Free Licenses & Creative Commons:A Powerful Tool for Open Access Publishing in Grey Literature

In today’s increasingly technologically savvy information society, “using remote access and free content to open doors for science students”, a statement made by NANSLO Lab director Daniel Branan (http://www.scoop.it/t/ava-openeducation), is yet another example of ongoing efforts to make information more openly and freely available and accessible. Although Branan focused his remarks on the scientific community, this applies to more than one specific subject field. Rather, scientists, teachers, artists, sociologists, programmers, as well as professionals from the arts industry and economics are increasingly becoming involved in sharing and reusing their work. Open content provides an opportunity to shorten the time for research to become available, not repeat research already conducted, have data to compare, collect backround information for a project, and numerous other possibilities. Despite the well-intentioned mandate of a Creative Commons license, the free distribution of an author’s work is still “governed by applicable copyright law.” (Wikipedia, n.d.) Jack Andraka, an advocate for the Open Access Movement, laments the disappointment that can occur due to publication and distribution restrictions: “I’ve seen so many great ideas get killed in the lab when my peers are stopped by closed access [to research articles]” (http://teamopen.cc/jack/). Open licencing is a strong instrument ensuring open access to research data