Carl Lagoze, Michael Nelson, Herbert Van de Sompel, and Simeon Warner invite public comment on the beta release of the OAI-PMH specification for conveying rights expressions. Excerpt from the spec explaining what it's all about: "Data providers might want to associate rights expressions with the metadata to indicate how it may be used, shared, and modified after it has been harvested. This specification defines how rights information pertaining to the metadata should be included in responses to OAI-PMH requests. The described technique [1] Is based on delivering rights expressions that apply to metadata included in OAI-PMH responses. It uses the optional containers that have been defined as part of the OAI-PMH specification. As a result, no changes to the protocol are made, and compatibility with all existing OAI-PMH implementations is maintained. [2] Is not tied to any particular rights expression language. Examples throughout this document make use of Creative Commons licenses, but the use of this specific language is for illustrative purposes only." (PS: This is an important development. Users can tell when price barriers have been removed simply by accessing content without having to pay. But they can't tell when permission barriers have been removed unless they are told. There are many ways to tell users which permission barriers have been removed, and which have not. Building the information into harvestable metadata is a very flexible and effective solution that supports automated research tools and data services.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/04/2004 11:17:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
