Toward open and reproducible epidemiology | American Journal of Epidemiology | Oxford Academic

Abstract:  Starting in the 2010s, researchers in the experimental social sciences rapidly began to adopt increasingly open and reproducible scientific practices. These practices include publicly sharing deidentified data when possible, sharing analysis code, and preregistering study protocols. Empirical evidence from the social sciences suggests such practices are feasible, can improve analytic reproducibility, and can reduce selective reporting. In academic epidemiology, adoption of open-science practices has been slower than in the social sciences (with some notable exceptions, such as registering clinical trials). Epidemiologic studies are often large, complex, conceived after data have already been collected, and difficult to directly replicate by collecting new data. These characteristics makes it especially important to ensure their integrity and analytic reproducibility. Open-science practices can also pay immediate dividends to researchers’ own work by clarifying scientific reasoning and encouraging well-documented, organized workflows. We consider how established epidemiologists and early-career researchers alike can help midwife a culture of open science in epidemiology through their research practices, mentorship, and editorial activities.

 

Open access in scholarly publishing: Where are we now? | Research Information

“Notably, 2023 marks a decade since two important events. Not only David Bowie’s return to releasing records, but Research Councils UK’s (the predecessor to UKRI) launch of its open access policy. This was a watershed moment for UK research, a clear statement of intent to make open access a full-scale reality. But 10 years on, it is pertinent to ask, where are we now?…

In fact, 2022 certainly witnessed a continuing paradigm shift, particularly UKRI’s open access policy coming into effect for articles and conference proceedings. This represents a step-change to full and immediate open access for publicly funded research, and essentially incorporates Plan S into the UK research landscape. Similar policies have been launched by other funders, including the National Institute for Health & Care Research and Cancer Research UK. 

 

Moreover, 2022 saw the release of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 results, marking another milestone for open access. REF 2021’s open access mandate for journal articles and conference proceedings has arguably had the greatest impact in driving open access engagement by researchers. What was once a niche pursuit that was opposed by many researchers is now overwhelmingly regarded as an everyday part of the research lifecycle. There is a growing sense of positive engagement too, with researchers increasingly publishing open access because they want to and not just because they have to….”

NIH’s new data sharing policy is coming, and it’s a ‘big cultural shift’ | News | Chemistry World

“Biochemists and other researchers who apply for funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) will have to include comprehensive data management and sharing plans in grants from 25 January. These will be formal strategies for managing, preserving and sharing scientific data, as well as the accompanying metadata.

The new rule, which is generating some concern within the research community, replaces the NIH’s existing data sharing policy that has been around since 2003, and applies to only those seeking at least $500,000 (£419,200) in direct costs from the agency in any given year. The original regulation required researchers to submit a plan that describes how they will share the underlying data, or if they cannot share it then why not.

By contrast, the latest policy affects all NIH grants, regardless of specific budget. It will apply to competing grant applications, proposals for contracts and other funding agreements submitted to the NIH on or after 25 January.

The agency will now mandate that researchers describe their strategy to share scientific data needed to ‘validate and replicate’ their research findings, whether or not the data is used to support scholarly publications….”

‘The attitude of publishers is a barrier to open access’ | UKSG

“Transitioning to open research is incredibly important for the University of Liverpool for two reasons: the external environment we are now operating in, and our own philosophy and approach to research.

But there are barriers, particularly the research culture and the attitude of publishers….

In my experience, the biggest barrier is culture: researchers are used to operating in a particular way. Changing practice and mindset takes time and must be conducted sensitively.

Open research benefits all researchers, so having their support on this journey is vitally important.

Some researchers are concerned that publishing their work open access has implications for their intellectual property (IP) rights. In fact, this is a perceived problem, since the same IP protections apply to all work, whether published behind a paywall or published open access.

Despite the recognition that citation metrics are not a suitable proxy for research assessment, some researchers continue to seek the kudos of publishing in a so-called prestige journal with a high-impact factor, such as ‘Nature’.  They see this as a key career goal and worry their progression will falter without this achievement….

