Academia is often accused of rejecting innovation and new concepts. In the current debate around open networks and access to knowledge, many universities are choosing to retreat behind expensive, outmoded, exclusionary systems of storing and sharing knowledge, which are beyond the reach of many students and researchers.

But there is a glimmer of hope shining from South Korea. The dCollection is a nationwide project to build knowledge information distribution systems on the web. It was founded by the Korean Education & Research Information Service (KERIS), which is operated under the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development of South Korea. Since 2003, KERIS has been building a web-based academic database with a unified format, so that researchers and students can access and refer to academic material in a more open environment. What makes this dCollection even more interesting is that they have done this using a combination of Creative Commons and DRM licensing options.

KERIS developed the standardized knowledge distribution system, and then invited universities' libraries to use the system. It took some time to convince the libraries why they should participate in the project, but now libraries from 62 universities have registered 300 000 documents including academic writings, reports and theses.

The system utilizes a self-archiving mechanism, which means that anyone who wants to submit content can access an online registration center to enroll, select the copyright conditions, and register the text, thus archiving it. Every archived document has metadata embedded, which automatically integrates it into the Research Information Search Service, operated by KERIS.

What makes dCollection unique is that it has adopted both CC licensing and DRM technology ' it allows submitters to choose whether they agree to apply a Creative Commons license to the material, and in the case that they do not agree to a CC license, dCollection allows them to use DRM for the material. But why did the dCollection approve of this seemingly contradictory method of licensing the archived content?

Dongwoo Kim, a researcher and project manager of KERIS, answered that dCollection placed more emphasis on persuading as many as universities as possible to participate in the project. 'Copyright is a controversial issue and libraries are afraid of being led into a situation which incurs unfair use of the database. We did not want to push them, so we decided to allow two different systems for submitters,' he explained.

Currently, about 5 700 academic texts out of a 300 000 strong document archive has adopted CC licenses. This means that CC licensed materials only makes up 1.9% out of the whole collection. While this may not be a large percentage, perhaps we can be consoled by the fact that dCollection has the support of 62 universities involved in their open archiving system.

Compared to other academic institutions, this project can be hailed as a success, especially compared to countries that are still struggling to convince universities that access to research is essential for development and the flourishing of human knowledge.

As Denise Nicholson, copyright services librarian at Wits University in Johannesburg said, 'There is a growing interest in open access and open publishing, but I think the academic world is still tied to the 'publish or perish' syndrome as they have to publish in accredited journals to get subsidies from the Department of Education or the National Research Foundation here in South Africa. The problem is that there are very few open access journals on the accreditation list. It is up to institutions to motivate for more to be added.'

We could learn some lessons from dCollection's approach to convincing the 62 universities involved, of the need to take the controversial step to open archiving. Dongwoo's answer to the debate is simple: 'pragmatism'

'Libraries are struggling to deal with their digital archives because of expensive and troublesome daily operation. dCollection provided a practical solution to these knotty issues, because the system allowed, not only the unification of a database, but also the support of management. Thus they agreed to participate,' he said.

Perhaps Dongwoo's advice might provide some hopeful encouragement and ideas to those who are lobbying for change at their own universities around the world.

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