Category Archives: oa.development

Call for tenders: Pilot project for the co-creative development of a self-assessment tool “Road2Openness” for the strategy and organisational development in the field of Open Science

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[via deepl.com] innOsci, the Stifterverband’s Forum for Open Innovation Culture, would like to work with interested universities to develop strategies and concepts for strategic opening, organisational development and profile building in the field of Open Science.

To this end, it has launched the Road2Opennes pilot project together with a team of Open Science experts. Road2Openness is an assessment tool that is intended to support universities in determining their own status quo in the field of Open Science by means of an interactive online questionnaire.

Furthermore, it is intended to provide recommendations for improving their own organisational Open Science activities and organisational development.

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innOsci, das Forum für Offene Innovationskultur des Stifterverbandes möchte gemeinsam mit interessierten Hochschulen, Strategien und Konzepte für eine strategische Öffnung, Organisationsentwicklung und Profilbildung  im Bereich Open Science entwickeln.

Dafür hat es zusammen mit einem Team von Open Science Expert:innen das Pilotprojekt Road2Opennes ins Leben gerufen. Road2Openness ist ein Assessment Tool, das Hochschulen  dabei  unterstützen  soll,  den  eigenen  Status  Quo im  Bereich Open  Science anhand eines interaktiven online Fragenkatalogs zu erfassen.

Des Weiteren soll es Handlungsempfehlungen zur Verbesserung der eigenen organisationalen Open Science Aktivitäten und Organisationsentwicklung liefern.

2nd United Nations Open Science Conference, Day 1 | UN Web TV

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“2nd United Nations Open Science Conference, From Tackling the Pandemic to Addressing Climate Change, Day 1 …

Production Date:  21 Jul 2021

Video Length 05:09:17…”

Day 2: https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1t/k1tgtjna1u

Day 3: https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1g/k1gp7m0jx8

conference programme: https://www.un.org/en/library/OS21

Open Science Conference 2021 | United Nations

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“With the advent of the pandemic, the component of openness in the scientific process has achieved criticality. Since 2019, when the Dag Hammarskjöld Library held the first Open Science Conference in the United Nations headquarters in New York, the global open movement has been significantly enriched with new national and international policies and frameworks as well as daring and visionary initiatives, both private and public. Research and funding institutions, libraries, publishers switched content to open access, in some cases overnight, to ensure unhindered access for researchers and the public, solidifying a tacit understanding of Open Science principles. The roundtable discussion among 19 eminent personalities in Open Science that preceded the Library’s 2019 Conference had resulted in a document of principles elaborating on the necessary elements needed for the creation of a Global Open Science Commons for the SDGs

In the 2nd OPEN SCIENCE CONFERENCE, From Tackling the Pandemic to Addressing Climate Change, policy makers, main IGO actors, librarians, publishers and research practitioners will engage into a public dialogue focusing on what Open Science has learned from COVID-19 and how this can be applied into actions addressing the global climate crisis, at the interface of science, technology, policy and research….”

Press Release: Springer Nature and LYRASIS Announce Open Access Sponsorship Agreement for Books that Support Research and Teaching Aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals

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“Springer Nature has signed its first sponsorship agreement for open access books with LYRASIS, a US non-profit membership association of libraries, archives, and museums, starting in 2021. The agreement is set to lead to the publication of new open access book titles. The collaboration will focus on climate change, equity, peace, and justice and will provide free access to research in critical areas that support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Springer Nature is helping to advance the SDGs through a dedicated SDG publishing programme, bringing to light and disseminating important knowledge related to the world’s most pressing challenges. Since the SDGs were launched in 2015, Springer Nature has published more than 300,000 relevant articles and book chapters, which have been downloaded more than 750 million times. Springer Nature is also leading the way in open access book (OA) publishing, first piloting open access books in 2011. Its open access book portfolio now includes over 1,400 titles spanning all academic disciplines, with more than 170 million chapter downloads worldwide. As research shows that open access books are downloaded ten times more often and cited 2.4 times more, reaching 61% more countries compared to non-open access books, this new sponsoring partnership will foster the advancement of science as well as the visibility, dissemination and impact of research on these critical challenges. 

