Science Commons
Creative Commons was formed to allow content creators to disseminate and license their work in terms that are easy to understand both by the content creator and by the users of the content (Wilbanks & Boyle, 2006). Additionally, Creative Commons uses metadata to facilitate the retrieval of content by topic and by the Creative Commons license terms (Wilbanks & Boyle, 2006). Perhaps you have been to a blog, wiki, or website and noticed that the site content was licensed under one of six Creative Commons Attribution Licenses. Creators may specify a personalized mix of conditions for their licenses, covering attribution, noncommercial use, and distribution of derivative works (see License your work - Creative Commons).
A number of different Creative Commons projects have been designed to support and expand the public domain. The three primary projects are grouped collectively under The Commons. These are Science Commons, Creative Commons International (CCi), and ccLearn.
Science Commons focuses on three areas: (1) scholarly communication, (2) licensing policies, and (3) using the semantic web to increase access to scientific information (Wilbanks & Boyle, 2006).
From the perspective of Science Commons, scholarly communication in the sciences consists of three types of information: (1) data generated from research, (2) peer-reviewed journal articles that disseminate findings from research, and (3) article-based metadata (Wilbanks & Boyle, 2006). To this end, Science Commons has launched three "proof of concept" projects.
Scholar’s Copyright Project. The Scholar’s Copyright Project offers a variety of tools and resources supporting two methods of achieving open access: (1) self-archiving, and (2) publishing in an open access journal. One such tool is the development of the Science Commons Open Access Data Protocol. This protocol is a "methodology and best practices document" for creating or ensuring that scientific databases can be legally integrated with one another. (See Science Commons: Scholar’s Copyright Project - Open Access Data Protocol. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from http://sciencecommons.org/projects/publishing/.)
Biological Materials Transfer Project. The Biological Materials Transfer Project develops and uses "standard, modular contracts" to lower the costs of transferring physical biological materials. One example of their work is a partnership with iBridge to provide transparency and access to university-developed innovations. (See Science Commons: Biological Materials Transfer Project. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from http://sciencecommons.org/projects/licensing/.)
The Neurocommons. The Neurocommons project is creating an "Open Source knowledge management platform for biological research." It focuses on three areas: (1) data integration projects in collaboration with the W3C Semantic Web Health Care and Life Science interest group, (2) text mining projects that use the Resource Description Framework (RDF) to semantically link biomedical literature, and (3) analytic tools for searching experimental data. (See Science Commons: The Neurocommons. Retrieved June 1, 2008, from http://sciencecommons.org/projects/data/.)
Science Commons also supports the investigation of new open access business models for scholarly communication. Examples include Public Library of Science (PLoS), BioMed Central, and Springer Open Choice™ (Wilbanks & Boyle, 2006).
ScienceBlogs
Home to over sixty science bloggers, ScienceBlogs provides an unfiltered forum for science writers, with content grouped into the following categories:
- Life Science
- Physical Science
- Environment
- Humanities & Social Science
- Education & Careers
- Politics
- Medicine & Health
- Brain & Behavior
- Technology
In addition to organizing many diverse perspectives on science and technology, ScienceBlogs provides the Last 24 Hours, a service that displays the most recent posts in chronological order. Other blog entries are indexed by the name of the blog and organized by “Most Recent Post by Channel.” Notable features include a "Top Five" list ordered by "Readers' Picks," "Most Active," and "Most German" (with a link to ScienceBlogs.de) and "Ask a ScienceBlogger," which allows readers to submit questions. "Why do you blog, and how does blogging help with your research?" was a recent question answered by the ScienceBloggers.
Postgenomic
Another resource that collects feeds from science-related blogs is Postgenomic. A service of Nature Publishing Group, Postgenomic covers hundreds of science blogs and organizes them into useful categories, including reviews of papers, conference reports, and original research (Nature Publishing Group, 2008). Most items may be exported directly to Connotea, a web-based reference management tool. Literature (papers and books) may be filtered by date added, date published, or popularity. The "Zeitgeist" page provides a statistical overview for all Postgenomic content and includes statistics for "Top Blogs," "Top Publishers," and "Top Tags" submitted by users.
References
Nature Publishing Group (2008). Postgenomic. Retrieved June 18, 2008, from http://postgenomic.com/index.php
Wilbanks, J., & Boyle, J. (2006). Introduction to Science Commons. http://sciencecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/ScienceCommons_Concept_Paper.pdf
If you have questions about these sources or would like to know more about similar services that support scholarly communication in science, email nihlibrary@nih.gov or call Reference & Information Services at 301-496-1080.