DRIVER is part of the E17.5 billion Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), the European Union's main instrument for funding research in Europe, which runs from 2002-2006....DRIVER will work with partners over the next 18 months to create a test-bed of a large-scale virtual content resource to access and integrate individual repositories. In other words, the intention is not to build a digital repository system itself, but to provide an interface to existing repositories. Users of DRIVER will be able to access services such as search, data collection, profiling and recommendation across a range of content types including reports, research articles, experimental or observational data, rich media and other digital objects. The second phase of the project will be "the successful interoperation of both data network and knowledge repositories as integral parts of the E-infrastructure for research and education in Europe"....
This provides the first indication of the potential opportunities available to commercial players, both software providers and publishers. The DRIVER web site explicitly emphasises that its role will be to focus on infrastructure - the intention is that the "availability of such a basic scientific content infrastructure should encourage academic and/or non-academic service providers to build high-valued and innovative services on top of it". The availability of content for scholarly communication seems to be becoming a given - it is in the provision of tools and services on top of these content sets where the real competition lies. Thomson and Elsevier already know this well - recent announcements of new services targeted at author identification demonstrate these increasingly important areas of competition. But the collaboration of SURF with search player FAST indicates that competition to build services around DRIVER will not only come from other publishers. The value of this market is evident to software solutions providers - however, working with publishers who already know the market well could prove a popular strategy....
Comment. The DRIVER approach, highlighted by Worlock here, is not only one of the best ways to pay for OA but one of the best ways to structure the cooperation of OA initiatives and commercial interests. Here's the recipe: Provide OA to the basic data and peer-reviewed literature, and then earn money from services that make the OA layer more useful (i.e. "value-added" services). Many of these services will themselves be free and open, but the sky's the limit and there's plenty of room for commercial players to create services so useful that they are worth paying for.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/23/2006 03:59:00 PM.
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.
