Generation Open: Sneak Peek Into Science’s Future At OpenCon 2014

...Michael Carroll is a Professor of Law and one of the founders of the Creative Commons. He was welcoming over a hundred enthusiastic students, student organizers, and early career researchers yesterday to their first international gathering on open access, OpenCon 2014.

There’s no apathy in this room. It’s jam-packed with idealistic, clever, and deeply committed young people energetically working to transform science and academic life. Only 4% of applications to attend were successful, too, so it’s the tip of an iceberg.  Carroll told us we all have to think deeply about our commitment to open access: “Is it a deeper human rights-based understanding of equity?…Without having a solid grip on the values that inspire you and inspire this movement you can be led astray.”

Patrick Brown, added his passion and values with a look back at how he, Michael Eisen, and Harold Varmus came to establish PLOS, the Public Library of Science. “We didn’t know what we were doing, but we didn’t let that hold us back.” Setting up an open access mega-publisher wasn’t the original intention...