Our friend and colleague Bassel Khartabil was Creative Commons’ Syrian project lead, an open source developer, a teacher, a Wikipedia contributor, and a renowned free culture advocate. He was also a devoted son and husband, and a great friend to many in the global open knowledge community.
We were heartbroken and outraged to learn earlier this week the awful news of Bassel’s execution by the Syrian regime.
At the request of Bassel’s family, Creative Commons is announcing today that it has established the Bassel Khartabil Memorial Fund to support projects in the spirit of Bassel’s work. Creative Commons is accepting donations, and has seeded the fund with $10,000. Bassel was our friend and colleague, and CC invites the public to celebrate Bassel’s legacy and support the continuation of his powerful work and open values in a global community.
Contributions to the fund will go towards projects, programs, and grants to support individuals advancing collaboration, community building, and leadership development in the open communities of the Arab world. The fund will also support the digital preservation, sharing, and remix of creative works and historical artifacts. All of these projects are deeply intertwined with CC’s core mission and values, and those of other communities to which Bassel contributed.
We are deeply saddened and completely outraged to learn today that our friend and colleague Bassel Khartabil has been executed by the Syrian regime.
Bassel was Creative Commons’ Syrian project lead, an open source software programmer, teacher, Wikipedia contributor, and free culture advocate. He was also a devoted son and husband, and a great friend to many people in the open knowledge community around the world. The projects and communities he helped to build live on across the globe, and will remain a tribute to his leadership.
In March of 2012, Bassel was taken from the street in Damascus amid a wave of military arrests. He was jailed for several years, during which time he was allowed to infrequently communicate with family members. Then, in October 2015, he was abruptly transferred to an undisclosed location. At that time, all communications between Bassel and the outside world ceased. The Creative Commons board publicly called for Bassel’s immediate release, and the MIT Media Lab offered Bassel a research position in its Center for Civic Media. His family and friends prayed for his safe return, and are heartbroken today to learn the awful and terrifying news of his execution.
Over the past several years, a variety of human rights groups called for Bassel’s release. Amnesty International launched a campaign through its Urgent Action network that encouraged the public to write letters to Syrian authorities and urge them to grant Bassel access to his family, a lawyer, and medical attention. The US State Department singled him out on International Human Rights Day in 2015 as a “prisoner of conscience.”
Additionally, since his detention, an international community of Bassel’s friends and colleagues have worked to raise awareness about Bassel, his projects, and his story through the #FreeBassel campaign. As an extension of this project, a massive 3D-printed rendering of one of the Palmyra Tetrapylons was created for and exhibited at this year’s Creative Commons Global Summit. The rendering was a tribute to Bassel and was made directly possible by Bassel’s work in the founding of #NEWPALMYRA, an effort to digitally capture and remodel the endangered ruins of Palmyra.
Around the world, activists and advocates seek the sharing of culture, and open knowledge. Creative Commons, and the global commons of art, history, and knowledge, are stronger because of Bassel’s contributions, and our community is better because of his work and his friendship. His death is a terrible reminder of what many individuals and families risk in order to make a better society.
Last month we announced the Community Activities Fund as part of our ongoing efforts to support the activities of CC communities and beyond. Creative Commons is committed to building and fostering a vibrant global commons through the activities and projects they undertake. Our fund was created in response to direct community requests, and we could not be happier to announce that the following projects have been granted financial support through this fund:
Uruguay: Copyright Reform Brochures
CC Uruguay is currently in the middle of a hard fight for a copyright reform in Uruguay that includes strengthening limitations to copyright for purposes of citation and parody, as well as exceptions for libraries and education, freedom of panorama, orphan works, and others. The CC Community Activities Fund will help the team print brochures that explain the copyright reform work and the CC Licenses.
Zimbabwe: First CC Community Meetup
Until recently, Zimbabwe did not have an active Creative Commons community. We’re supporting a small group to host the first CC event in Bulawayo which will bring together various stakeholders and interested parties with a view to kickstart a broader CC Zimbabwe team.
Uganda: OER Workshop
In Uganda, like many places in the developing world, access to education is increasingly limited to the few that can afford it as instructional resources becomes more exam-oriented and teacher centered. We’re supporting a team from Uganda to host an OER workshop for high school teachers to expose them to the benefits of OER and strategize how to adopt it in their schools.
Tanzania: CC Training for Young Lawyers and IT Students
Awareness-raising about Creative Commons remains a top priority in Tanzania, and the CC TZ team is targeting young lawyers at the Institute of Judicial Administration (IJA) – Tanzania. Their goal is to train these lawyers on CC licenses and get them involved the in CC community in Tanzania, and globally.
