Following my previous post about the first draft of a Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data, which has been also discussed on some otherarchaeoblogs, I'd like to give here my idea for a brief roadmap of what should be done by archaeologists to make Open Access Archaeology really possible.
The first part deals with the legal and bureaucratic status of archaeological data, which is varying from country to country. In some (rare) cases, this is not an issue at all...In Italy, at the opposite, archaeological research is limited and controlled by the state, through the Ministry of Cultural Heritage...
The status of archaeological data obtained by research is not very clear in this sense, and in many cases contract archaeology professionals are excluded from the scientific publication of data.
The second part is represented by copyrights and diritto d'autore/droit d'auteur (depending on where you are based). Once legal and bureaucratic issues are cleared, possibly directly involving Ministry officers in the discussion, it should be clear at least who is the owner of any rights upon data....
But before choosing a license and abiding your rights, it's necessary to know your rights. A clear statement about which rights you, as archaeologist, own on “your” data, and which you don't, would be a landmark. Rights you don't own are best summarised by the “Facts are free” motto, that is also a part of database copyright laws.
The third part should be easier to undertake: what is the best “license” that one should choose for data, if (s)he wants them to be Open Access Data? ...
Once these three points have been cleared, the necessary last step is to develop best practices, because a very short number of people has the time and will to go into the details of copyright law. Here are some example cases that hopefully are going to be very common:
Alice is an archaeologist. She has worked for 2 years on her research project studying roman coins, collecting information from published excavation reports and museum catalogues, and now she has compiled a quite large database that she wants to publish as open access data. What should Alice do?
Bob is an archaeologist, too. At some point Bob discovers Alice's database, which has been published as OA. Alice's data would be very useful for his research about trade in ancient Mediterranean. Can Bob get the whole database and reuse its contents without contacting Alice?
Xavier is a student, and he's preparing his master's thesis about lithic tools in Southern France. He finds that a few years ago someone else created a database containing object counts and tipologies from a good number of archaeological sites. This database can be queried through a website, but it is not released as OA, and a copyright statement on the website says that all rights are reserved. Can Xavier reuse some of the data in the database without breaking any existing right of the original author?
There are other possible everyday use cases that should be added to the above list, and I think it would be a very good idea to collect them and try to write a public best practices document that is suitable for the needs and habits of archaeologists.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/21/2007 03:18:00 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.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
