This document outlines four principles of open science: (1) open access to literature from funded research, (2) access to research tools from funded research, (3) putting data from funded research in the public domain, and (4) investing in open cyberinfrastructure. The principles aim to make more scientific knowledge accessible and reusable by removing legal and technical barriers to accessing and sharing published literature, research materials, data, and infrastructure. Adopting these open science principles could help advance new discoveries by allowing ideas and information to flow more freely between researchers.

1. laying out the principles of
open science
(an abbreviated version)
kaitlin thaney
program manager, science commons
open science@PSB
5 january 2009
This presentation is licensed under the CreativeCommons-Attribution-3.0 license.

2. most of the useful knowledge
is inaccessible.
most of the useful knowledge is
in the wrong technology.
we don’t have enough people
working on it.

3. science commons
principles of open science
barcelona, spain
july 2008

4. (1)
open access to literature from
funded research

5. it all starts with the scholarly digital
content: journals and databases

6. transition from
“paper metaphor”

7. thinking of “papers” as
containers of knowledge

8. “papers”
IGFBP-5 plays a role in the
regulation of cellular senescence
via a p53-dependent pathway
and in aging-associated vascular
diseases

9. “networked knowledge”
IGFBP-5 plays a role in the
regulation of cellular senescence
via a p53-dependent pathway
and in aging-associated vascular
diseases

11. “ By open access to the literature, we mean its free
availability on the public internet, permitting users to
read, download, copy, distribute. print, search, or link to
the full texts of the articles, crawl them for indexing,
pass them as data to software, or use them for any
other lawful purpose, without financial, legal or
technical barriers other than those inseparable from
gaining access to the internet itself.”
Image from the Public Library of Science, licensed to the public, under
CC-BY-3.0

12. “The only constraint on reproduction and distribution,
and the only role for copyright in this domain, should
be to give authors control over the integrity of their
work and the right to properly acknowledged and
cited.”

13. legal
implementation

14. (2)
access to research tools from
funded research

15. examples:
lab mice, cell
lines, DNA
... the physical
materials

16. research materials represent an
incredible investment in tacit
knowledge

17. the web revolutionized
search, commerce, collaboration

18. office supplies
for science

19. there are no
office superstores
for science

20. no internet
marketplaces
for science

21. everyone has to
pre-authorize
through
institutions

22. the commons allows for
“some rights reserved”
options to share

23. solves the access problem via
contract
(standardized material
transfer agreements, or
MTAs)

24. (3)
put data from funded research in
the public domain

25. ensures ability to freely distribute, copy,
reformat, and integrate data from research into
new research ... without legal barriers
citation, attribution via norms

26. creates legal zones of certainty

27. a protocol, not a license

28. (4)
invest in open cyberinfrastructure

29. data without structure and annotation is a
lost opportunity.
data should flow in an open, public, and
extensible infrastructure
support recombination and reconfiguration
into computer models, queryable by search
engine
treated as public good

30. this is only the beginning of the
conversation

31. for more information, visit
http://sciencecommons.org/resources/
readingroom/principles-for-open-science/

32. thank you
we’d love to hear from you
kaitlin@creativecommons.org
http://sciencecommons.org