Klaus Graf on what is strongOA

I am delighted that Klaus Graf – a fervent and consistent supporter of strongOA – has replied at some length to my question on what is strongOA. If we do not address this question now then we shall lose most of the value of the new terminology. He also comemnts on what is weakOA which I think is much more difficult. I’ll park that for the present and see if we can agree on the strong/weak boundary. If you are interested in this discussion you must be vocal now.

Klaus Graf Says:
May 1st, 2008 at 12:17 am e
I have commented in German at http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4900938/ but will try to write some thoughts also here.
May I remember the suggestions from PMR and Charles Bailey (color codes) at:
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4110564/ (2007)
There is no reason why the OA community should´nt say:
Strong OA documents are by default CC-BY (”Make all research results CC-BY”).

PMR: I think I agree with the sentiment but would change the wording. I think it means “if you are looking for a way to express the intention is that your artefact is strong OA, use a CC-BY licence”. I agree 100%. The existence of CC-BY has helped to save OA from an awful mess. And I congratulate published such as PLoS and BMC who use this licence universally to express strongOA. Whatever you think about their business models and whether strongOA is a good thing, I hope no-one would disagree that they have done an excellent job of making it absolutely clear what they are offering. And because of their lead, others such as MDPI can follow naturally.

Regarding data-re-use it might be in some cases more appropriate to choose PD. (Please keep in mind that some Wikipedia articles have hundreds of contributors. To list them completly doesn’t make sense although GNU FDL is requiring this.)

PMR: Science Commons and the Open Knowledge address this point. OKF has “Open Data” tags, and SC has a mechanism for declaring work to be in the public domain (PDDL).

Weak OA documents are
(1) OA-Free (Fair use only)
(2) OA-NC (no commercial use) with and without Copyleft (SA)
(3) OA-ND (no derivative works)
(4) OA-NC-ND

PMR: I pass on these at present other than to agree that *-NC, *-ND and *-NC-ND are NOT strong OA.

[… embargo stuff snipped …]
KG: I was not too amused to read from Suber that weak OA is a kind of OA but I think the positive aspects of the Suber/Harnad-agreement prevail.

PMR: I know how you feel, as I feel it myself. Up till now I have seen “OA” as implying strongOA. That has got me involved in a lot of lievly discussions on this blog when I have critiqued those who use it as a general label. But it is clearly not a precise term and we can’t turn it into one. It has the same value as “healthy” in “healthy foods”. It may represent positive if muddled intent and it may represent an attempt to ride on a bandwagon (or worse). So let us agree that “OA” by itself contains little precise meaning.

I agree with PMR (and PS) that labeling OA is essential. Let’s remember the Berlin definition: “including a copy of the permission as stated above”.
And the best label is …. CC-BY!

PMR: Labelling is critical. One example of where this can start TODAY is academic theses. Librarians, repositarians, BOGS, get going. Add “CC-BY” to every thesis. INSIDE the thesis. Page 1. Ad more labels “strongOA”, “Open Knowledge”. It’s trivial. Microsoft even has a Word plugin for adding licences. There is no excuse. So here’s a simple bumper sticker – I am sure you can do better
strong OA – start today