopy preprints were common prior to Paul Ginsparg's introduction
of the electronic archive. Now electronic distribution of completed
or nearly completed work, together with electronic posting by authors
on their own Web pages, has become a common alternative, in many
areas of science, to the electronic distribution of information
by publishers. Many of these can now be found on the Web (see ArXiv.org).
However scientists very often exchange information at earlier stages
of work, and at later stages as well. This discussion will examine
the range of ways people in the physical sciences now use electronic
communication to transmit information in the successive stages of
their work, from initial stages of a collaboration through final
publication, distribution, and compilation and analysis of results.
In particular, emphasis will be on the opportunities that electronic
exchange has opened both for collaboration among scientists in nations
at different levels of economic development, and for new, independent
studies in nations where limited access to scientific information
had been a major barrier to innovative research.
Access to
Scientific Information: Distance Education - The Ukraine and other
CIS Countries Perspectives
Mikhail ZGUROVSKY,
National Technical University of Ukraine, Ukraine
Creation of
the open information society in Ukraine is connected with the development
of an information medium in the most intellectual area-science and
education, which is represented in the Ukrainian research and academic
information portal. The main segments of the portal are distance
education, information technologies in education and in science,
on-line libraries, and the educational information system "Osvita."
All these segments are connected by the information transportation
system for data transfer in the Ukrainian information portal. This
network is called the URAN-Ukrainian Research and Academic Network.
The system of
distance education includes the regional network of educational-information
centers with adequate educational and information software for providing
access to all students. The system of on-line libraries is a distributed
informational infrastructure (electronic catalogues, databases,
information enquiry systems of scientific and technical, university
and public libraries are included in URAN network). The application
of information technologies in education and science is connected
with virtual laboratories, remote access to information resources,
telematics in the field of economics and management, ecology, medicine,
biology, research in the field of physics and mathematical modeling
of complex processes, telemedicine, and other fields. Finally, the
"Osvita" educational information system provides a complex
informatiztion control of institutions of higher learning, automation
of information collection and processing, preparation of state documents
on education.
The report provides
an example of application of telematics means and methods for solving
the problem of ecological monitoring of Chernobyl Nuclear Power
Plant, as well as the development of telemedical channel for diagnostics
and treatment of those working at the Chernobyl Power Plant.
SESSION FIVE
Innovative Models for Public-Domain Production of and Open Access
to S&T Data and Information
A Contractually Reconstructed Research Commons for Scientific Data
in a Highly Protectionist Intellectual Property Environment
Jerome REICHMAN, Duke
University Law School, USA, and Paul Uhlir, the National Academies,
USA
If the economic,
legal, and technological pressures on public-domain scientific data
that were discussed in the first session of this Symposium continue
unabated, they will likely lead to a disruption of long-established
scientific research practices and to the loss of new opportunities
that digital networks and related technologies make possible. These
pressures could elicit one of two types of responses. One is essentially
reactive, in which the public scientific community adjusts as best
it can without organizing a response to the increasing encroachment
of a commercial ethos upon its upstream data resources. The other
would require a science policy response to the challenge by formulating
a strategy that would enable the scientific community to take more
active control of its basic data supply and to manage the resulting
research commons in ways that would preserve its public-good functions
without impeding socially beneficial commercial opportunities. The
idea is to reinforce and recreate, by voluntary means, a public
space in which the traditional sharing ethos of science can be preserved
and insulated from the commoditizing trends. This presentation will
review some approaches we have proposed for the U.S. scientific
community to consider in addressing this challenge, and that could
have broader applicability for scientific communities outside the
United States.
The
Open Source Paradigm and the Production of Scientific Information:
A Future Vision and Implications for Developing Countries
Charles SCHWEIK, University
of Massachusetts, USA
Over the last
decade, a new form of global collaboration over the Internet has
emerged from computer science called "Open Source" (OS)
programming. High-profile, complex software such as Linux and the
Apache Web Server has been developed through this collaborative
paradigm. Given the rapid adoption of the World Wide Web in disciplines
beyond computer science, this paper argues that the principles behind
Open Source collaboration can be extended into other scientific
disciplines and in areas outside of computer programming. Moreover,
this new paradigm could open new paths for the production of scientific
knowledge.
This presentation
will first describe the concept of Open Source, the design principles
of OS programming projects, and highlight areas in which new research
on this topic is needed. It also will briefly present some emerging
OS-like "experiments" from other domains. The presentation
will then offer a vision of how these principles might be applied
to enhance global production of scientific research, and describe
two ideas in the area of environmental management research. The
presentation will conclude by discussing the implications of this
vision for the developing world, and by suggesting how to move this
vision forward.
New and Changing
Scientific Publication Practices Due to Open Access Publication
Initiatives
Erik SANDEWALL, Linköping
University
Scientific publication
is surrounded by a system of generally accepted rules that are not
due to legal or economic reasons, but which are instead internal
to the scientific community. These include rules concerning priority
of results based on the date of the first publication of the result,
rules against duplicate publication, rules about appropriate citation,
and so on. They also include procedures and associated rules, e.g.,
for peer review. It has been proposed, however, that some of these
rules and conventions stand in the way of the best possible use
of new information technology for communication within the scientific
community. It is therefore most important for the scientific community
to deliberate on how we wish to use the technology in the years
to come, and on whether current rules and practices ought to be
revised. The speaker will report on past and current discussions
on this topic.