So, while I acknowledge there has been significant progress towards open access globally, and in particular compliance with UKRI’s open access policy, the attitude of publishers which are driven by profit margins continues to be an unacceptable barrier….”

When research data is shared freely

“In Norway, the proportion of research being published openly has increased considerably in the past ten years. While less than 40% of Norwegian research articles were published openly in 2013, in 2021 that proportion had increased to around 75%, according to the OA barometer from the service provider, Sikt.

Sharing data is not quite as common….

Wenaas and Gulbrandsen also believe that data sharing is a question of culture. It is new to many, for others it may have been the practice for a long time….”

 

On the culture of open access: the Sci-hub paradox | Research Square

Abstract:  Shadow libraries have gradually become key players of scientific knowledge dissemination, despite their illegality in most countries of the world. Many publishers and scientist-editors decry such libraries for their copyright infringement and loss of publication usage information, while some scholars and institutions support them, sometimes in a roundabout way, for their role in reducing inequalities of access to knowledge, particularly in low-income countries. Although there is a wealth of literature on shadow libraries, none of this have focused on its potential role in knowledge dissemination, through the open access movement. Here we analyze how shadow libraries can affect researchers’ citation practices, highlighting some counter-intuitive findings about their impact on the Open Access Citation Advantage (OACA). Based on a large randomized sample, this study first shows that OA publications, including those in fully OA journals, receive more citations than their subscription-based counterparts do. However, the OACA has slightly decreased over the seven last years. The introduction of a distinction between those accessible or not via the Sci-hub platform among subscription-based suggest that the generalization of its use cancels the positive effect of OA publishing. The results show that publications in fully OA journals (and to a lesser extent those in hybrid journals) are victims of the success of Sci-hub. Thus, paradoxically, although Sci-hub may seem to facilitate access to scientific knowledge, it negatively affects the OA movement as a whole, by reducing the comparative advantage of OA publications in terms of visibility for researchers. The democratization of the use of Sci-hub may therefore lead to a vicious cycle against the development of fully OA journals.

 

Ireland’s National Action Plan for Open Research: Advancing Open Science and Public Access to Research | National Open Research Forum

“Today, Ireland’s National Action Plan for Open Research 2022-2030 was launched at an event hosted by the National Open Research Forum (NORF). The National Action Plan outlines objectives and actions for the next chapter in Ireland’s transition towards open research. The plan was prepared by NORF and supports national strategic priorities for research and innovation under Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy.

Open research, also known as open science, is an approach to research based on open cooperative work, tools, and knowledge sharing, for the benefit of science and society. Open research practices make research processes and their outputs available to the widest possible audience and aim to enhance the quality, efficiency, and impact of research.

The National Action Plan for Open Research serves as a roadmap for the implementation of open research across Ireland and is structured according to three broad themes:

Establishing a culture of open research
Achieving 100% open access to research publications
Enabling FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) research data and other outputs

Today’s launch event included introductory remarks by Dr Alan Wall, CEO of the Higher Education Authority, a summary of the National Action Plan by Dr Daniel Bangert, National Open Research Coordinator, and presentations from six projects funded by NORF to deliver priority actions for 2022-2024. …”

Intelligent open science: viral genomic data sharing during the COVID-19 pandemic – GOV.UK

“A case study on how data was shared across borders during the coronavirus pandemic, and best practice for responding to future global emergencies….

While genomic sequencing data was shared more quickly and widely than ever before during the COVID-19 pandemic, in many cases it was shared too late, or in too partial a form, to support the emergency response.

There is broad consensus that existing norms for data sharing are not well-adapted to an emergency context in which near real-time sharing is the desired goal.

Following the open science commitments made during the UK’s G7 Presidency, BEIS commissioned this study to add depth and precision to existing recommendations on:

data sharing across borders
related research practice
related cultural issues

The findings are intended to inform understanding of open science best practice in responding to future global emergencies….”

