From: Cynthia Hodgson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 11:03:18 -0500


The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is seeking
comments on the draft recommended practice Open Access Metadata and
Indicators (NISO RP-22-201x). Launched in January 2013, the NISO Open
Access Metadata and Indicators Working Group was chartered to develop
protocols and mechanisms for transmitting the access status of
scholarly works, specifically to indicate whether a specific work is
openly accessible (i.e., free-to-read by any user who can get to the
work over the internet) and what re-use rights might be available.
This draft recommended practice proposes the adoption of two core
pieces of metadata and associated tags: <free_to_read> and
<license_ref>. The first tag would indicate that the work is freely
accessible during the specified timeframe (if applicable). The second
tag would contain a reference to a URI that carries the license terms
specifying how a work may be used.

“Currently publishers provide articles that are free-to-read under a
wide range of re-use terms and licenses,” explains Cameron Neylon,
Advocacy Director, PLOS, and Co-chair of the NISO Open Access Metadata
and Indicators Working Group. “It is unclear to readers when an
article is freely accessible and what their re-use rights are. Funders
are unsure if the publication of an article complies with their open
access policies. Aggregators and platform or knowledgebase providers
have no consistent mechanism for machine-processing metadata and
identifying the accessibility or rights status. Adoption of these two
common metadata designations will allow both humans and machines to
assess the status of content.”

“Use and re-use rights can be difficult to explain in metadata,”
states Ed Pentz, Executive Director, CrossRef, and Co-chair of the
NISO Open Access Metadata and Indicators Working Group. “By publishing
URIs for applicable licenses and including these URIs in the metadata
for the content, more detailed explanations of rights can be made
available. The <license_ref> metadata can also be used to express how
usage rights change over time or point to different licenses for
particular time periods, for example when an embargo applies.”

“The recommended metadata tags can easily be incorporated into
existing metadata distribution channels, encoded in XML, and added to
existing schemas and workflows,” states Greg Tananbaum, Consultant at
SPARC and Co-chair of the NISO Open Access Metadata and Indicators
Working Group. “Publishers and platform providers can use the
<free_to_read> tag to automate the display of appropriate status icons
to users. The combination of <free_to_read> and <license_ref> metadata
provides a mechanism for signaling or determining compliance with most
funder and institutional policies that allow compliance through the
article publisher’s site.”

“In addition to the recommendations, the Working Group has defined the
most common use cases,” states Nettie Lagace, NISO’s Associate
Director for Programs. “For each use case, the current situation and
applicable stakeholders are described and the extent to which the
recommendations will solve the situation is explained. The group has
also identified several issues for further follow-up, such as the
incorporation of the recommended metadata into existing formats, such
as ONIX.”

The draft recommended practice is open for public comment through
February 4, 2014. To download the draft or submit online comments,
visit the Open Access Metadata and Indicators webpage at:
www.niso.org/workrooms/oami/.

Cynthia Hodgson
Technical Editor / Consultant
National Information Standards Organization
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301-654-2512