Overview of
Open Access and Public Commons Initiatives in the United States
Harlan ONSRUD, University
of Maine, USA
Individuals
have been viewed by economists as arranging their primary economic
productivity in one of two ways. Individuals either participate
directly in the market responding to price signals or they are employees
in firms or government agencies taking their directions from managers.
Yochai Benkler and others argue that a new mode of production has
emerged, exemplified by open source software and facilitated by
network communications, where individual contributors are organized
neither in response to price signals nor by firm managers. The organizing
principle of the new mode of production is that all persons are
free to benefit from the common product or service produced. This
assumes that the resultant product or service is largely non-rival.
Under this new mode of production, thousands of individuals join
across information networks to work collaboratively and voluntarily
toward common ends with no one owning, in a traditional sense, the
results of the effort.
In some instances,
the knowledge level and resource base allowing a willing individual
to participate in a collaborative production effort may be substantial.
For other efforts, little more than access to the Web and literacy
are required to allow one to contribute. This presentation summarizes
several current open access and public commons projects. Benefits
and shortcomings from the likely perspectives of individuals, such
as scientists, in both technologically-advanced and technologically-lagging
societies are highlighted.
SESSION SIX
Examples of New Initiatives in Developing Countries
Overview of Initiatives in the Developing World
Sarah DURRANT, International
Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP),
UK
Open access
potentially presents a great many opportunities to creators and
consumers of information within less developed countries (LDCs).
Much has been written about the "knowledge gap" between
the North and the South and whilst the Internet seemed to represent
a new environment in which opportunities might be more equal, the
ubiquity of the phrase "the digital divide" suggests that,
although the medium is new, the same inequality and lack of opportunity
persists. Importantly, the knowledge gap is not just confined to
lack of access in the South to information generated in the North.
Information produced in the South is in danger of remaining invisible
to researchers, professionals and other information "consumers"
in the North and in the South. So how can open access redress the
inequalities surrounding access to and visibility, awareness and
dissemination of information? What skills and knowledge are required
to ensure that these opportunities are fully exploited? This paper
describes some of the challenges and the opportunities open access
presents to LDCs and offers some examples of open access and related
initiatives from Developing Countries, mentioning components from
INASP's Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information (PERI).
Open
Source GIS Software in Brazil
Gilberto CAMARA, Instituto
Nacional de Pesquisas Espacias, Brazil
Earth observation
and GIS (geographical information systems) technology is an excellent
example of the use of advanced information technology for the improvement
of mankind. In developing nations, these technologies have proven
essential for the establishment of public policies in issues such
as deforestation assessment, urban planning, agricultural production
and environmental control. However, computer analysis of spatial
data requires tools that are complex to develop and to use. To date,
commercial companies in developed nations have produced most of
these tools. Although these commercial systems have enabled major
advances in the spatial analysis applications, there is scope for
much improvement in the area.
A fundamental
challenge for spatial analysis tools is the need to resolve the
"knowledge gap" in the process of deriving information
from images and digital maps. This knowledge gap has arisen because
our capacity to build sophisticated data collection instruments
(such as remote sensing, LIDAR, and GPS) is not matched by our means
of producing information from these data sources.
Based on these
needs, the paper indicates the benefits to the geographical information
community would accrue from the use of open-source GIS tools. This
co-operative software environment would allow researchers to share
their results with the community, thus reducing the "time to
market" from academia to society. As an example of such products,
a group of R&D institutions in Brazil is currently developing
TerraLib, an open-source GIS library that enables quick development
of custom-built applications for spatial data analysis (the software
is available at www.terralib.org). We believe that projects such
as TerraLib show that pursuing a "learning by doing" approach
combined with substantial investment in local human resources is
the key for successful deployment of advanced information technology
in developing nations.
Public Knowledge Project Open Journal System
Sal
MUTHAYAN, Doctoral Candidate, South Africa, and Florence
MUINDE, UNESCO Fellow, Kenya
As a new African
nation, South Africa is faced with challenges that are both local
and global. At the local level, the country needs to build a democratic
society from devastation left behind in the wake of apartheid while
concurrently, finding its niche in a globalized knowledge-based
economy. The new higher education policies focus attention on the
universities' agency in the transformation to a new democratic society
nationally, and, in providing the country with high skills, innovation
and knowledge to compete globally.
This presentation is based on a broader empirical study that examines
how the forces of globalization and democratization have impacted
on knowledge production at South African universities and, whether
increasing open access and the public domain of academic research,
made readily available through new technologies, might enhance the
research capacity of these universities and to give impetus to the
transformation project aimed at social justice and a new democratic
order.
