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Governing the Science Commons

J. Colliander
2i2c and UBC

3rd Jack Eddy Symposium

slides: bit.ly/eddy-science-commons

  1. academus
  2. science commons
  3. information
  4. governance
  5. opportunity

Academus

\(A \Gamma \mbox{E} \Omega \mbox{METPHTO}\Sigma ~~ \mbox{MH}\Delta \mbox{EI} \Sigma ~~ \mbox{EI}\Sigma \mbox{IT} \Omega\)

"Let none but geometers enter here"

Quackenbos
"Grove of Academus" by Quackenbos 1882; ©2022 by the University of South Florida

Academy

  • pioneering social collaboration structure
  • Participants were "earth measurers"
  • "Academia" is a land acknowledgement

How should we name whatever we may invent here?

gantt
    title University History

    section Americas
    UNAM : 1910-09-01, 1000d
    Johns Hopkins: 1877-02-22, 1000d
    Morill Act: 1862-01-01, 100d
    UPenn : 1755-09-01, 1000d
    William and Mary : 1639-09-01, 1000d
    Harvard : 1636-09-01, 1000d
    section Expansion
    Peking : 1898-01-01, 1000d
    Berlin/Humboldt : 1810-01-01, 1000d
    Edinburgh : 1582-09-01, 1000d
    Copenhagen : 1475-09-01,1000d
    Istanbul : 1453-09-01, 1000d
    St. Andrews : 1410-09-01, 1000d
    Leipzig : 1409-09-01, 1000d
    Vienna : 1365-09-01, 1000d 
    Charles : 1347-09-01, 1000d
    section Beginnings
    Salamanaca : 1218-09-01, 1000d
    Cambridge : 1209-09-01, 1000d
    Oxford  : 1200-09-01, 1000d 
    Bologna   :1088-09-01  , 1000d

Science Commons

Commons

  • The cultural and natural resources available to all members of society.
  • History: Common Land Enclosure
  • Tragedy of the Commons is not inevitable. (Ostrom)

Vast literature! Excludability, Rivalry, CPRs, …

Contrasting views of human nature

Humans are selfish individuals who act in response to incentives and force

VERSUS

Humans are collaborative and work together for collective benefit

Science

A systematic enteprise that builds and organizes human understanding of the universe with testable explanations and predictions.

The central activity of science is exchanging information.

Science Commons

  • People in social collaboration structures (universities, agencies, societies, philanthropy, publishers, teams,…)
  • Resources (salaries, instruments, libraries, infrastructure,…)

Governance is the way we structure and manage social collaboration.

Information

gantt
    title Bell System Timeline

    section Vision
    Information ubiquity :crit, active, 1947-01-01, 1984-01-01
    Universal service: 1907-01-01, 1949-01-01
    Phone in every town: 1877-01-01, 1907-04-30
 
    section Milestones
    Royalty Free Patents: 1956-01-01, 1984-06-01
    Transistor :crit, active, 1948-06-01, 1984-06-01
    Information Theory :crit, 1947-06-01, 1984-06-01
    WW2 : 1941-12-07, 1945-06-15
    Transatlantic : 1927-01-07, 100d
    Vertical Monopoly: 1921-01-01, 1984-06-01
    Transcontinental: 1915-01-25, 100d
    Competition: 1894-06-01, 1907-04-30
    Patent : 1879-06-01, 1894-06-01

"One Policy, One System, Universal Service"

AT&T leadership argued phone service

  • is essential to human existence
  • will require massive R&D
  • must be delivered by a regulated monopoly

Phone service was exceptional and required a novel service delivery model.

Information theory changed everything

general-communication-system-diagram
Bell System Technical Journal

  • Information flows and is quantifiable ('bit')
  • Channel capacity can be measured
  • Transistor made abstractions realizable

Information theory created a social and technological design space.

Social technological design approaches

  • Market-based (startups)
  • Commons-based (Wikipedia, Linux)

Both approaches have merit.
Commons-based approaches are less well-developed. Why?

Governance

How should the science commmons be governed?

  • People and Resources
  • Information flows \(\leftarrow\) exceptional like phone?

F. Ardila's Axioms

  1. Mathematical potential is distributed equally among different groups, irrespective of geographic, demographic, and economic boundaries.
  2. Everyone can have joyful, meaningful, and empowering mathematical experiences.
  3. Mathematics is a powerful, malleable tool that can be shaped and used differently by various communities to serve their needs.
  4. Every student deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.

Guiding virtue: intellectual generosity

Opportunity

Inflection Point?

Y. Benkler called for commons-based governance of science in 2004. It's finally happening!

Is there a playbook? Next steps?

Features of communities that successfully manage their commons were identified by Ostrom and colleagues. R. Safner analyzed the success of Wikipedia using this framework.

Y. Panda explored wiki principles as a strategy to democratize programming.

The history of the Open Geospatial Consortium has lessons.

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