India: CC Outreach to Startup and Business Communities
We received several applications from India and we’re glad to be supporting an initiative to reach out to the startup and business communities in the Coimbatore and Bengaluru to talk about open issues.
Nepal: Introduction to Creative Commons Event
Until recently, Nepal is another country that hasn’t had an active CC presence. We’re supporting a team there to host a two day CC Nepal event themed “Introduction to Creative Commons in Nepal”. This event will be an orientation for students, researchers, lawyers, open advocates, activists and professionals from different fields about the core concepts of Creative Commons.
Ghana: Summer Open School
Returning to the theme of awareness-raising, a team in Ghana is planning a Summer Open School—a three day conference to bring students together and introduce them to the Open Movement, with lessons on two main subject areas: Creative Commons and Wikipedia. We’re supporting some of the logistics to put on this event.
So far, we’ve received and reviewed over 200 applications from all 5 regions around the globe. The highest number of applications came from USA, India, Nigeria, Canada, France, Tanzania, Australia and Ghana. Of those that applied for the grant, 76 applicants are CC affiliates and 128 are not CC affiliates.
The CC 4.0 licenses are now translated into Italian
The official Italian translation of the Creative Commons 4.0 Licenses and CC0 waiver is now available! Led by CC Italy, the translations also benefited from the collaboration with CC Switzerland. The working group was hosted and coordinated by the Nexa Center for Internet & Society at Politecnico di Torino, the Italian-affiliated institution of the Creative Commons international network.
During the drafting of the 4.0 licenses in English, the original CC Italy group worked closely with the CC HQ legal team determine how best to manage sui generis database rights. These discussions minimized the number of issues they faced when translating the licenses into Italian. After the public launch of the English licenses, the CC Italy working group drafted the Italian translation of the CC 4.0 license suite and reviewed the Italian translation of CC0—with the important feedback of several fellows of the Nexa Center and other members of the Italian Creative Commons community.
The community of the Nexa Center at Politecnico di Torino, the Italian CC network affiliate institution. Photo by Francesco Ruggiero, CC BY 4.0
More details about the translation process are available on the Creative Commons wiki. The final part of the 4.0 and CC0 Italian translation process is also documented on the Nexa Center’s GitHub account. The GitHub documentation provides only part of the story, but it generates useful documentation of the linguistic and legal exercise of translation. The CC Italy team is committed to using this GitHub again and more systematically in the future. See an example of how the team used Github to improve their processes, where a suggestion from Sarah Pearson helped the team minimize the differences between the original English version and the Italian translation.
A special thank you to the following groups:
The original CC Italy Working Group of: Federico Morando, Claudio Artusio, Massimo Travostino, Marco Ricolfi, Alessandro Cogo, and Thomas Margoni
The fellows at the Nexa Center: Elena Pavan, Stefano Leucci, Marco Ciurcina, and Miryam Bianco for the 4.0 suite and Angelo Maria Rovati and Silvia Bisi for CC0
Other members of the CC Italy Community: Monica Palmirani, Manuela Avidano, Maurizio Lana, Matteo Montanari, Giacomo Di Grazia, Luca Spinelli, and Simone Musarra for the 4.0 licenses and Francesco Ermini for CC0.
In 2003, PLOS published its first research article and this month we’re proud to announce that we have now published more than 200,000 research articles across our seven Open Access journals. It has been an amazing journey to reach this milestone.
“In only 14 years of existence, PLOS has helped catalyze the rapid growth of the Open Access literature. The 200,000th article is a remarkable milestone for PLOS and for the scientific community that has supported the Open Access movement.”-Veronique Kiermer, PLOS Executive Editor
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank those who have helped rapidly create this large corpus of diverse, Open Access research:
Funders and institutions all over the world who supported publication of this rich body of research under a model that provides unrestriced access to all
PLOS was incorporated in 2001 as an Open Access advocacy organization and became a publisher to prove the value of Open Access, beginning with PLOS Biology in 2003 and PLOS Medicine in 2004 as open alternatives to prestigious subscription journals. In 2005, PLOS launched PLOS Genetics, PLOS Pathogens, and PLOS Computational Biology as proof of concept to show that research communities built around and across specific areas and disciplines could thrive with an Open Access model. In late December 2006, PLOS ONE spearheaded the innovative editorial approach focused on evaluation of research independent of perceived impact; this editorial approach has now been adopted by journals from nearly every scientific publisher. Since its founding, PLOS ONE has published more than 175,000 research articles based on three compelling features: advancing quality science for everyone, moving publication forward in all scientific disciplines, and favoring speed to publication over subjective assessment of significance.
