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Conference on new technologies and free access to scientific knowledge

By 8 de November de 2005November 18th, 2020No Comments
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 08.11.2005

Conference on new technologies and free access to scientific knowledge

On Wednesday 9 November at 11h, the Antoni Caparrós Auditorium of the Parc Científic de Barcelona (PCB, Barcelona Science Park) (c/Baldiri Reixac, 4-6) will host a conference entitled "Science and Semantic Web: The Impact of New Technologies on Property Regimes". This conference will be given by John Wilbanks, executive director of . Through this event, the Universitat de Barcelona (UB, University of Barcelona) seeks to further the Science Commons project in the framework of initiatives such as Open Access, which promotes access and free dissemination of scientific knowledge.

The Semantic Web, thought up by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web (WWW), is an informatics network that can be processed easily by computers. It is considered an efficient way to represent data on Internet or as a data base for globally related information. In this conference, John Wilbanks will explain the impact that this new structure will have on the world of science using the example of the project that he heads.

The Science Commons initiative was started in 2005 to overcome impediments that arise in the field of intellectual property when attempting to disseminate and share scientific knowledge. The project is part of the actions developed by Creative Commons (CC), a North American non-profit corporation that offers a flexible licensing system for the transfer of a number of rights that pertain to the authors of creative work. Since 2003 the UB has been the Spanish institution affiliated to this corporation. This academic institution has coordinated a project on the adaptation of standard licenses of CC to Spanish legislation. In this field, the UB also provides teaching material used by its staff, identified using the so-called Digital Object Identifier (DOI), through the Publication portal, and has jointly developed a couple of licenses with CC, following the model of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Before joining Creative Commons, John Wilbanks was in the World Wide Web Consortium, where he worked in the field of the Semantic Web for life sciences. Before this, he founded and presided the bioinformatics enterprise Incellico, where he focused on graphic semantic networks for pharmaceutical research and development projects. John Wilbanks also held the post of deputy director at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School.