SP, won in a blockchain tender of the Ministry of Education and Science, refused to sign the contract

Having selected the winner of competition on creation and start of the digital platform of knowledge sharing and management of copyright the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation could not sign with it the contract. Now the offer will be sent to the participant who took the second place.^[1]

In Russia the digital platform of knowledge sharing will be created

Choice of the developer

On tender of the Ministry of Education and Science 8 requests arrived. The offers were directed by Electronic Archive companies (Elar), Neolant, "The national register of intellectual property", "the Center of Information Technologies", Verkont Service, "The federal research center "Information Science and Management" of the Russian Academy of Sciences", Siberian Federal University and also the individual entrepreneur Tolstykh Fedor Vyacheslavovich from Moscow.

Price offers of the companies and organizations were distributed in the range from 67.95 million rubles (Neolant) up to 89.5 million rubles (Electronic archive), at the initial cost of the contract - 90 million rubles Fedor Tolstykh suggested to execute the contract for 19.9 million rubles.

During consideration of requests it became clear that the Verkont Service company - 98 people is ready to select the greatest number of specialists whom the participant is going to involve to execution of works. The greatest number of successfully performed contracts comparable to a tender subject of contents and structure of works was executed by Neolant company - 56 contracts.

The request of the Federal research center "Information Science and Management" of the Russian Academy of Sciences was rejected due to the lack of a number of documents.

Based on estimates of the remained requests, IP Tolstykh Fedor Vyacheslavovich was called the winner. With it the contract had to be signed. However, on November 14, two weeks later after summing up, the procurement commission of the Ministry of Education recognized by Tolstykh's SP which evaded from signing of the contract. The entrepreneur did not provide to the customer the signed contract and documents confirming providing ensuring performance of the contract.

As a result the contract should be signed with the procurement participant who took the second place now. It is the Neolant company which offered 67.95 million rubles for the services.

According to TAdviser, as of November, 2017, Fedor Tolstykh was a winner of three more purchases of the Ministry of Education. In particular, he won tender for carrying out electronic audit of the existing information resources in the system of science and education and also tender on development and approbation of algorithms and program procedures of use of electronic document management for increase in process performance of maintenance of implementation of federal target programs of the ministry. Both in the first and in the second case it brought down the cost of the contract from 60 to 14.5 million rubles. As of November 15, 2017, information on signing of the contracts on these purchases is not published.

In tender on complex support of development of information and analytical infrastructure of institutions of higher education IP Tolstykh became the winner, thanks to decrease in the starting price from 20 to 5.5 million rubles. However, after a while the commission of the ministry recognized the winner evaded from signing of the contract.

Reasons of creation of the platform

As note in the ministry, the era of uniform digital space which economically developed countries entered transforms consciousness of society, bringing both material, and more the non-material relations to supranational level. The catalyst of changes is the complex information, technology, political and social the practician, qualitatively other spaces creating in different corners of the world of a point of rapid development personal (scientific, engineering, educational, etc.) growth that is noticeable by intensive development of the digital industries of the USA, Singapore, Japan, etc.

According to department, digital information space is the unique environment for production, reproduction and turnover of results of intellectual activity, and first of all – subjects of copyright: works of science, literature and art. And if practice of civilized turnover developed concerning books, musical, audiovisual pieces, then concerning objects, not less significant for scientific technology development, patent and copyright (publications, pre-prints, three-dimensional subjects and models, objects and fragments of data, the description of fragments of genetic information, the photo, etc.) such practice is absent.

Moreover, the mechanisms of fixing of the rights to such objects or their fragments which today settled are not created, there are also no mechanisms of effective management of such rights. At the same time the increasing number of the informal transactions happening in scientific and educational community is the share of these objects today. De facto it is about formation of "the black market" of knowledge sharing in the professional research and educational environment using atypical objects or their fragments which are not accounting items and managements.

Academic centers and the universities act as the largest centers creating, reproducing and using subjects of copyright, according to the Ministry of Education. In Russia the last, generating, by different estimates, up to 80% of the scientific and educational content (SEC), at the same time are significant infrastructure of its mastering, use and processing. At the same time until now the general approaches even in the university environment both regarding emergence fixing, and regarding turnover of copyright, are not created.

The lack of the corresponding culture and convenient cures of the specified tasks creates conditions for development of intermediaries, consider in the ministry. It, in turn, creates a paradoxical situation – authors, at the same time being consumers of works, do not earn an essential reward, but at the same time their employers – universities – are forced to spend rather notable means for ensuring access of authors to such information, purchasing it at intermediaries (publishing houses "Lan", "Infra-M", "Yurayt", etc.). Comparing cost value of works of science, literature (art) in the university environment, the licensing cost or alienations of the rights to them and acquisition value of an end product at publishing houses, it is possible to draw a conclusion that the unfair model of turnover of the rights for universities and the scientific organizations interfering scientific technology and in general to creative development at the moment forms.

This problem is characteristic not only of Russia, assure of the Ministry of Education. It is relevant also for all international scientific and educational community which looks for methods and mechanisms of fast fixing of authorship, free or conditional and free turnover of works and at the same time providing fair remuneration of the author, effective production of qualitative content is impossible without development of an adequate system of a financial incentive of the author. At the same time the classical model of interaction with authors through the conclusion of author's agreements, agreements on creation of office works, formation of a system of collective management of the rights does not answer the speed of turnover of scientific and technical information in a digital medium.

The situation in the scientific and educational sphere is complicated also by the fact that the commonly accepted form of turnover of objects in the form of the integral (finished) works is rather conservative mechanism of consumption of knowledge. The era of digital technologies minimizes value of amount of data for benefit of convenience of access, processing speed and a possibility of operational application that considerably increases demand for separate fragments of the works contextually corresponding to the task solved by the consumer.