In 2007, with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PLOS launched a fourth community journal, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases(NTDs). Together with the journal’s leadership and global community, we now proudly celebrate the 10th Anniversary of PLOS NTDs and the more than 4,500 research articles that contribute to advances in the field.
Open Access continues to gain momentum but there is further work to be done. At PLOS, we are constantly looking for ways to use emerging technology and new ideas to open up scientific communication—to make it faster, more efficient, more connected and more useful. We look forward to the next 200,000 articles and continued involvement with the scientific community.
Over the last three weeks, we at the Global Digital Library have conducted workshops in Nepal and Ethiopia, as a part of the initial phase of our project. These user tests are an important part of our work as they provide us with initial user feedback on prototypes and personas. For both workshops, we have made prototypes based on a great mix if content and tech from different open sources and OER projects including resources from Storyweaver by Pratham Books.
Localization using Storyweaver
Localization and translation will be an important part of our work and as a point of reference, we have tested both our own tool for localization and a tool developed by Storyweaver.
We at the GDL project are in the early stages of developing our platform, but if you want to join the community of translators now, you can start using Storyweaver. Our friends at Storyweaver have developed a great website with stories and books that you can read or translate into you own language.
To prepare our workshops we made this tutorial that also can serve as the first practical introduction for anyone that wants to join our movement of translators, using the Storyweaver platform. Check out this 4-minute video to get you going!
PLOS works to remove barriers to public access of scientific research. Typically, these barriers are considered in terms of copyrights and journal subscriptions, but unfettered access to network infrastructure also contributes to supporting readers’ access to scientific literature. In simple terms, unencumbered dissemination of scientific research depends on a fair Internet. The provision of a fair and open Internet lies in the hands of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and government agencies that regulate these providers. PLOS supports today’s Day of Action in the United States, led by Battle for the Net, aimed at publicizing the issues surrounding Open Internet Rules and their critical role in maintaining Internet freedoms as currently in place.
In February 2015, the US Federal Communication Commission (FCC) reclassified broadband providers as common carriers rather than information providers under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, the law that continues to regulate modern communication modes such as the Internet. This gave the FCC authority to ensure that established, large corporations including AT&T, Comcast and Verizon can’t block, slow (throttle) or otherwise interfere with Internet traffic. Innovations in online businesses and services, including those of PLOS, have thrived under Title II regulations. Importantly, these regulations in the US provide each and every user of the Internet a guarantee that ISPs and government regulators treat all data on the Internet the same, without discriminating against or charging differentially by user, content, website, platform, application, type of equipment or mode of communication (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality). These protections are known as net neutrality; scientists and those working to support the scientific endeavor rely on net neutrality for unprejudiced access to databases, the literature and information services.
Allowing ISPs to sort traffic based on content, sender and receiver opens the door for corporate and government censorship which would greatly hinder access to scientific information around the globe.
In the US, the current FCC Commissioner wants to weaken these protections and this could have consequences for all scientists, not just those in the US: access to information around the world could become pay to play without these protections. Services provided by publishers such as PLOS and other providers could be restricted for all our users around the world, unless we pay for priority access to our content. This will affect any Internet traffic that routes through the US, from services relying on servers located in the US to requests that are routed through the US. For instance, most of the Domain Name Server (DNS) requests for South America, Central America and the Carribbean are routed by servers located in Florida.
Today, July 12, 2017, is a Day of Action in support of a fair and open Internet. Visitors to the PLOS.org homepage (www.plos.org) and active PLOS staff blogs (The Official PLOS Blog, EveryONE, PLOS Biologue, Speaking of Medicine, PLOS Channels and Collections, PLOS Tech and PLOS Podcasts) will see a message of explanation and letter of support for net neutrality in the form of a pop up window. This message will appear only today, once per site, per device. Visitors to these web pages can choose to either immediately close the pop up by clicking on the x in the upper right or fill in the four boxes to send a message to the FCC in support of its current Open Internet Rules and the efforts to dissuade FCC Chairman Ajit Varadaraj Pai from his plan to roll back these rules. Public comment continues for an additional 60 days following the Day of Action. Form letters or personalized comments may be sent directly from https://www.battleforthenet.com/.
PLOS is purposefully not placing this notice on any journal content or information pages, so that access to our content is not impeded in any way.
The unique morphology of the spiny ant, uncovered with the use of an advanced form of 3D microscopy known as 3D X-ray microtomography, garnered this species a place this year among the Top 10 New Species of 2017. The Top 10 New Species list honors the legacy of Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus, known for his pioneering work on the hierarchical classification of plants and animals that developed beyond genus and species into modern taxonomy. The list is compiled by the International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) working with a panel of international scientists as selection committee members.
