Publications and open access, some practical examples by Wikimedia Italia

In 2022, Wikimedia Italia will release two new publications dealing with open content in different ways. The aim of this project is to prepare and develop an open access process to release them, which could be useful both to Wikimedia Italia and to any other gallery, library, archive or museum (GLAM) which will have to face similar challenges in the future.

This project work has been developed within the Creative Commons Certificate for GLAM by part of Wikimedia Italia staff.

Open GLAM in Italy

Generally speaking, the mission of any GLAM is to protect documents, artworks, and remains of the past for the sake of sharing: with the public and with future generations. For that reason, adopting open access policies should sound a natural decision for cultural institutions, although not always an easy one to take. Many Italian GLAMs are reluctant to open their collections, most of the time for the lack of clarity and examples on how to do that.

On the other hand, releasing online digital reproductions of works collected by an institution is important to show the world its real value and impact. It helps attracting new visitors, but also finding new supporters and donors, which are always beneficial for the life of any GLAM.

Making digitised works accessible online is not only a matter of marketing or social media strategy. It also helps increasing research around collections and collaborations between researchers and institutions. This is the reason why Wikimedia Italia has been helping GLAMs, especially smaller ones, to release online their collections.

Why open access matters

Since it supports Wikipedia and its sister projects in Italy, Wikimedia Italia constantly advocates for free knowledge and open access to information. According to the open definition by Open Knowledge Foundation, “Open data and content can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose”. It implies that, of all Creative Commons tools and licenses, CC0, CC BY and CC BY-SA licenses should be prioritise over other tools to release documents and works to the Open Access.

By providing immediate and unrestricted access to the latest research, we can accelerate discovery and create a more equitable system of knowledge that is open to all. For doing so, we have to consider the audience as a set of thoughtful and passionate people who not only consume the products but contribute to culture and are co-authors of culture. In addition, releasing materials under an open license might be useful because:

• it makes the material really editable in order to update it (updating data, modifying paragraphs, increasing the number of resources). The works are immediately available in their entirety and free to reuse and remix with attribution. Without delays or barriers, your work helps to open opportunities. When researchers can read and build upon the findings of others without restriction, science advances faster;
• once uploaded to Wikimedia projects, it links the material to the different translations and allows more people to reread the material and check the text and the translation. It allows everyone to benefit from our advancements; by increasing visibility and access to research, we can amplify its power to inform, educate, and enlighten;
• under a CC-BY license, you’re free to share it anywhere, anytime, with anyone. There is never a fee for readers to access, download, or share the publications more widely;
• Open Access helps to get noticed and get credited: publications under CC license are also fully indexed, easily searchable, machine-readable, and open to text and data mining so anyone can find them online.

Open Access is useful as an excellent catalyst for discussion on the importance of equity, diversity, and inclusion. As we move forward, we must maintain these principles as the foundation of an open future. The transition to open needs to be free of barriers and we must find ways to include all research in this shift, to enable a fair, transparent, and inclusive open future.

Description of the publications

The two publications Wikimedia Italia is working on in 2022 are pretty different one by another, but they are both linked to the goal of augmenting open access to cultural heritage in Italy.

The History of Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy

Since 2012, Wikimedia Italia has organized Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy, to collect pictures of Italian cultural heritage which are shared online on Wikimedia Commons and made available for any use, including commercial purpose.

“The History of Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy” (working title) will be a book, released both online and in print, which will collect pictures from the last ten editions of the photographic contest in Italy, together with original content such as essays, captions, graphic designs and possibly derived and remixed works.

The final work could be mainly described as a collection. In order to release the book to open access, it will be necessary to assess the copyright status of each picture and contribution included and to establish in advance under which Creative Commons license the original contributions and the final work will be released.

The Italian Open Knowledge Barometer

Aiming at describing the current situation in Italy on free knowledge and open access issues, “The Italian Open Knowledge Barometer” will be an original publication released by Wikimedia Italia. It will systematise the information available on this matters, presenting analysis, definitions, charts and any other kind of content useful to describe and understand the current situation.

Just like in all research works, references and sources will be credited via notes and in the bibliography. It will be necessary to decide how to release the final work so that all the original content produced within the research will be available to open access.

On the whole, “The Italian Open Knowledge Barometer” and “The History of Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy” could be seen as two examples of how content can be released by GLAMs. Producing something new, or reusing freely and with creativity works that already exist. Looking at these matters, it goes without saying that “The Italian Open Knowledge Barometer” will also have an added value of description and reflection on open access to cultural heritage, hoping to add new arguments to the current discussion at institutional and academic level on opportunities and challenges related to open GLAM.

How to license the work

Wikimedia Italia will choose CC BY-SA 4.0 license because lets others remix, tweak, and build upon our work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit Wikimedia Italia and license their new creations under the identical terms . It is important because obliges future authors not to add new restrictions to a derivative work and is excellent for collaboration (see Wikipedia: All texts on Wikipedia are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike 3.0). It's quite interesting that people might make new works out of publications, and we want to give them the possibility to translate our writing into different languages, or otherwise customise it for their own needs.

Practical examples of attribution statements

As suggested by Creative Commons, the attribution statements of the work will follow the TASL structure (title, author, source, license).

Attribution statement for the final work on the whole

Here is an example for the attribution statement which will appear at the end of the publication, valid both for a collection and an original work:

The Italian Open Knowledge Barometer, by Wikimedia Italia. Where not differently specified all the content of this publication is released under CC BY-SA 4.0 license creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Attribution statement for a CC-licensed material

Original picture from Wikimedia Commons.

