A major goal of the Scholarly Commons program is to determine whether a set of high level principles that define the abstract entity known as the Scholarly Commons can be expressed in a useful way. This exercise involves synthesis of activities from the Madrid Workshop, Re-imaginging Research Communications, and follow on activities at FORCE2016 and elsewhere. We are also collating and examining sets of principles, declarations, manifestos etc issued by various groups around the world that govern the production and dissemination of research and scholarship.
As a starting point, we have managed to extract from the output of the Madrid Workshop and follow on activities at FORCE2016 a first attempt to put down in words what could be Principles of the Commons**. It is based on an initial distillation of the workshop material undertaken by Fiona Murphy which was then further refined by members of the Steering Group.
**Version 0.03 of the Principles is now available for comment
We find ourselves asking the following questions:
- Do these look at all like they could be the Principles of the Commons we are seeking?
- Are these statements we can envisage acting on in order to realize build and grow the Commons?
- Is this a good enough starting point for the wider community to develop a definitive set of Principles?
We aren’t expecting the answer to be a resounding “yes” and it could be a resounding “no”. Despite this uncertainty, we are putting something out there now because we need to get your input and feedback on what a meaningful starting point looks like. We also want to provoke discussion with a wider group about how we can best arrive at a definitive set of principles. So please take a look at this initial draft, and give us your comments.
While we see it as beneficial for someone to offer a starting point, ultimately the principles need to be owned by us all. If we can move forward from here, then that’s great. If we need to approach this a completely different way then that too is fine. Either way, we want to hear your reaction and get your input into how we can collectively move towards a definitive statement of the Principles of the Commons.
