[GOAL] Informed consent and open licensing: some questions for discussion

[Couture, Marc]

Hi all,

Heather Morrison raises in this thread some relevant and important issues regarding open licenses: How they are displayed? How to treat works combining elements bearing various licenses (some of them being possibly "all rights reserved")? She asks:

"who is using embedded licensing metadata (as opposed to displayed), and how?"

Licensing metadata embedding, though not explicitly part of its "best practice", is suggested by DOAJ, and is a condition for obtaining the DOAJ Seal. This can be done by including basic HTML code in the article (and/or abstract) pages, and by importing XMP metadata in the PDF (see https://doaj.org/rights).

I was in charge of this task for our small journal (http://ijthe.org) when we had to reapply to DOAJ, and we did qualify for the Seal. However, I didn't see any way to embed, in the (HTML) abstract page or the PDF, anything other than a global license applying to the whole article. Embedding licensing metadata of individual elements is probably easier in the HTML versions of the articles, but as we offer only PDFs (and HTML abstracts), I didn't try to find how to do it. Maybe others can pitch in.

We do include in the CC mention displayed in the journal footer the disclaimer ("Except when otherwise noted..."), and we clearly display in the articles (as it's usually done in scholarly publishing) the status of any element not covered by our CC licence. However, I didn't find anything about embedding in the PDF such a disclaimer, which would be useless anyway if the licensing info of individual elements is not also embedded.

As a final thought, as part of an exhaustive survey of Canadian scholarly OA journals, I assessed how journals cope with copyright matters. I plan to write about it soon (the survey is almost finished), but I can already point out that these (mostly) small (or very small indeed) journals could really improve their practice in this matter. I'll just say for now that talking of embedding licensing metadata would be too soon, too much for many journals, as compared to actually display the license (if any) so that their potential recipients (users/readers) can see it, or even to say something user rights, or even about copyright itself. DOAJ could really be of help here, and I know they are making efforts to reach these journals.

Marc Couture

De : goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] De la part de Heather Morrison
Envoyé : 28 août 2019 12:17
À : goal at eprints.org
Objet : Re: [GOAL] Informed consent and open licensing: some questions for discussion

Thank you Martyn, this is very helpful.

As an author, I have appreciated MDPI's flexibility with respect to licenses. I am sure that other publishers have similar situations where re-use of material and/or accommodating particular authors requires flexibility with respect to licensing.

This mixed licensing environment raises a number of questions, mostly technical ones. Fully answering the questions requires an understanding of who proposes to use these works, and how. Following are 2 questions that I hope will further understanding of the issues, one for MDPI and other publishers and one for everyone.

  1.  For MDPI and other publishers: based on the Jan. 31, 2019 DOAJ metadata, it appears that all or nearly all of MDPI journals have answered "yes" to "Machine-readable CC licensing information embedded or displayed in articles". Q: can you explain how embedding works when the CC license does not apply to all of the content in the article, as is the case when re-use of an item like an image requires permission and must be under All Rights Reserved terms? For example, do the elements that require separate licensing have separate metadata embedded licensing? Does the embedded metadata at the article level state the default license only or does it speak to the separately licensed material, in specific or general terms?

  2.  Everyone: who is using embedded licensing metadata (as opposed to displayed), and how? Are there hopes or expectations of how this metadata will be used in future for which there are no examples yet?
Further discussion - answers or more questions - is encouraged.


Dr. Heather Morrison

Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa

Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa

Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight Project

sustainingknowledgecommons.org

Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca

https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706

[On research sabbatical July 1, 2019 - June 30, 2020]

________________________________
From: goal-bounces at eprints.org <goal-bounces at eprints.org> on behalf of Martyn Rittman <rittman at mdpi.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2019 7:02 AM
To: goal at eprints.org <goal at eprints.org>
Subject: Re: [GOAL] Informed consent and open licensing: some questions for discussion

Attention : courriel externe | external email
Heather raises a good point here related to certain types of images. MDPI provides a sample consent form (you can access the link e.g. at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijms/instructions#ethics) in which we try to make clear the implications of publishing in open access, but when it comes to reuse there are clearly other rights that should be enforced for the protection of patients.

I don't recall a case where this has been flagged as an issue, but we have had similar cases with images taken by someone other than the authors and numerous cases of previously published images where the authors needed permission to republish. Here, a more restrictive copyright (e.g. all rights reserved) can be applied to the image than to the rest of the text. I would suggest that this could provide a solution in most cases.

Best regards,
Martyn

--
Martyn Rittman, Ph.D.
Publishing Director, MDPI
St. Alban-Anlage 66, 4052 Basel, Switzerland
+41 61 683 77 35
rittman at mdpi.com<mailto:rittman at mdpi.com>
www.mdpi.com<http://www.mdpi.com>

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