An International Symposium At the National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing

IMG_0404

An international symposium on Common Use Licensing for Scientific Literature and data was held on March 25, 2009 in Beijing. The idea for the symposium was developed by Creative Commons China Mainland. The symposium was co-hosted by the National Science Library of Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), the U.S. National Committee for CODATA of the National Academy of Science, and Creative Commons China Mainland.

This one-day symposium reviewed the rationale, practice, and issues associated with the application of Creative Commons/Science Commons “common use” licenses to scientific literature and data in government and academia. The event also explored the possible implementation of these licenses for publicly funded scientific literature and data in China.

The symposium was designed to provide a basic introduction on the subject of Creative Commons licensing to members of the scientific literature and data community. This information was designed to benefit the interests of both the science policy and the science research communities.

There was a wide array of speakers participating in the symposium, both from the PRC and from abroad, representing various institutes and constituencies. Included among them were Columbia University, Queensland University of Technology Law School, Mozilla Online China, Renmin University of China Law School, the National Research Council of the U.S., Science Commons, the National Science Library of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the University of Maine, the Computer Network Information Center of CAS, and the Institute of Geographical Science and Natural Resource Research of CAS.

718-3

The event brought together a large group of some 200 attendees from several universities, research institutes, governmental agencies, libraries, and the Internet sector.

Both the speakers and the participants at the symposium focused on the use of Creative Commons Licensing. Attendees from the various institutes and organizations expressed great interest in adopting CC for their databases and other scientific repositories. The National Science Library of Chinese Academy of Science (NSL), for example, has now created a platform , the Knowledge Repository of National Science Library, CAS( http://ir.las.ac.cn/; http://ir.las.ac.cn/guiter?id=5 ), to encourage scientists and authors adopt CC licenses while archiving their works on the NSL’s Knowledge Repository.