I have proposed a new Unicode symbol to denote true open access, for instance applied to scholarly literature, in a similar way in which © and ® denote copyright and registered trademarks respectively. The proposed symbol is an encircled lower case letter a, in particular in a font where the a has a 'tail', as in a font like Arial and Times, for instance, (a), and not as in a font like Century Gothic (without the 'tail' as it were).
My proposal should be on the Unicode discussion list (http://www.unicode.org/consortium/distlist-unicode.html), and I am soliciting support, and input from technically-minded as well as legally-minded open access supporters.
This is the symbol I have in mind:
Jan Velterop
My proposal should be on the Unicode discussion list (http://www.unicode.org/consortium/distlist-unicode.html), and I am soliciting support, and input from technically-minded as well as legally-minded open access supporters.
This is the symbol I have in mind:
Jan Velterop
I should add that the intended use would be for 'true' open access, i.e. CC-BY and CC-0.
ReplyDeleteI hereby add my support.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of ⓐ which is already in Unicode as U+24D0.
ReplyDeleteThis is it! No need for a Unicode application! U+24D0
Delete1. Please note that U+24D0 doesn’t carry the semantics of an open access symbol but is just a character that has to be represented by a small encircled a. A genuine Unicode open access symbol might be represented by several completely different looking characters or symbols according to historical period, location, culture etc.
Delete2. Next time you are looking for a Unicode character of a certain shape you might want to perform a search on shapecatcher.com.
Understood. But is it problematic to give ⓐ the meaning of open access (CC-BY or CC-0) in the scholarly realm?
ReplyDeleteI see no problem as long as it is made clear what ⓐ (circled small letter a) means in the texts produced.
DeleteLike this:
ReplyDeleteⓐ 2014. Open Access. All redistribution and reuse is permitted provided the author(s) is (are) acknowledged.
CC BY (like all CC licenses) requires acknowledging the license too.
ReplyDeleteWould phrasing it as follows solve that?
ReplyDeleteⓐ Open Access 2014. All redistribution and reuse is permitted in accordance with CC-BY [CC-0] licence [license] terms.
Journals such as PLOS indicate open access with the statement "OPEN ACCESS Freely available online"; there is an unlock symbol between the words "OPEN" and "ACCESS." I believe the unlock symbol should be used as the standard open access symbol. Please do not try to re-invent the wheel and confuse the issue. There is already a perfectly good symbol out there.
ReplyDelete