This press release is also available online here:
*https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_adopts_Open_Access_Policy_to_support_free_knowledge
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_adopts_Open_Access_Policy_to_support_free_knowledge>*
A version of this as a blog post is available here:
*https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/03/18/wikimedia-open-access-policy/
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/03/18/wikimedia-open-access-policy/>*
*Wikimedia Foundation adopts Open Access Policy to support free knowledge*
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Future research supported by the Wikimedia Foundation to be made freely
available
The Wikimedia Foundation is committed to making knowledge of all forms
freely available to the world. Beginning today, our new Open Access Policy
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Open_access_policy> will ensure that
all research work produced with support from the Wikimedia Foundation will
be openly available
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Open_Access_Initiative#Definition_of_open_access>
to the public and reusable on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites. We are
pleased to announce this new policy at the 18th ACM conference on
Computer-Supported
Cooperative Work and Social Computing <http://cscw.acm.org/2015/> (CSCW
2015).
“Wikimedia is committed to nurturing open knowledge for all, unrestrained
by cost barriers,” said Lila Tretikov
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila_Tretikov>, executive director of the
Wikimedia Foundation. “The Wikimedia movement has a longstanding commitment
to open access practices. Today, we are excited to formalize that
commitment with this policy.”
Over the past decade Wikipedia has been the subject of hundreds
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2021326> of academic
studies on topics such as flu forecasting
<http://www.technologyreview.com/view/532246/how-wikipedia-data-is-revolutionizing-flu-forecasting/>,
the influence of major global languages
<http://language.media.mit.edu/visualizations/wikipedia>, and Wikipedia’s
own geographic imbalances
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Geographic_imbalance>. The
Wikimedia Foundation has made this research possible through a commitment
to making Wikipedia’s data open and accessible.
Open access scholarship is central to Wikimedia's mission to empower people
around the world to participate in knowledge creation. Access to these open
sources is critical to ensuring that articles on Wikipedia are reliable,
accurate, and reflect our ever-evolving understanding of the world.
Paywalls and copyright restrictions too often prevent the use of academic
research in this effort.
Our new Open Access Policy will ensure that all research the Wikimedia
Foundation supports through grants, equipment, or research collaboration is
made widely accessible and reusable. Research, data, and code developed
through these collaborations will be made available in Open Access venues
and under a free license <http://freedomdefined.org/> in keeping with the
Wikimedia Foundation’s mission to support free knowledge.
The Wikimedia Foundation is proud to join the growing ranks of leading
institutions with open access policies.
Wikimedia Foundation Open Access Policy
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Open_access_policy>
1. Expectations
Researchers will need to provide unrestricted access to and reuse of all
their research output if their research receives support from the Wikimedia
Foundation in the form of:
-
funds;
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letters of endorsement;
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equipment, hosting, or office space;
-
access to non-public data or special API privileges; or
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other support under an agreement between researchers and the Wikimedia
Foundation.
A. Proposal. Researchers will document their project on Meta-Wiki,
including the original research proposal, main research questions, and key
outcomes.
B. Supporting Materials. Researchers will deposit their work in a public
repository by the time of publication of any respective research article or
within three months after the termination of the project, whichever comes
first. The deposited work should be licensed as follows:
-
aggregated and properly anonymized data produced as part of the project
under an Open Definition-conformant license
<http://opendefinition.org/licenses/>, preferably CC0;
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source code under the GNU General Public License version 2.0 or any
other Open Source Initiative-approved license
<http://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical>;
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media files under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 or any
other free license <http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses>.
C. Published Materials. Researchers will publish all output in an Open
Access outlet under a Free License.
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If a work based on the project is accepted for publication in a peer
reviewed outlet that does not make its articles available online, free of
charge, and under free licenses, an electronic copy of the author’s
accepted manuscript will be submitted to a public and permanently
archived repository by the official date of publication, without any
embargo period, and released under a Free License.
2. Limited waiver
Specific waivers from the expectations above may be applied in limited
circumstances on a case-by-case basis. Researchers wanting a waiver are
required to submit to the Wikimedia Foundation, in writing, a detailed
explanation of why they require the waiver. The Wikimedia Foundation will
publicly post a summary of the request and its response.
The WMF Open Access Policy is effective as of March 18, 2015 for all new
research agreements. For more information, see the Frequently Asked
Questions <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Open_access_policy/FAQ> on
this policy.
About the Wikimedia Foundation
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https://wikimediafoundation.org
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https://blog.wikimedia.org/
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia consists of more than 34
million articles in 288 languages. Every month, tens of thousands of active
volunteers contribute to Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. With
nearly half a billion monthly users, projects operated by the Wikimedia
Foundation are one of the most popular web properties in the world. Based
in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is a 501(c)(3)
charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.
Wikimedia Foundation Press Contact
Katherine Maher
-
+1 415-839-6885 ext. 6633
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press(a)wikimedia.org
*Juliet Barbara*
Senior Communications Manager I Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street I San Francisco, CA 94105
jbarbara(a)wikimedia.org I +1 (512) 750-5677
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