IRRI science more accessible with open licenses and social media

The April-June 2009 issue Rice Today contains a great article about rice science in the digital age.

The story essentially introduces some of the pathways used by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to maximise the accessibility of its research outputs. These include adoption of a creative commons licence and publishing on several platforms - Google Books, Flickr, and YouTube.

A related presentation by IRRI's Gene Hettel - 'Adopting and Utilizing Creative Commons to Facilitate the Dissemination of Rice Knowledge and Technology' - gives a vivid insight into IRRI's CC approach to licensing and shows examples from the different platforms.

The presentation concludes: "Creative Commons: the 'pot of gold' for users of rice information around the world!"

nb: some other presentations to the 'Symposium on Common Use Licensing of Publicly Funded Scientific Data and Publications' are on slideshare.