If the CC-licensed material is used in the publication without any adaptation, below two attribution statement that could be used online (first example) or in print (second example).

Mareggiata Polignano, by  Abbrey82, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Mareggiata Poligano, by Abbrey82, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Attribution statement for adapted or remixed CC-licensed material

Example of adapted picture.

Example of a remix of two pictures.

Should the original picture be modified in a consistent way, it would be necessary to use a different statement, crediting the original work and its creator. CC-licensed works which include the non-derivative element (ND) must not be publicly shared. Below two examples of attribution statements for adapted or remixed works:

Mareggiata polignano adapted, by Wikimedia Italia is derived from Mareggiata Poligano, by Abbrey82, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 and is released under the same license CC BY-SA 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Mareggiata polignano un comignolo differente remix, by Wikimedia Italia is a remix of Mareggiata Polignano, by Abbrey82, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 and Un comignolo differente, by Daniele.negro, via Wikimedia Common, CC BY-SA 4.0. The work is released under license CC BY-SA 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

Where to disseminate the work

"The History of Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy" and "The Italian Open Knowledge Barometer" will be initially uploaded on Wikimedia Commons and they will be disseminated across the different Wikimedia Projects and other platforms that have implemented or use the Creative Commons licenses .

Wikimedia Projects

Wikimedia projects interact between them and technically they “speak the same language” so, if one material is shared in one of the Wikimedia projects, it can very easily be implemented in pages of another project. For example multimedia material available on Wikimedia Commons can be easily used in a Wikipedia article.

For this reason, the main Wikimedia Project where the work will be promoted will be Wikimedia Commons: a media repository with over 80 million free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. The projects makes available public domain and freely-licensed educational content to all. As Wikimedia Commons is a multimedial repository we are going to publish the PDF file version of the work there. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in all languages, including Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikibooks etc or downloaded for offsite use.

The work will also be shared on Wikisource, that is an online digital library of free-content textual sources that have already been published elsewhere. We are going to share the work on Wikisource so it remains available and consultable by everyone. The project's aim is to host all forms of free text, in many languages. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, it has expanded to become a general-content library. Most of the texts at Wikisource are old books whose copyright has expired, but it can also be used as a repository for publication licensed under open licenses.

We are also going to publish the textual work on Wikibooks, a collection of open-content textbooks, annotated texts, instructional guides, and manuals. The materials on Wikibooks are new texts written collaboratively by the contributors themselves so we are publishing the work there in order to have some engagement and crowdsourced contribution or a review from community members. This could have an added value in particular for “The Italian open knowledge barometer”, which aims to become an annual and ever updating report. The content from Wikibooks can be used in a traditional classroom, an accredited or respected institution, a home-school environment, as part of a Wikiversity course, or for self-learning..

Considering it releases all original content under CC BY-SA license, the Wikimedia Italia’s official website is another important channel that we are going to use to disseminate and promote the work. It is really important because, while all the above mentioned platforms are mostly used internally within the Wikimedia communities, the Wikimedia Italia’s website could be more easily accessible by external stakeholders and potential collaborators, being them individuals or institutions. It could also raise the opportunities of collaborations.

Nevertheless, the project will be published on Meta-Wiki, which is the global community website for the Wikimedia projects. It serves as a place for a variety of information, from coordination and documentation, to planning, analysis or even policy discussion. We chose this platform because it is used on a global level so it is an inter-lingual platform across all Wikimedia projects. This is very helpful for a project or any kind of content shared on Meta-Wiki to have a higher visibility, and while the Wikimedia projects are collaboratively enriched it might also be possible that this content (if written text) not only gains visibility but also gets translated in other languages rather than the original, or even improved by other contributors.

Other platforms to disseminate the work

There are other interesting projects which could be used by GLAMs to share online their original works and digitised collections. Some of these could be:

• Internet archive: a non-profit and a platform that is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artefacts in digital form. It provides free access to researchers, historians, scholars, people with print disabilities, and the general public in order to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge.
• The Public Domain Review: an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of works from the history of art, literature, and ideas. Its focus is on works fallen into the public domain that everyone is free to use, share, and build upon without restriction.
• Project Gutenberg: a digital repository of public-domain content. The philosophy behind the project is to make information, books and other materials available to the general public.
• Europeana: a platform that contains digitised cultural heritage collections of more than 3,000 institutions across Europe, many of them freely licensed or in the public domain.
• OpenStax: a nonprofit and an educational platform that contains openly-licensed textbooks, which are available in free digital formats and for a low cost in print.

Platforms for other kinds of content

• MediaWiki: a free and open-source software geared towards the needs of the Wikimedia projects.
• Zenodo: an open source software that serves as a repository for freely licensed scientific content and code. It allows researchers to deposit research papers, data sets, research software, reports, and any other research related digital artefacts
• Open Source Software: there are many free and open source software licenses that are built specifically as software licenses. For freely licensing and publishing code there are also specific platforms, some of them are:
  • github.com
  • gitlab.com
  • sourceforge.net
  • berlios.de
  • bitbucket.org

Credits

An initiative developed within the Creative Commons Certificate GLAM 2022 by Wikimedia Italia.

• Group Project: Paolo Casagrande, Anisa Kuci, Ilaria Diterlizzi

The documentation is developed on Meta under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license