<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Dear OA community,</div><div><span style="font-size: 13px; ">I thought some of you may be interested in COAR's comments on NISO's </span><a href="http://www.niso.org/apps/group_public/document.php?document_id=12047" style="font-size: 13px; ">draft Open Access Metadata and Indicators</a></div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica" size="4"><b>COAR's Comments on NISO's Open Access Metadata and Indicators</b></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: large; ">The Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) supports NISO’s efforts to harmonize the expression of open access and re-use rights for publications. We strongly believe that it would be very beneficial to have a common approach to these indicators across the entire scholarly community.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica" size="4">COAR is an international association of repository initiatives representing over 100 organizations in 35 countries on 4 continents (Asia, Europe, North America and South America). <span lang="EN-CA">Our mission is to enhance the visibility and application of research outputs through a global network of Open Access digital repositories. COAR’s members represent an important stakeholder community, as they would be tasked with adapting to any such community standard within the context of their repositories. </span>To that end, we have a number of specific comments that we invite the NISO working group to consider.</font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><b><font face="Helvetica">Adopt a common vocabulary within the context of existing metadata schemas, instead of creating new metadata elements: </font></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; ">In principal, COAR concurs that there should be a clear distinction between the expression of access status and associated rights. However, we have strong concerns with the proposal to introduce new metadata elements in order to express these concepts. Most existing metadata schemas already have elements for expressing rights (for example, the rights element in Dublin Core). Instead of introducing new metadata elements, which will be extremely onerous for the community to adopt, COAR proposes the adoption of a common vocabulary that can be implemented into elements within existing metadata schemas. COAR and other stakeholders in the repository community are already maintaining the “</span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: Helvetica; "><a href="https://www.coar-repositories.org/activities/repository-interoperability/ig-controlled-vocabularies-for-repository-assets/"><span lang="EN-US">info:eu-repo</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; ">” vocabulary</span><a href="x-msg://1316/#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title="" style="font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="MsoFootnoteReference">[1]</span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; "> that could promote the use of standard vocabulary elements around open access. In addition, any described standards should also be compatible with more detailed and extensive metadata formats beyond Dublin Core (for example MODS, MARCXML or CERIF) and should be checked in this respect.</span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><b><font face="Helvetica">Use the term “open access” instead of “free to read”: </font></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; ">Open access is a term widely used and understood in the scholarly community and has become the standard terminology. COAR sees no value in adopting a new term. Rather a new term, free to read, will only serve to obfuscate the issue.</span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><font face="Helvetica"><b>There should be no end dates for “free to read” (or “open access”) indicator: </b></font><span style="font-family: Helvetica; ">By allocating an end date to the “free to read” element, the working group is confusing open access content with promotional material (that may be made available for a short time and then attached with a fee). This practice would go against normal and best practice of the scholarly community. Open access (free to read), by its very nature, can be embargoed for a time, but once it has been made available without a fee, cannot be put again behind a pay wall.</span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><b><font face="Helvetica">More repository use cases should be included: </font></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; ">There are two major options for providing open access to articles: open access journals and open access repository. The NISO recommendations fail to take into account the range of indicators that are required in the repository context. For example, in their current form, there is no way to express who the copyright holder is or distinguish between pre-prints from post-prints. Furthermore, there is a significant portion of content in repositories that lacks a URI with information about re-use rights. Current repository platforms have already implemented much more sophisticated approaches to rights expression than the ones recommended by NISO. These may have to be drastically altered if current indicators are adopted. In terms of next steps, we strongly urge the working group to consider designing a simple mapping or crosswalk that would allow repositories to join into this harmonization effort. In addition, more repository use cases should be taken into account as the recommendations are adapted and implemented, and NISO should broaden its working group to include greater representation from the repository community.</span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><b><font face="Helvetica">Widen the scope of recommendations: </font></b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; ">End users of repositories need transparent information on the access conditions for all types of material in their collections. The NISO draft emphasizes content and scholarly works, terms that imply a wide range of content types beyond publications. However, as acknowledged by NISO (pg. 2), these indicators do not take into account the characteristics of a range research outputs including datasets. Research data is increasingly recognized as an important scholarly output, valuable on its own or in connection with publications. It is clear that the issue of access to research data is difficult to describe with a simple "free-to-read" tag, or similar. Taking all this in consideration COAR suggests that any recommended practice should also address research data.</span></font></p><div><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"><div id="ftn1"><p class="MsoFootnoteText"><font face="Helvetica" size="4"><a href="x-msg://1316/#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-CA"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-CA">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-CA"> <a href="https://www.coar-repositories.org/activities/repository-interoperability/ig-controlled-vocabularies-for-repository-assets/">https://www.coar-repositories.org/activities/repository-interoperability/ig-controlled-vocabularies-for-repository-assets/</a></span><span lang="DE"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p></div></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div><div>Kathleen Shearer</div><div apple-content-edited="true"><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Executive Director, COAR</div><div><a href="mailto:kathleen.shearer@coar-repositories.org">kathleen.shearer@coar-repositories.org</a></div><div><a href="http://www.coar-repositories.org">www.coar-repositories.org</a></div><div>Skype: kathleen.shearer2</div><div>+1 514 847 9068</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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