The new open access book titles will be published under the Springer Nature imprints of Springer and Palgrave Macmillan under a CC BY 4.0 licence to give readers around the world free access to the books via Springer Nature’s content platform SpringerLink. …”

Mapping for a sustainable world

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“Open access is a major step towards achieving the SDGs by being able to monitor progress and build collective understanding. Because the SDG datasets and the cartographic guidance in this book are openly available, more people than ever before can make maps in support of an economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable future….

However, maps both historically and currently are part of the problem, contributing to the global inequities the SDGs seek to dissolve and thus reinforcing dominant power structures. Questions on who can make and access maps—as well as the knowledge to make and access these maps—persist. In this book, we attempt to open this knowledge on cartographic design too often paywalled behind expensive textbooks or university courses. While opening this knowledge is one step towards democratizing cartography, it is not enough to confront the SDGs. We call on the global community of cartographers to continue developing and sharing open data, maps, and mapping technologies to better the world….”

Open education resources to shape post-pandemic world

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“For the past two decades, the world has been building open knowledge on a massive scale, with open educational resources as a cornerstone. The 2001 launches of MIT OpenCourseWare and Creative Commons formed a solid foundation of this global open educational resource movement, which now supports many millions of learners from all walks of life.

Now, as we begin to grapple with the long-term impacts and changes in education brought on by the pandemic year, it’s crucial to assess how open educational resource (OER) tools and resources are reaching those who need and use them most. In this article, we’ll focus on students in Africa….

Beyond its role in sustaining education through the pandemic, OER like MIT OpenCourseWare has several qualities that will be essential in the rebuilding and progress to come, supporting efforts to increase equity and live more sustainably as framed by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

• OER is inclusive, because it’s open for all to adapt for diverse needs and have all voices reflected.

• OER is resilient, always there when you need it, free to use in classrooms and carry with you through any future disruptions.

• OER is iterative, a collective work in progress that admits the latest insights into what’s working, and what’s not working, as knowledge is created and applied.

• OER is scalable, enabling hyper-local knowledge and lived experiences to be shared and built into a global pool of knowledge….”

Why we need to think about ethics when using satellite data for development | Devex

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“To avoid these dynamics, Allan says it’s vital that stakeholders think carefully about who controls the collection of data, what platforms are being used to store and organize the data collected — and if those platforms are proprietary, or open-sourced — and what will happen to the data after the project is complete.

“The problem with proprietary data is that each NGO might be mapping different things, and they aren’t necessarily sharing that data,” Allan said. “So you might have Oxfam mapping one type of water source, but ignoring WaterAid, who may be mapping another, potentially leading to false resource reports.”

Another issue with proprietary data is that after the project is complete, it often becomes inaccessible to anyone except the NGO and donors, he said.

“The data is not only getting wasted, but it’s also potentially insecure, through lack of sustained ownership,” he said. “One way to get around this issue is to make data open-source, available in the public space, accountable to — and also update-able by — local communities.” …”

The SHRUG; Development Data Lab

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“The Socioeconomic High-resolution Rural-Urban Geographic Platform for India (SHRUG) is a geographic platform that facilitates data sharing between researchers working on India. It is an open access repository currently comprising dozens of datasets covering India’s 500,000 villages and 8000 towns using a set of a common geographic identifiers that span 25 years….”

Development Data Lab

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“Data limitations are a major constraint on good policy in developing countries. The sample surveys conventionally used for development policy and research are sparse, geographically imprecise, and weakly integrated. We collect many new kinds of data, including measures of well-being generated from satellite images, data exhaust from government programs, and archival administrative records not previously used for policy design. Our open data platform (the SHRUG) seamlessly stitches these data sources together, making it one of India’s first high-resolution geographic frameworks for socioeconomic analysis.

Our research uses cutting edge econometric and machine learning tools to generate policy-relevant insights that would be difficult to arrive at using other data sources. We focus on understanding how people born into poverty can live fulfilling and productive lives—and which policies and programs can help them do so….”

