Rachael participated in the Unconference session: how can openness be advanced with podcasting, blogging and other DIY media? which is the first place she heard of Open Media. She does not consider herself a natural when it comes to blogging, vlogging, podcasting or whatever the kids are doing these days, so she went to this session to learn from those that are. She's excited about the formation of the
OpenComm Network, which will work collaboratively on a blog post and podcast around open media and OpenCon. In the future, the OpenComm Network aims to provide each other with support based on our various backgrounds and expertise.
Jack Reid: (this is done)
Jack Reid, originally from Austin, Texas, is currently a graduate student at MIT in the aeronautics and astronautics department and the technology and policy program.
Jack has found the concept of open media to be deeply personal, especially in fears of losing access to academic libraries. "It would be one thing to lose access to, you know, aerospace and systems engineering journals, but, honestly, one of the main things that I like to use journal subscriptions for is whenever I see a headline with, you know, "Wine cures cancer!" or something. The first line will usually be something like, "Researchers in New Jersey have found that wine prevents cancer," and it goes on to try and sell you on the fact that if you just drink more wine, you'll be perfectly healthy. I typically like to then go to Google Scholar or some other search method, you can find the actual article. I am not a biologist. I am not in nutrition, but I can still read the abstract and conclusion and maybe skim through the methods. And I'll see, "Oh! They gave ten rats their body mass in wine and one fewer than they expected got cancer." And, it's not like the researchers are overselling their research. Commonly, in the conclusion it will say something like, "Hey, this is an interesting correlation that we found and we should more research with a larger sample size and a more representative sample." But then I know, exactly how seriously to take these results at this time. And this is for relatively trivial things, like if wine and chocolate are good for you. I can only imagine what it would be like if I had some serious health concern that I would actively need to learn more about to understand what was effecting my life."
Jack has experienced a lot of challenges in communicating about open media. "A lot of it, at least as my institution, comes down to ownership and restrictions. Many authors can view it as limiting their freedom to choose where they publish. Other people feel like if you publish something openly that means that you are giving up ownership of it, as if you are putting it in the public domain. So, yeah, that's the main thing is clarifying and helping to addressing their concerns and helping to show them that open isn't necessarily about giving up ownership. In many cases, it's actually about preserving their rights, because commonly in the current setup, they give up all of their rights, including ownership, over copyright to other parties. And they don't have any rights over their own work to even share it with colleagues or friends or family members. Open is actually a step in the right direction, as far as giving them more rights while still getting it out to the public."
Jack didn't know what to expect from his first OpenCon. "I have immensely enjoyed it both personally and it has also been highly productive for me to take back to the conversation that is going on at MIT around open access. I have a lot of great questions back at MIT, aspects of how MIT does things that I did not realize were worth questioning, because I just assumed that was how everybody did it. As well as potential ideas and suggestions for how to move forward in the future."