On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 7:57 AM, Joe Hourcle <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>
> I can't comment on the linked data side of things so much, but in
> following all of the comments from the US's push for opening up access to
> federally funded research, I'd have to say that capitalism and
> protectionist attitudes from 'publishers' seem to be a major factor in the
> fight against open access.
>

That definitely doesn't help. But quite a few players own this problem.

Pockets where there is a culture of openness can be found but at least in
my neck of the woods, researchers as a group fear being scooped and face
incentive structures that discourage openness. You get brownie points for
driving your metrics up as well as being first and novel, not for investing
huge amounts of time structuring your data so that everyone else can look
great using what you created.

Libraries face their own challenges in this regard. Even if we ignore that
many libraries and library organizations are pretty tight with what they
consider their intellectual property, there is still the issue that most of
us are also under pressure to demonstrate impact, originality, etc. As a
practical matter, this means we are rewarded for contributing to churn,
imposing branding, keeping things siloed and local, etc. so that we can
generate metrics that show how relevant we are to those who pay our bills
even if we could do much more good by contributing to community initiatives.

With regards to our local data initiatives, we don't push the open data
aspect because this has practically no traction with researchers. What does
interest them is meeting funder and publisher requirements as well as being
able to transport their own research from one environment to another so
that they can use it. The takeaway from this is that leadership from the
top does matter.

The good news is that things seem to be moving in the right direction, even
if it is at the speed of goo.

kyle