Meet the organisations receiving Open Data Day 2021 mini-grants – Open Knowledge Foundation blog

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“The Open Knowledge Foundation is happy to announce the list of organisations from all over the world who have been awarded mini-grants to help them celebrate Open Data Day on Saturday 6th March 2021.

Thanks to the generous support of this year’s mini-grant funders –Microsoft, UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Mapbox, Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, Latin American Open Data Initiative, Open Contracting Partnership and Datopian – the Open Knowledge Foundation will be giving out a total of 61 mini-grants to help organisations run great online or in-person events on or around Open Data Day.

We received hundreds of mini-grant applications this year and were greatly impressed by the quality of the events being organised all over the world.

Learn more about Open Data Day, discover events taking place online or in your country and find out how to connect with the global open data community by checking out the information at the bottom of this blogpost.

Here are the organisations who will receive mini-grants for each of this year’s four themes:…”

Waiving article processing charges for least developed countries: a keystone of a large-scale open access transformation

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Abstract:  This article investigates whether it is economically feasible for a large publishing house to waive article processing charges for the group of 47 so-called least developed countries (LDC). As an example, Springer Nature is selected. The analysis is based on the Web of Science, OpenAPC and the Jisc Collections’ Springer Compact journal list. As a result, it estimates an average yearly publication output of 520 publications (or 0.26% of the worldwide publication output in Springer Nature journals) for the LDC country group. The loss of revenues for Springer Nature would be US$1.1 million if a waiver was applied for all of these countries. Given that the subject categories of these publications indicate the output is of high societal relevance for LDC, and given that money is indispensable for development in these countries (e.g. life expectancy, health, education), it is not only desirable but also possible in economic terms for a publisher like Springer Nature to waive APCs for these countries without much loss in revenues.

 

Waiving article processing charges for least developed countries: a keystone of a large-scale open access transformation

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Abstract:  This article investigates whether it is economically feasible for a large publishing house to waive article processing charges for the group of 47 so-called least developed countries (LDC). As an example, Springer Nature is selected. The analysis is based on the Web of Science, OpenAPC and the Jisc Collections’ Springer Compact journal list. As a result, it estimates an average yearly publication output of 520 publications (or 0.26% of the worldwide publication output in Springer Nature journals) for the LDC country group. The loss of revenues for Springer Nature would be US$1.1 million if a waiver was applied for all of these countries. Given that the subject categories of these publications indicate the output is of high societal relevance for LDC, and given that money is indispensable for development in these countries (e.g. life expectancy, health, education), it is not only desirable but also possible in economic terms for a publisher like Springer Nature to waive APCs for these countries without much loss in revenues.

 

Microorganisms | Free Full-Text | Microbiome Research: Open Communication Today, Microbiome Applications in the Future

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Abstract:  Microbiome research has recently gained centre-stage in both basic science and translational applications, yet researchers often feel that public communication about its potential overpromises. This manuscript aims to share a perspective on how scientists can engage in more open, ethical and transparent communication using an ongoing research project on food systems microbiomes as a case study. Concrete examples of strategically planned communication efforts are outlined, which aim to inspire and empower other researchers. Finally, we conclude with a discussion on the benefits of open and transparent communication from early-on in innovation pathways, mainly increasing trust in scientific processes and thus paving the way to achieving societal milestones such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the EU Green Deal. View Full-Text

 

Towards societal impact through open research | Springer Nature | For Researchers | Springer Nature

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“Open research is fundamentally changing the way that researchers communicate and collaborate to advance the pace and quality of discovery. New and dynamic open research-driven workflows are emerging, thus increasing the findability, accessibility, and reusability of results. Distribution channels are changing too, enabling others — from patients to businesses, to teachers and policy makers — to increasingly benefit from new and critical insights. This in turn has dramatically increased the societal impact of open research. But what remains less clear is the exact nature and scope of this wider impact as well as the societal relevance of the underpinning research….”