Tag Archives: open access

Sep
13
2012

Open Access, expanding the Share button

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 I admit that even the idea of open access was counter-intuitive for me before this week’s readings. Coming from an academic background that valued copyright, publishing laws, and intellectual property above all else, it felt wrong to me for anyone to suggest we not only give away our work for free but we encourage others to modify it as well. I tried as much as possible to come into the readings with an open mind and to explore the existing and potential benefits that come with open access.

 In his piece Open Source as Culture/Culture as Open Source from The Social Media Reader, Vaidhyanathan was straight forward about the benefits of open source as opposed to the short falls of copyright. He lists peer production and the long standing norm of sharing new discoveries with one another openly as selling points for open access.  Peer production exemplifies the old adage that two heads are better than one, and sharing the product/idea/service developed from this collaboration through open access can benefit anyone or everyone.  Previously I had not given much thought to how new and counter-productive copyright law can be. I had always come from the perspective that copyright was there to protect the artist’s ability to support themselves on their work, not that copyright could actually hinder information sources. Not to say that copyright is inherently bad, but most circumstances could be served by a middle ground. Vaidhyanathan confirms this by stating, “Most important, these experiments and projects show that “all rights reserved” need not be the default state of copyright protection. For many people, “some rights reserved” serves the interests of creators better than the absolutist proprietary model does.”

With peer production and collaboration established as strengths of open access, what could a potential risk be? When there are multiple people involved in the same project, it is not always guaranteed that they will have a common objective. Who is to say that the next person to modify an existing idea, object, or service is making it better or even has positive intentions with their actions? The authors of chapter 5 in The Social Media Reader narrate an incident when Stephen Colbert purposefully edited a Wikipedia article with false information and encouraged the viewers of his show, The Colbert Report, to do the same. Wikipedia had fail safes in place to eventually correct the article, but the situation did bring to light the understanding that some kind of regulation is essential to maintain the integrity of a project that makes use of collaboration.

I asked for a different view than my own on intellectual property, and Mandiberg‘s Giving Things Away Is Hard Work was certain there to provide. Practice over origin was the overarching theme, and patent is thrown by the wayside for the good of the community. He goes as far as hoping that a large bike manufacturer will steal one of his inventions just so it reaches a larger audience. While I did feel that his philosophy on giving away your work for free was somewhat unrealistic for most workers in today’s world, I did agree with his point on how the participatory nature of open access can be the genesis of a community. He writes, “The sharing of the project creates participation. And participation is at the edge of the beginnings of community.” 

Because this is my first M.A. class, I had not given much thought previously to the cost of academic publishing. However, while the prior readings had not really sold me on open access, Dawson’s DIY Academy from The Social Media Reader coupled with the first chapter of the Open Access textbook have showed me how flawed the current publishing system in academia can be with respect to cost barriers and influence of the public and publisher on the subjects explored by authors. Open access has obvious strengths in this area because publishing online can be done practically free, the material can be accessed by anyone so there is no pressure to cover a subject of interest to a publisher’s market. While online publishing may not now have the same integrity as an established printed publication has built over time, I believe that the academic world will come up with a change out of necessity, and very soon. However, the irony that only part of the Open Access textbook was available online for free was not lost on me.

Sep
13
2012

With an Open Mind to Open Source

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I was intrigued to see that open source was one of the topics for this week’s discussion because aside from the basic concept of what it means, I was rather unfamiliar with it. Vaidhyanathan quotes Benkler, who views open source as “peer production”, which, in my opinion, gets at the very heart of what open source is all about. The opportunities for collaboration offered by open source is at the heart of what distinguishes Web 2.0 from 1.0 and, as mentioned in the readings, Linux and Wikipedia are excellent examples of how just how embedded in our society open source has become. I also thought that Vaidhyanathan brought up a good point that the copyright holder must have enough faith in the copyright system to justify his or her investment in it. Without such faith, the system cannot thrive, which is why some programmers and entrepreneurs contribute to open source. Given the popularity of the aforementioned examples, the open source concept is more powerful than one might think.

Interestingly, Hyde et al. discussed the difference between sharing of content and collaboration, two terms that can be easily confused, especially in the context of social media. As mentioned by Hyde et al., social media platforms can become collaborative when they add an additional layer of coordination such as a hashtag on Twitter. However, such platforms are not inherently collaborative, which implies a many-to-many reach. Often, users simply share content, which can be viewed as more of a one-to-many approach. In this way, it can be argued that while many social network users may feel that they are collaborating when they use social media, they are simply sharing content.

As a marketing doctoral student, I found the case studies discussed by Mandiberg to be quite interesting. Mandiberg’s main point is that participation breeds creative mutation, which leads to better ideas through collaboration. From a business perspective, it is a natural inclination to think that this mentality is a good one to have if you want your idea to be “stolen” from you. However, Mandiberg argues that as a result of others’ contributions, the original idea can be transformed into something greater than what it started as. It is interesting to note, however, that this tends to work best for a product that has some sort of digital component to it because a strictly physical product does not require collaboration, but simply, a means of production.

I have often wondered about some of Dawson’s points in her argument for a DIY Academy. However, she begins the chapter by saying that “…scholars illogically hand over their hard-won knowledge virtually for free to presses…” While this is true, I believe that part of the beauty of scholarly research lies in its tenets of peer revision and journal selectivity. After all, by electing journal editors who have vast experience in a given field and by allowing all authors to review one another’s work, this system helps to maintain the prestige that academia is known for, while still allowing for the acceptance of a variety of viewpoints through the security of the tenure system. I agree that in light of developments in digital technology, the current publishing system should be revised, but I’m not sure that a completely open-access arrangement is the best move for scholarship either.

 

Sep
09
2012

Three things… (now four)

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1. I forgot to mention this in class last week, but I have an undergrad doing an independent study with me on the topic of cyberethics. She is blogging as part of her work, and she and I would both appreciate your thoughts on her blog posts. The cyberethics blog can be found here: http://blogs.memphis.edu/kmmrkman/. Thanks!

2. For this Thursday’s discussion about open access and collaboration, I’d like to propose looking at Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a case study in openness. Here are a few links to get you started if you haven’t been obsessively following the discussion this summer:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/05/opinion/bennett-udacity-education/index.html

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/coursera-hits-1-million-students-with-udacity-close-behind/38801

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/08/02/conventional-online-universities-consider-strategic-response-moocs

http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/whats-the-matter-with-moocs/33289

3. Don’t forget to comment on last week’s blog posts. Let’s keep the discussion going!

And here’s a 4th thing I just saw, a new book, Open Access, which, while not entirely open yet, does have a sample chapter available for free download.