1Future Leadership Fellows discuss open research with UKRI and UKRN

“On 12 October, UKRI convened several hundred Future Leaders Fellows in Birmingham. The UKRI open research team and the UK Reproducibility Network brought together some of those Fellows in two special interest session s to discuss open and transparent research . H ere we summarise the perspectives a nd ideas that we heard from the Fellows, who work in a range of disciplines and have engaged with open research in a variety of ways . Where we are aware of related work, we note this [in square brackets]….”

Kahn | Open Access with Chinese Characteristics: Understanding Recent History and Current Practice via Qualitative Interviews at a Large Chinese Research University | Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication

Abstract:  Chinese scholars, administrators, and librarians possess nuanced understandings of what defines open access in China and the barriers that make wider adoption of open access difficult. When we say “open access” in the United States, we imply a complex set of underlying assumptions tied to the history and practice of scholarship. Saying “open access” in China brings with it a similarly complex set of assumptions, which may not be commensurate with the “open access” we speak of, and such 1:1 translation may not be possible or desirable given the unique historical, political, and linguistic differences between the world’s two largest producers and consumers of scholarship. Through a careful analysis of our participants’ observations and a review of the history and context of Chinese academic institutions, we posit that “open access with Chinese characteristics” describes a set of possibilities and constraints that determine how Chinese academics experience both the theoretical project and the practical distribution method we commonly call “open access.” While these multiple understandings of “open access” may not converge on a single, shared meaning, we can endeavor to understand one another better in the service of creating and sharing knowledge.

 

Everything Hertz: 161: The memo (with Brian Nosek)

“Dan and James are joined by Brian Nosek (Co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Open Science) to discuss the recent White House Office of Science Technology & Policy memo ensuring free, immediate, and equitable access to federally funded research. They also cover the implications of this memo for scientific publishing, as well as the mechanics of culture change in science….”

Communities, Commoning, Open Access and the Humanities: An Interview with Martin Eve – ScienceOpen

Abstract:  Leading open access publishing advocate and pioneer Professor Martin Paul Eve considers several topics in an interview with WPCC special issue editor Andrew Lockett. These include the merits of considering publishing in the context of commons theory and communing, digital platforms as creative and homogenous spaces, cosmolocalism, the work of intermediaries or boundary organisations and the differing needs of library communities. Eve is also asked to reflect on research culture, the academic prestige economy, the challenges facing the humanities, digital models in trade literature markets and current influences in terms of work in scholarly communications and recent academic literature. Central concerns that arise in the discussion are the importance of values and value for money in an environment shaped by increasing demands for policies determined by crude data monitoring that are less than fully thought through in terms of their impact and their implications for academics and their careers.

 

US requirements for public access to research | Unlocking Research

“Federal agencies have been asked to update their public access policies to make publications and supporting data publicly accessible without an embargo. This applies to all federal agencies (the previous policy only applied to those with more than $100 million in annual research and development expenditure) and allows for flexibility for the agencies to decide on some of the details while encouraging alignment of approaches. It applies to all peer-reviewed research articles in journals and includes the potential to also include peer-reviewed book chapters, editorials and peer-reviewed conference proceedings.

The emphasis on “measures to reduce inequities of, and access to, federally funded research and data” is particularly important in light of the serious risk that we will just move from a broken system with built-in inequities around access to information to a new broken system with built-in inequities around whose voices can be heard. Active engagement will be needed to ensure that the agencies take these issues into account and are not contributing to these inequities….”

Open4DE Spotlight on Finland – An advanced culture of openness shaped by the research community

“In a comparison of European Openness strategies, Finland stands out for its sophisticated system of coordinated policy measures. While other countries have a strategy that bundles different aspects of the Openness culture into one central policy, the Finnish model impresses with unity in diversity. The website of the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, which was set up specifically to provide information on Open Science (OS), lists four national policies on OS and research in Finland. In addition to a policy for data and methods, a policy on open access to scholary publications and a policy on open education and educational ressources document activity at a high level. The openness culture in Finland targets all stages of scientific communication but also teaching and learning. In addition, a national information portal provides orientation on publication venues, projects and publicly funded technical infrastructures. It is an exemplary tool to get an overview of the constantly growing Open Access (OA) and OS ecosystem and its numerous products and projects….”