NISO Publishes Recommended Practice on Metadata Indicators for Accessibility and Licensing of E-Content

[NISO]

NISO Publishes Recommended Practice on Metadata Indicators for Accessibility
and Licensing of E-Content

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has published a new
Recommended Practice on Access License and Indicators (NISO RP-22-2015) that
defines metadata to be used to indicate free-to-read content and a link to
license terms for the use/re-use of that content. Developed by the NISO
Working Group on Access License and Indicators (formerly Open Access
Metadata and Indicators), the 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.

"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 Access License and Indicators Working Group.
"Currently, publishers of hybrid journals have no simple mechanism for
signaling the "free to read" status of specific articles or the re-use
rights of downstream users. Funders find the lack of information and
cooperation between stakeholders creates difficulty in determining whether a
specific published article is compliant with their policies. Authors have
difficulty confirming whether they are compliant with a given funder policy.
Readers face the burden of figuring out what they can and cannot do with
specific articles. Aggregators and platform or knowledgebase providers have
no consistent mechanism for machine-processing metadata and identifying the
accessibility or rights status. Adoption of <free_to_read> and <license_ref>
metadata designations will allow both humans and machines to assess the
status of content." 

 "The combination of the two metadata tags can particularly be useful in
indicating the subtle nuances of different Open Access content," states Greg
Tananbaum, Consultant at SPARC and Co-chair of the NISO Access License and
Indicators Working Group. "The indicators include a date component so that
content with access and re-use rights that change over time can be
adequately understood. This supports the existing embargo practices in use
by some publishers. By including URIs to applicable licenses in the
metadata, more detailed explanations of rights can be made available."

"The recommended metadata tags can easily be incorporated into existing
metadata distribution channels, encoded in XML, and added to existing
schemas and workflows," said Ed Pentz, Executive Director, CrossRef, and
Co-chair of the NISO Access License and Indicators Working Group.
"Publishers and platform providers can also use the <free_to_read> tag to
automate the display of appropriate status icons to users and for signaling
or determining compliance with most funder and institutional policies."

"Adoption of these two metadata indicators can have a significant positive
impact on all the participants in the scholarly communications chain,"
stated Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director. "This NISO Recommended
Practice also complements a number of other related efforts, including the
CrossRef FundRef <http://www.crossref.org/fundref/>  service; the HowOpen Is
It? <http://www.plos.org/open-access/howopenisit/>  guide developed by PLOS,
SPARC, and OASPA; EDItEUR's ONIX-PL  <http://www.editeur.org/21/ONIX-PL/>
specification for communicating licensing term; and the Linked Content
Coalition initiative <http://www.linkedcontentcoalition.org/> ."

Access and License Indicators (NISO RP-22-2015) is available for free
download from the ALI Working Group webpage on the NISO website at:
www.niso.org/workrooms/ali/.

 

 

Cynthia Hodgson

Technical Editor / Consultant

National Information Standards Organization

chodgson at niso.org

301-654-2512

 

 


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2015-01-15
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