SUNY-ESF President Quentin Wheeler. (Photos for SUNY-ESF by M.J. Okoniewski)
PLOS spoke with Quentin Wheeler, founding director of IISE and president of the College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, on assessing research impact, the purpose and influence of this list and the impact of climate change on species diversity.
Policies and Purpose
Research reporting these new species is published in a variety of journal types, from subscription to Open Access. When asked if there are considerations of access to research when the members of the international selection committee evaluate nominations, Wheeler states that “the selection committee is encouraged to focus on the organisms rather than where they were published.” This de-emphasis on journal choice is a hallmark of the IISE selection process; work that is posted on a preprint server, rather than published in a peer-reviewed journal, may also be eligible for consideration. “What matters is compliance with the international codes of (botanical and zoological) nomenclature which requires publication that can now include electronic publication. So long as the requirements of the code were met during the previous calendar year, a species is eligible for consideration,” he says.
In an era of continued global extinction of animals, plants and microbes, Wheeler hopes the Top 10 New Species list brings research outcomes to the public that help convey the acute relevance of climate change. “Our goal is to increase awareness of the loss of species in the biodiversity crisis and the important roles played by taxonomy and natural history museums in biodiversity exploration and conservation. The wide media attention gained by the Top 10 (and this year’s PLOS ONE article) has hopefully played a role toward that goal,” he says. While he is not aware of specific policies shaped directly by the list, the hope is that it “keeps the importance of species exploration in the minds of those making such policies.”
Valuing Work, Not Impact Factor
Over the past 10 years of generating this list, one notable detail is that selected work is published in journals with impact factors ranging from less than one to greater than 20. When asked what this says to him and the scientific community about the value and relevance of evaluating a work based on its own merit, rather than on the journal in which it appears, Wheeler is quite direct.
“As a scientist and scholar, I like to think that science is a meritocracy of ideas and that their value derives from the quality of the work and its impact rather than the impact factor of the journal overall. Taxonomy is a very special case that is not at all served well by impact factors as they are today calculated.”
He explains this concept more fully. “First, the best taxonomic work is comprehensive and comparative in the form of lengthy taxonomic revisions and monographs. Such long works are not accepted by most journals with high impact factors. Second, even the best taxonomic work is rarely cited because once species are known they are typically identified by field biologists through secondary literature (field guides, etc.). Even the secondary literature is often omitted from citations by ecologists and others, and the primary literature is only rarely cited outside of other taxonomy papers.” Due to the long-term nature of taxonomy work, “we routinely consult papers from 1758 forward,” says Wheeler. “Thus the true impact of the work is measured over generations which is quite different from most experimental fields where papers are outdated in just a few years.”
Last year two species on the list made their debuts in PLOS ONE: the description of a new Galapagos giant tortoise species and a new genus, species and subfamily of isopod crustacean. Together with this year’s winner and the four PLOS ONE articles describing top species in 2014, this cohort of articles has collectively received over 290,000 views, 3,500 shares and broad media coverage since publication, indicating their influence and interest for taxonomists and the public at large.
Connectivity and Credit
As with other scientific disciplines, innovation and modernization are a must in taxonomy, and Wheeler is in favor of such policy shifts. First, he recommends mandating a “central deposition of all nomenclatural acts, including descriptions of new species” as it now takes several years to track down all new species named in any given year. He also believes “the actual technical description of species should be open access, even in journals that are not. The descriptive material should be intellectual property of humankind and available to everyone.”
Further modernization, according to Wheeler, would establish electronic connectivity between published work and the central repository. “That central repository, likely IPNI for botany and ZooBank for zoology,” he says, “ought to be connected via hyperlink to every scientific name published. Were this done it would be a service to editors by assuring the correct scientific name is being used and spelled correctly. Also by virtue of that link we could electronically track the usage of scientific names and give “impact” measure of the use of the names as credit to the taxonomists.”
PLOS encourages scientists making these discoveries to publish the entire research article, not just the technical data, in fully Open Access journals and repositories to ensure the work has maximum visibility and reach. ORCID iDs can help in linking taxonomy descriptions, datasets, published work and grants to individual researchers for maximum credit and recognition. Those interested in learning more about the biodiversity crisis can watch a brief interview with Quentin Wheeler and those interested in learning more about new species and biodiversity can browse this selection of PLOS articles.
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Quentin Wheeler is founding director of the International Institute for Species Exploration and president of the College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) in Syracuse, New York. He was previously vice president and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University, chair of entomology and director of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium at Cornell University, Head of Entomology at the Natural History Museum in London and Director of the Division of Environmental Biology at the National Science Foundation.