In this paper, I consider the current state of research capacity
at South African universities and whether one example of open access,
the Open Journal System of the Public Knowledge Project, may contribute
to building research capacity at South Africa universities.
The questions I pose in this paper are:
- Given global
economic trends and the low value of South African currency in
the exchange market, what has been the access to scholarly resources
and technology at South African universities?
- To what
extent do the experiences of historically black universities (HBU's)
differ from those of historically white universities (HWU's)?
- What are
the research capacity issues confronting researchers and librarians
at South African universities;
- To what
extent can open access and the public domain of research be increased
through the Open Journal System?
Metadata
Clearinghouse and Open Access to Geographic Data in Namibia
Emma NOONGO and Nico
WELLEMSE, Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Namibia
In January 1998,
the Directorate of Environmental Affairs under the Ministry of Environment
and Tourism (MET) launched a national programme called "Information
and Communication Services for Sustainable Development" (Infocom)
in Namibia. The overall goal of Infocom was to promote sustainable
development in Namibia, through developing an effective Environmental
Information System (EIS) and communication mechanism to disseminate
geographical information. EIS employed a network approach to strengthen
and promote the state of data sharing, and access to spatial data.
The Environmental Monitoring and Indicator Network (EMIN) was established
in June 2001. EMIN showed that as Namibia progressively seeks to
achieve sustainable development, and to promote the health of its
people and environment, there was an increasing demand for environmental
information. While a number of monitoring programmes in the country
existed, major gaps in data and unnecessary duplication of effort
remained. EIS was thus shaped into defining appropriate pathways
for engaging and communicating information to decision-makers and
to the whole Namibian public at large.
Namibia has
made considerable progress to date in its geographical data development
and distribution. A data sharing policy was formulated and an information
portal (http://www.dea.met.gov.na) at the MET was built. EIS houses
the results of a national Atlas, regional profiles and mappings
(with data on administrative and political boundaries, households,
infrastructure, landscapes, land use, livestock, population, topography,
vegetation and soils, climate and water resources, wildlife, literature,
and photographs). All data are made freely downloadable from the
information portal. Upon request, the data are distributed on CDs
to those who do not have access to the Internet. Hard copies of
the publications are sent to all state libraries in the country.
A national environmental metadata project was recently completed,
also freely available on the Web site. It documents all geographical
data available in different institutions, making it easier to reach
the data distributors of specific data sets. Various institutions
(line ministries and NGOs) have adopted an example set of the EIS,
and made available their geographical data either on WebPages or
on CDs. See the Desert Research Foundation, for example.
This presentation
will give an overview of the state of access to geographical data
and of the metadata clearinghouse in Namibia.
Open Access Initiatives in India
T.B. RAJASHEKAR,
National Centre for Science, India
There is significant
potential for public domain and open access information initiatives
in India, given the large number of public-supported universities,
institutions of higher learning, and research laboratories in the
country. A major hindrance in realizing this potential has been
the slow Internet penetration and considerable variation that exists
in the quality of Internet infrastructure among these institutions.
However, there is growing awareness among the Indian student, research,
and development communities of the importance of open access scholarly
e-resources, particularly in the context of rapidly declining library
resources. There is also a clearly discernible, but slowly evolving,
interest among a few well-equipped institutions in employing digital
publishing technologies, open source digital library software, and
the Internet for providing open access to locally generated S&T
information. There are also a few national level open access publishing
and information dissemination efforts that cut across institutional
boundaries. Examples of open access publishing initiatives include:
online access to scholarly journals (e.g., journals published by
the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore), theses (e.g., Vidyanidhi
project at University of Mysore), institutional e-print archives
(e.g., eprints@iisc at Indian Institute of Science), books (e.g.,
Universal Digital Library project at Indian Institute of Science),
and data sets (e.g., industrial micro-organism and biodiversity
informatics at National Chemical Laboratory). There are also several
initiatives that provide Internet access to open access material
at bibliographic database level (e.g., NIC's INDMED covering Indian
medical journals). In addition, several innovative portal and gateway
initiatives attempt to integrate access to local and remote open
access e-resources.
Though these
examples point to encouraging developments and serve as working
models, we believe that concerted and sustained efforts are required
if India has to realize the tremendous capacity it has for participating
in open access initiatives. In addition to improving network infrastructure,
academic institutions and research laboratories need to be empowered
to embrace open access publishing programmes and provide improved
visibility to their research output and also to develop effective
gateway services for integrating access to relevant local, national
and global open access e-resources. Libraries can play a significant
enabling role in working closely with the academic and research
community in establishing online publishing systems for e-journals,
technical reports, dissertations, and e-print archives. There is
urgent need for improving awareness about open access publishing
among information professionals and their technical competence in
using standards-compliant online publishing and digital library
systems. We also believe that a national level mechanism is required,
particularly in developing countries, to guide and monitor open
access initiatives, within the context of international developments.
It will be necessary for organizations such as UNESCO and ICSU to
partner with these nascent efforts in developing countries in evolving
the national level mechanisms, otherwise several developing countries
that do not have this awareness will be left further behind in the
digital divide.
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