Category Archives: oa.benefits

Resilience: another advantage of openly-licensed content – Ross Mounce

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“My thesis EThOS ID is: uk.bl.ethos.64202 . In more normal times it would be publicly available via this link: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.642022

Fortunately, because I retained my rights to it, my thesis is openly-licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, and copies of it can be uploaded wherever I want. As a consequence, my thesis is also available from the University of Bath institutional repository, Thesis Commons. , CORE, and the Internet Archive. Even if one or two of these repositories goes down, it’s highly likely that my thesis will always be accessible from somewhere on the internet 24/7, no matter what. Posting content in multiple independently-run places gives others access to that content in a highly resilient way. It is also worth mentioning, there is a study suggesting that OA content made available in multiple places gets cited more than OA content only available in one place….”

Open Access publishing: benefits and challenges | European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing | Oxford Academic

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“In our time, more and more knowledge disseminated openly and free. At present, there are over 20 000 journals in the world that publish with Open Access. The Open Access movement and ultimately Plan S are a natural and timely evolution for academic publishing and dissemination of research findings. It clearly has many noble intentions. However, it has also opened up for more uncontrolled publishing, and there have and will be challenges down the road before full and fair implementation. In this editorial, we have highlighted different perspectives on the matter from the views of publishers, universities, funders, authors, and readers/users.”

Advantages and challenges to open science practices (in Russian)

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In Russian with this English-language abstract:  The article examines open science practices in relation with the Open Science framework. The core values of open science, emerged as a response to the long-standing challenges to scientific knowledge production, include: transparency, scrutiny, critique and reproducibility; equality of opportunities; responsibility, respect and accountability; collaboration, participation and inclusion; flexibility; sustainability. These are the guiding principles for open science practices. The spread of open science practices is uneven, in terms of regional, disciplinary, gender, and institutional differences. The overview of international studies shows that open science practices are beginning to affect the whole research cycle, from idea emergence throughout the dissemination and exploitation of research results. We analyzed four most widespread practices – open data, open peer review, preregistration and registered reports, and open access. Our findings suggest that all these practices, while solving particular problems, simultaneously create new ones. To overcome new challenges, shift in the principles themselves, scheme of funding and workload sharing, evaluation and reward processes are necessary. The most challenging is the need to change research culture in accordance with Open Science values. In Russia, open access is a commonly spread practice, whereas the rest three practices yet to be discussed.

Open access journal publication in health and medical research and open science: benefits, challenges and limitations | BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine

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“Scientific progress, including in evidence-based medicine, requires all available evidence to be accessed, scrutinised, interpreted and used. Missing or incomplete evidence creates biases and errors in later research. Open science practices are movements and procedures that aim to increase transparency in science production. They aim to make scientific knowledge available, accessible and reusable, benefitting scientific collaboration and all society.1 Open access is a core component of open science that aims to help solve the problem of accessibility.2

Traditional publication behind a paywall can hide evidence from the public, clinicians, policymakers and other researchers. Whether online or print, traditional scientific journals maintain their content behind a paywall, with only abstracts freely available to read.3 Readers access articles by purchasing the individual article, the entire journal issue or through a subscription. These journal subscriptions are purchased by institutions like universities and libraries. However, readers whose institutions cannot afford these subscriptions or who are not affiliated to an institution are often unable to pay to access every article they need. Members of the public and readers in low-resourced countries are disproportionately affected.4

 

 

Open access is defined as making a document freely available for anyone to read and, depending on the licence model, share and use (Box 1). Scholarly publishers now offer open access routes for publishing journal articles such as protocols, commentaries, reviews and result articles. The academic community expects these publishers to adhere to the same quality standards as in traditional closed access publication, such as peer review, indexing and permanent archiving. Biomedical research has progressively adopted open access, with yearly increases in the percentage of articles available as open access publications and the number of countries and policies mandating open access.5 6 Online supplemental text 1 summarises national and international open access mandates….”

How Open Science Unlocks Scientific Details: A Journey of Discovery – Open and Universal Science (OPUS) Project

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“By fostering transparency, collaboration, and accessibility, Open Science has unleashed the potential for researchers to delve deeper into the heart of scientific phenomena. In this article, we will explore how Open Science is instrumental in unraveling scientific intricacies and ushering in a new era of discovery….”

Who benefits when, from FAIR data? Part 3  – TL;DR – Digital Science

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“Following part 1of this series, which focused on researchers, and part 2, which focused on machines, it’s time to talk about the third puzzle piece – those impacted by research.

The general public, who pay for research via their taxes, should be able to benefit from it democratically. This is not the case. Non-researchers do not have access to over 50% of the academic literature (below). This is particularly problematic when it comes to healthcare, with the caveat that each nation-state has its own way of providing treatment to the sick. The basic science that most if not all pharmaceutical research is built on is largely government-funded….”

Increasing the Visibility and Impact of Nigerian Research: Upcoming Webinar on August 31, 2023 – DOAJ News Service

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“This upcoming webinar aims to raise awareness among policymakers, scholars, and publishers in Nigeria about the importance of publishing research openly in local journals. Key highlights of the webinar will include:

Overview of the African Open Access publishing landscape for journals and books and the importance of Nigeria.
Open Access Advantages: Discussing the benefits of open access, enabling researchers to reach a wider audience without barriers.
Governmental Roles: Stressing why governments must adapt policies and reward systems that recognize local open access venues.
Criteria and Application Procedures: Explaining the application procedures for DOAJ and DOAB.
Q&A Session: Addressing questions from the audience….”