It imposes additional requirements to information management systems knowledge which should operate not with complete documents, but in the minimum indivisible units of knowledge (quanta). Moreover, it is necessary to provide the subsequent generation of new knowledge on the basis of such fragments with fixing of the sequences of use of these or those objects of the right, including accounting of difficult chains of turnover of fragments and possible "branching" of owners, authors, coauthors and different versions of result.

Development of modern technologies creates not only problems, but also unique technological capabilities of turnover of intellectual property rights:

• uses of flexible formats and methods of the description of the objects in a digital medium including allowing decomposition and use of fragments of such objects;
• fixings of the fact of creation or use, processing of objects of the right without participation of the person using the technologies similar a blockchain, with a guarantee of reliability of the relevant information;
• instant signing of the contracts without special knowledge in the field of law and automatic control of accomplishment of their conditions on the basis of "smart contracts".

Use of the specified technological capabilities is capable to solve the problems designated above through creation of the network platform allowing to manage works in the form of digital intellectual property items and the rights to them.

According to representatives of the Ministry of Education, the platform should have as controlling, and social functions due to integration of blockchain technologies, technologies of mutual citing, knowledge sharing and remote examination of novelty of objects. Further creation of a single system of the digital rules integrated into the platform will create possibilities of the organization of the isolated virtual ecosystem allowing to increase transparency and effectiveness of the scientist (collectives, collaborations) and to enter elements of natural stimulation and support of creativity, introduction of objects to turnover both into free, and into commercial.

Development of the digital platform will allow:

• provide timely recognition as new forms of the digital description of the objects protected by the intellectual right suitable for use, including for production, and right objects;
• simplify input of objects in turnover directly by authors, at the same time to give the chance to the scientific and educational organizations – employers to see the volume of consumption and to determine the value of these or those objects of the right;
• create new models of direct and indirect remuneration (monetization) of a legal entity for scientific and other creative activity;
• intensify reviewing and independent examination of novelty of objects;
• to automatically trace difficult chains of use, processing and creation of new objects.

Purposes of creation of the platform

Project objective – creation of the digital platform of knowledge sharing and management of copyright on the basis of aggregation of the subjects of copyright created in higher educational institutions, and providing turnover of such objects and rights to them based on technologies of the distributed registers.

As today there are no legislative and other practicians of use of digital platforms for the solution of the specified tasks, the universities which in own ecosystem will be able to create and approve new approaches should become the key creator and the consumer of the solution.

As a result of project implementation absolutely new university network platform allowing will be created:

1. Create and to introduce legally into circulation considerable on volume, the complex of information resources, reliable and relevant on contents, including "critical mass" of electronic scientific, educational and educational and methodical resources.

2. Provide to authors "barrier-free" input of knowledge in a system, passing traditional mechanisms of creation and the publication of content and offering automatic participation in the subsequent chains of the address of an intellectual property item.

3. Exclude from processes of turnover of intellectual property for needs of science and education of intermediaries, having increased rationality of use of financial resources of the universities for information support.

4. Increase quality of educational and scientific activity at the expense of the organization of kollaboratsionny activity of staff of the universities for creation of scientific, training and methodical materials, introduction into circulation of these researches.

5. Introduce the system of objective assessment of demand of works of science, literature and art on a set of indicators (to a skachivayemost, quoting, usability, etc.), having created thereby essentially new system of metric estimates in the university environment.

6. Enter elements of gamification of a system, having tied internal activity to a complex of financial and non-material incentives, having provided deserved remuneration, transparency and public control over knowledge wrapped in the created ecosystem.

7. Implement effective mechanisms of management of the rights to the results of intellectual activity at the universities corresponding to the civil legislation of the Russian Federation and at the same time – to create essentially new, progressive culture of work with intellectual property necessary for solving of tasks of development of digital economy.

8. Create the effective system of the distributed deposition and fixing of the rights on the basis of blockchain technologies, having provided aggregation and legalization of the digital content wrapped in the university environment.

9. Create the isolated virtual ecological environment on the basis of the system of digital rules allowing not only increase transparency and effectiveness of the scientist (collectives, collaborations), but also to get necessary experience and to approve practicians who will become a basis for development of all national system of intellectual property.

For input approbation not less than in five universities with further expansion on network of participating universities of Association of leading universities will be carried out to commercial operation of the platform.

Implementation of technologies of the distributed register of storage and also integration of a business case on the basis of a combination of fiat money and cryptocurrencies and other forms of stimulation will have to be approved by expert community of the universities (not less than three) locating the relevant laboratories (centers) in coordination with the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.

Expected project deliverables

During the course of performance and approbations of the project the bank of intellectual property items – scientific and educational content in the volume of not less than 10 thousand objects will be created. Service of search should perform for the period approbations not less than 10 thousand requests.

The novelty of the project will consist:

• in creation of the complex platform implemented in line with the paradigm of open science (Open Science) constructed on the distributed register, combining fixing of copyright, deposition of objects, the system of search and non-paid and (or) conditionally non-paid exchange of objects between the students, teachers and researchers working at leading universities;
• substitution of economic institute of mediation by the platform giving to consumers an opportunity to perform direct interaction with producers of content, including flexible change of their roles;
• formation of an ecosystem where as a basis of the economic relations the system of real and virtual stimulation on the basis of the principles of gamification of the social systems will be approved.

Terms and stages of the project

All project is broken into five stages. The last should be complete in November, 2019.

Notes