Dear all,
Wikimedia Commons hosts a lot of images (and some other files) from OA publishers (e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=1... ), and I am wondering whether that could be streamlined a bit.
Some issues that possibly stand in the way: (1) It is not clear what percentage of such files from suitably licensed papers would be of use in pages that use media hosted at Commons (either at Wikimedia or via InstantCommons). If that percentage is low, then the costs of hosting the unused files may outweigh the benefit of having the used ones, though the ease of automated upload (and possibly gardening) could shift the balance quite a bit. (2) Every publisher (and often journal) organize their files differently, which the upload scripts would have to take into account. Would this mean that multiple bot accounts would have to be requested as per http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bots/Requests ? If so, some means of enforcing common standards would be necessary.
Not sure whether RCom-l is the right place to discuss that, but I thought I'd give it a try, since working on standards is part of our mission.
Thanks and cheers,
Daniel
Hi Daniel,
thanks for starting this thread, it's a very important project and repositories such as springerimages.com (which specifically allow searching for OA media) could be a goldmine of scientific content for commons.The Wellcome Trust in Britain is also running a pilot project (involving GLAM people) to study the best model for collaboration between scientific institutions producing large volumes of digital media and Commons, which sounds really exciting.
A concern I have with the mass upload idea is that being OA doesn't necessarily imply being available under a public license that allows reuse. A quick inspection at number of OA images from SpringerImages suggests that they can indeed be reused under a CC-BY, but I assume this is not necessarily the case in general, correct? The distinction between OA and CC-licensed contents is something we should keep in mind as part of our policy making effort within RCom.
Dario
On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 2:12 AM, Daniel Mietchen < daniel.mietchen@googlemail.com> wrote:
Dear all,
Wikimedia Commons hosts a lot of images (and some other files) from OA publishers (e.g.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=1... ), and I am wondering whether that could be streamlined a bit.
Some issues that possibly stand in the way: (1) It is not clear what percentage of such files from suitably licensed papers would be of use in pages that use media hosted at Commons (either at Wikimedia or via InstantCommons). If that percentage is low, then the costs of hosting the unused files may outweigh the benefit of having the used ones, though the ease of automated upload (and possibly gardening) could shift the balance quite a bit. (2) Every publisher (and often journal) organize their files differently, which the upload scripts would have to take into account. Would this mean that multiple bot accounts would have to be requested as per http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bots/Requests ? If so, some means of enforcing common standards would be necessary.
Not sure whether RCom-l is the right place to discuss that, but I thought I'd give it a try, since working on standards is part of our mission.
Thanks and cheers,
Daniel
-- http://www.google.com/profiles/daniel.mietchen
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
Hi Dario,
I completely agree that we have to distinguish between OA and CC-licensed - that was implied by my phrase on "suitably licensed" papers, and I have been requesting "search by license" functionalities in several databases that lack it (e.g. http://www.science3point0.com/evomri/2010/09/11/feature-request-search-by-li... ).
Of the three CC licenses compatible with use on Commons (CC0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA), only the second is of practical relevance in OA publishing, but this means really relevant - BMC, PLoS, Hindawi, Copernicus, Frontiers and many of the smaller OA publishers use mainly or exclusively CC-BY, and I think it would not be difficult to get image datasets from some of these journals for testing purposes (as the survey dissemination has shown, a number of publishers are prepared to help wiki such specific wiki-related activities).
This still leaves the two questions open that I had put in my initial post here - any comments on them?
I would also like to hear more about that Wellcome / Commons project.
Cheers,
Daniel
On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 5:31 PM, Dario Taraborelli dtaraborelli@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Daniel, thanks for starting this thread, it's a very important project and repositories such as springerimages.com (which specifically allow searching for OA media) could be a goldmine of scientific content for commons.The Wellcome Trust in Britain is also running a pilot project (involving GLAM people) to study the best model for collaboration between scientific institutions producing large volumes of digital media and Commons, which sounds really exciting. A concern I have with the mass upload idea is that being OA doesn't necessarily imply being available under a public license that allows reuse. A quick inspection at number of OA images from SpringerImages suggests that they can indeed be reused under a CC-BY, but I assume this is not necessarily the case in general, correct? The distinction between OA and CC-licensed contents is something we should keep in mind as part of our policy making effort within RCom. Dario
On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 2:12 AM, Daniel Mietchen daniel.mietchen@googlemail.com wrote:
Dear all,
Wikimedia Commons hosts a lot of images (and some other files) from OA publishers (e.g.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=1... ), and I am wondering whether that could be streamlined a bit.
Some issues that possibly stand in the way: (1) It is not clear what percentage of such files from suitably licensed papers would be of use in pages that use media hosted at Commons (either at Wikimedia or via InstantCommons). If that percentage is low, then the costs of hosting the unused files may outweigh the benefit of having the used ones, though the ease of automated upload (and possibly gardening) could shift the balance quite a bit. (2) Every publisher (and often journal) organize their files differently, which the upload scripts would have to take into account. Would this mean that multiple bot accounts would have to be requested as per http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bots/Requests ? If so, some means of enforcing common standards would be necessary.
Not sure whether RCom-l is the right place to discuss that, but I thought I'd give it a try, since working on standards is part of our mission.
Thanks and cheers,
Daniel
-- http://www.google.com/profiles/daniel.mietchen
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
-- Dario Taraborelli, PhD Senior Research Analyst Wikimedia Foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org http://nitens.org/taraborelli
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
One funding organization recently contacted me about the possibility about funding an open access "Wikipedian in Residence" at an OA organization, in order to pursue projects like this (which is pretty straightforward for anyone with lightweight technical knowledge and dedicated focus). I'll ping them about that idea to see if it's likely to happen.
(Similar but related are open educational resources -- CNX.org textbooks, Pratham Books, etc. -- lots of really good appropriately licensed illustrations there.)
Hi Erik,
that OA-focused "Wikipedian in Residence" idea sounds interesting well beyond the image aspects - would definitely like to be kept in the loop on that one.
Daniel
On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 4:01 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
One funding organization recently contacted me about the possibility about funding an open access "Wikipedian in Residence" at an OA organization, in order to pursue projects like this (which is pretty straightforward for anyone with lightweight technical knowledge and dedicated focus). I'll ping them about that idea to see if it's likely to happen.
(Similar but related are open educational resources -- CNX.org textbooks, Pratham Books, etc. -- lots of really good appropriately licensed illustrations there.) -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
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