Code sharing increases citations, but remains uncommon | Research Square

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Abstract:  Biologists increasingly rely on computer code, reinforcing the importance of published code for transparency, reproducibility, training, and a basis for further work. Here we conduct a literature review examining temporal trends in code sharing in ecology and evolution publications since 2010, and test for an influence of code sharing on citation rate. We find that scientists are overwhelmingly (95%) failing to publish their code and that there has been no significant improvement over time, but we also find evidence that code sharing can considerably improve citations, particularly when combined with open access publication.

 

The benefits of Open science are not inevitable: monitoring its development should be value-led | Impact of Social Sciences

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“Open science is increasingly becoming a policy focus and paradigm for all scientific research. Ismael Rafols, Ingeborg Meijer and Jordi Molas-Gallart argue that attempts to monitor the transition to open science should be informed by the values underpinning this change, rather than discrete indicators of open science practices….

Open science holds promise as a process of transformation, but the relationship between OS activities and the values it espouses are not inevitable. The promises of modern science have rarely been kept and have instead often led to unanticipated and troubling consequences, from nuclear energy to the internet. The question is not whether there is more or less open science, but what type of open science we are making. Monitoring OS should be aimed at reflective learning if OS activities are to take directions that transform science towards desired outcomes, towards a more inclusive and sustainable future.”

 

Peer-reviewed preprints: Benefits and limitations for young Indian researchers – International Science Council

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“In-group discussions that followed brought to light several observations on challenges and opportunities in the current publishing system:

Open peer review can be advantageous, particularly when the contents of the reviewer reports are made public while respecting the privacy of reviewers’ identities due to potential conflict of interest. This approach helps distribute the reviewing workload and allows experts to review papers within their specific areas of expertise.

The practice of preprint publishing is subject-specific: in physics and mathematics, it is customary to publish the preprints beforehand to invite comments and suggestions, but in applied areas such as agriculture, biomedical, or other fundamental areas like chemistry and biology, sharing preprints is seen as risky due to potential scooping.

Preprints are not considered for promotions, funding, and appraisal. However, preprints usher productivity in some situations as this is a medium of quick dissemination of information among peers.

At the same time, the papers already available in the public domain may face challenges in getting accepted in a journal. The journals that run on subscription models may have severe reservations about publishing preprinted work.

Misconduct regarding reviewing should also be considered, as anybody can post harsh or biased comments, which might affect the spirit and zeal of many early-career researchers. 

Suggestions to popularize preprint services include uploading preprints only when the manuscript is ready for publication and promoting the concept of overlay journals. We must encourage young researchers to adopt innovative publication methods and foster collaborations with scholars worldwide to implement new publishing systems.

In the context of India, the new University Grant Commission (UGC) guidelines allow preprints to be considered for awarding doctoral degrees. Existing policies governing the publication system need to be revised, accounting for the value of Open Access, and peer-reviewed preprints, which allow wider dissemination of research findings while maintaining rigorous peer review.

A shift towards a more inclusive and transparent publishing model can promote accessibility and accelerate the progress of scientific knowledge, but we need to address the challenges of educating the public and researchers about the limitations of preprints….”

What’s the point of having open scholarly infrastructures and how do we test their resilience? | Martin Paul Eve | Professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing

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“For me, the fundamental meta-principle, or ideal, that underpins POSI (the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure) is forkability and persistence. Taken on aggregate and implemented, an organization that signs up for POSI should be duplicable. That is: I should be able, as a reasonably technically competent individual, to acquire all the components of a POSI-posse signatory, and rebuild/resurrect their technical architecture….

But why do we want this “forkability”? The simple answer, as with many things at Crossref, where I work, is: persistence. The scholarly infrastructures on which we depend for (say) linking and metadata resolution must continue to exist and there must be mechanisms for their ongoing operation. POSI is designed to allow an arbitrary third-party entity to continue the operation of an infrastructure in the event of the original organization’s demise – or in cases where the original organization might be acting against the wishes of the community….

A point that disturbs me, though, is that we have never tested this forkability on any of the key scholarly infrastructures. Wargaming simulated disasters is common practice in organizations. At the Open Library of Humanities, we simulated a total systems failure and resurrected everything from backup. Crossref has, in the past, found that even massively redundant systems can go wrong if not tested….”

The value of journals | Nature Neuroscience

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“While we recognize the importance of open science and encourage deposition of submitted manuscripts on preprint servers, we feel this initial editorial filter serves a complementary function. Preprint servers enable speedy and frictionless communication of all types of scientific findings, a bit like listing an item on the auction site eBay. Browsing content on preprint servers is a bit like shopping on eBay, too. With such a wide array of papers, a scientist is bound to find some that are of interest. But, in the absence of an editorial filter, one may have to spend time wading through irrelevant or lower quality offerings.

Such an ‘unfiltered’ approach also omits the value added by the peer review process. As we have learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid and open scientific communication is valuable, but peer review is also critical to ensure the quality of the scientific record….”