Open Access ≠ Open Access - Navigating the License Alphabet

"I personally have fallen into the trap. I was over the moon getting an educational methods paper published in OA. This was before I looked into all of this and, without all this knowledge, I did not think twice about it. I thought OA=OA. I was wrong.

Checking again, I realized that our work is published under the license of doom: CC-BY-NC-ND. I was quite disappointed at myself when I realized this. We wanted our work to reach the most people possible and be used to improve knowledge and reproducibility in the field. I find comfort in the fact that it is still open-ish and that at least everyone can still see it and learn from it free of charge. I regret though that the license restricts the creation of any course material with it or any public presentations. Now I know better and will learn from my mistake....

The first step is getting this into curricula for early graduate programs. I am happy that some universities are starting to implement this but it needs to become more widespread.

The second step is knowing your rights. Educate yourself on the different types of licenses. Read the fine print. Ask your local librarians about these licenses and how your institute goes about with them. In the words of my wonderful librarians “CC-BY is the best—it’s the a good balance of openness and recognition.”

The third would be to try and have open discussions about OA publishing in your group among peers and colleagues and, if you are a PhD student like me, with your professor. The more we demand openness, the harder it is for publishers to exploit the game.

Finally: push back. Many funders require CC-BY (check grant and institution requirements if you can), so use this to your advantage when negotiating with peers, collaborators or journals directly."