The document discusses the adoption of Creative Commons licenses for open access scholarly journals. It notes that the Directory of Open Access Journals and Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association are encouraging or requiring Creative Commons licenses, especially CC BY, for inclusion and membership. CC BY is considered the most open license. The document reviews the different CC license options and considerations for choosing a license, and provides resources for implementing CC licenses including updating author agreements and journal pages.

1. Creative Commons licenses for
eScholarship journals:
Why, what and how
Katie Fortney
katie.fortney@ucop.edu
help@escholarship.org
July 24, 2013

2. Directory of Open Access Journals
(DOAJ)
• ~10 years old
• ~10,000 journals
• Inclusion in DOAJ
= better
discoverability,
implication of
quality
Obsolete Book - 5/365 by Jamie CC BY http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamiesrabbits/4248396588/
New (draft) criteria
announced 6/12/13
• Need a CC license to be
listed
• Need a CC BY license for
the new “DOAJ Seal of
Approval”
– http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=
news&nId=303&uiLanguage=en

3. Open Access Scholarly Publishers
Association (OASPA)
• ~5 years old
• ~70 members
• “At OASPA, one of the criteria for membership is that
a publisher must use a liberal license that encourages
the reuse and distribution of content. We strongly
encourage publishers to choose a Creative
Commons license and recommend (but currently do
not require) the use of the CC-BY license wherever
possible. . . . OASPA will currently also admit
members who have a CC-BY-NC policy.”
– OASPA Frequently Asked Questions,
http://oaspa.org/information-resources/frequently-asked-questions/

4. It’s a jungle out there.
• Open Access
Advocacy -> OA
standards and
best practices
• Easily visible
indicators of
who’s following
the rules
Tiger Profile by Kenneth Barrett CC BY-NC http://www.flickr.com/photos/griangrafanna/218580624/
Predator

5. Open Access vs. Copyright’s Default
Half-open door to Heaven by Klearchos Kapoutsis CC BY http://www.flickr.com/photos/klearchos/4761478827/
“open access is about more than access – open access
removes access and reuse barriers, and thus has the
potential to transform the literature into a much more
powerful resource for research, education and
innovation.” – OASPA FAQ

6. CC Licenses as a Solution
• Require giving credit
• Author keeps copyright ownership
• Widely used (for all kinds of
content)
• Machine readable
• Six different licenses to choose from
Keys, USS Bowfin by Joseph Novak CC BY http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephleenovak/5559755789/

7. CC BY: Attribution
Bare bones by Caroline CC BY http://www.flickr.com/photos/hills_alive/8511444405/
Currently used by PLOS, BioMedCentral, Springer, Wiley,
the Institute of Physics, and others.

8. The NonCommercial (NC) Restriction
• E.g.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc/3.0/legalcode
• Some debate/confusion
about what counts as
“commercial”
• Broadest possible reuse vs.
discomfort with commercial
activity
Forex Money for Exchange in Currency Bank by epSos.de CC BY http://www.flickr.com/photos/epsos/8463683689/

9. The No Derivative Works (ND)
Restriction
• E.g.
http://creativecommons.org/licens
es/by-nd/3.0/legalcode
• No “translation,
adaptation, derivative
work,” etc.
• Inclusions in collections
and anthologies still
allowed.
• Encouraging as many
translations as possible vs.
tightly controlling them
Building Blocks by tiffany terry CC BY http://www.flickr.com/photos/35168673@N03/6086229920/

10. The ShareAlike (SA) Restriction
• E.g.
http://creativecommons.org/lic
enses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode
• Applies to
Adaptations, but not
Collections
• Ensures translations
will be shared, but
dictates translators’
choice of license
Photo by Katie Fortney

11. Choosing a License
Think about needs of
• Journal
• Journal readers
• Contributors
• Services and
intermediaries
Stone balancing! by Giles Turnbull CC BY-NC http://www.flickr.com/photos/gilest/132093750/

12. Nuts and Bolts: Author Agreements
• Journals adopting CC
licenses will need to
update author
agreements
• We have samples
showing how to add
the CC aspect to the
standard agreement
• Any other questions
about journal’s author
agreements?

13. Nuts and Bolts: Page Display
CC license information will appear on
journal landing page sidebar, article
display sidebar, and PDF cover pages.

14. Resources and Tools
• Creative Commons has LOTS of information and
resources,
– About the Licenses: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
– NonCommercial (definitions and confusion):
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Defining_Noncommercial
– ShareAlike: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Share_Alike
– Wiki, FAQs: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ
• DOAJ proposed new critera:
http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=news&nId=303&uiLanguage=en
• OASPA FAQ on licensing: http://oaspa.org/information-
resources/frequently-asked-questions/

15. Questions?
Question mark sign by Colin Kinner CC BY http://www.flickr.com/photos/colinkinner/2200500024/