Are you a freelance writer looking for work? In the Untied States, there are thousands, if not millions, of individuals who are making a career as a freelance writer. The only problem with this is that there are a limited number of money making opportunities. As the internet has increased in popularity, so have the number of ways that clients are able to obtain content for their websites. If you find yourself looking for ways to pay your bills, you may want to examine private label articles and what they can do for you.
When you create private label articles, you will not need to have a client. Instead of being told what to write, you can write on any topic that you desire. However, as you are most likely already aware of, it is best to write articles on popular topics. Website owners are the most common buyers of content articles. This is because original content may help to increase their search engine rankings, increase their website’s visitor count, and make their website more interesting. In most cases, website owners only purchase content that is popular at the moment. That is why it is a good idea to make sure you are writing marketable articles.
Traditionally, after you write your own articles, you will begin searching for a buyer. If you have already tried selling your articles this way, you are probably aware that it is not as easy as it sounds. Finding buyers will not only take time, but it may also take money. In the past, if you didn’t have time or money you would be out of luck. Now, you can allow others to sell your content for you. This is done by making the private label resell rights to your content available for purchase.
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When offering your article rights up for sale, your first thought may be to keep everything the same, including your name as the author. While there are advantages to doing this, it may have an impact on how much you are able to sell your resell rights for. Many buyers prefer purchasing a product, including content articles, which they can not only alter, but claim as their own. By allowing this to take place, you should be able to charge more money for the resell rights.
If you are interested in selling the resell rights to your content, you will have to find a prospective buyer. This is often compared to finding a buyer for your own articles, but it is often easier. As soon as you make your opportunity available, you should begin to see results. This results will often be inquires or sample requests. If a prospective buyer is pleased with what they see, they may agree to purchase the private label resell rights to your content; thus ending your responsibility.
If you are unsure about this unique money making opportunity, you may want to, at least, give it at try. If you are unable to sell the rights to your private label articles you can then return to what you were doing before. One great source to present your articles to is www.ArticleWholesaler.com, they buy a large volume of articles. If you do find success, as many writers have, you don’t have to stop there. You could continue to write content articles only to sell their resell rights. In fact, if you had a successful relationship with a previous buyer, there is a good chance that the buyer may return for more of your handcrafted articles.
In recent years, there has been a large amount of focus placed on private label resell rights. Private label resell rights are when an individual agrees to purchase the right to resell the product, often from the product’s original creator. The buyer of those resell rights is then able to make a profit every time they sell that product or a version of it. Many individuals have capitalized on the success of private label resell rights and now you may also be able to.
If you were to search the internet for private label resell rights offers, it is likely that you will find an unlimited number of offers and business opportunities. Most of those offers are likely to include software programs or e-books. While private label resell rights exist for a wide variety of different products, some products are better known than others. In a way, some products are considered “well kept secrets,” if you are interested in profiting from one of those secrets, you are advised to examine private label articles and the resell rights that you can purchase for them.
When it comes to private label articles, many of them are written by professional freelance writers and in large quantities. Many of these writers enjoy writing the articles, but they do not enjoy trying to sell them. That is where the resell right opportunity develops. Instead of selling their articles to a prospective buyer, they sell their articles to someone who has the time and the knowledge needed to the make sales.
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Webmasters are known as individuals that have either created or are currently operating a website, often times that website is their own. In today’s world, websites need to have interesting content, often in the form of articles. Many times, this content is used to make a website more user friendly, but other times it is used to increase a website’s search engine ranking. Search engine ranking is important because, in a way, it determines how many internet users will be able to make it to the site. Depending on the type of website in question, a high search engine ranking may help a webmaster earn more money.
There is also a chance that you are concerned with selling the content. The internet is full of duplicated content and many webmasters prefer to purchase their own unique articles, but that does not mean that you cannot give them what they want. When a freelance writer places their article resell rights up for sale, many writers are giving up ownership to those articles. In a way, those articles become yours. This means that you should be able to alter them in anyway that you see fit. The more you alter an article, bit by bit each time, the more you can sell it as unique content.
Once you have obtained the resell rights to a collection of articles, you can then begin to shop for buyers. There are a number of different ways that you can do this. You can seek out potential webmasters by viewing their online websites. If the content you have is suitable, you may be able to make a sale. You can also advertise a collection of articles through online classified ads or by placing them for sale on online auction websites. The method of sale you choose will all depend on how much you want to work and how much money you want to make.
To make the most out of this opportunity, you are urged to act fast. It won’t be too long before others realize what a money making opportunity it is to buy and resell private label articles.
