Developing New Approaches to Promote Equitable and Inclusive Implementation of Open Scholarship Policies A Workshop | National Academies

“The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Scholarship will organize a half-day hybrid public workshop, Developing New Approaches to Promote Equitable and Inclusive Implementation of Open Scholarship Policies on Thursday, October 19 from 9 am to 2:30 pm EDT. The workshop will be held in conjunction with the Fall 2023 meeting of the Roundtable. The public is invited to register to join virtually. 

The workshop will explore specific steps and new approaches that research institutions, governmental agencies, research funders and other organizations can take to promote equitable and inclusive implementation of policies and practices being developed in response to the August 2022 memorandum of the Office of Science and Technology Policy on Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research. The discussion will build on a June 2023 workshop that explored the implications of new policies for various stakeholders. A Proceedings of a Workshop-in Brief will be prepared by designated rapporteurs and distributed broadly….”

Promoting Equitable and Inclusive Implementation of Open Scholarship Policies A Workshop | National Academies

“The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Scholarship will convene a virtual public workshop, Promoting Equitable and Inclusive Implementation of Open Scholarship Policies on Monday, June 26, 2023, 11:00 am – 2:30 pm EDT in conjunction with its Spring 2023 meeting. Please register in advance to receive information on how to attend the workshop. 

The workshop will explore the implications of new policies and practices intended to advance open scholarship, particularly the August 2022 memorandum of the Office of Science and Technology Policy on Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research. The discussion will feature perspectives from a diverse range of speakers directly impacted by these developments, including early career researchers, representatives from minority-serving institutions, center directors, and not-for-profit publishers. A Proceedings of a Workshop–in Brief will be prepared and distributed broadly.”

Accelerating and Deepening Approaches to FAIR Data Sharing A Workshop | National Academies

“The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Research Data and Information (BRDI) will convene a half-day public workshop, Accelerating and Deepening Approaches to FAIR Data Sharing on April 20, 2023 (Thursday) in a hybrid format. The public is invited to join virtually. Please register to receive information on how to attend the workshop. 

The workshop will feature invited presentations and discussions on new approaches that research funders, research institutions, researchers, scientific societies, and other stakeholders are taking to facilitate and encourage sharing of FAIR (findable-accessible-interoperable-reusable) research data within and across disciplines. The discussions will explore new initiatives to support FAIR data sharing, the need for innovative approaches, potential obstacles to success and how obstacles might be overcome. A Proceedings of a Workshop-in Brief will be prepared by a designated rapporteur in accordance with institutional guidelines.”

Toward a 21st Century National Data Infrastructure: Enhancing Survey Programs by Using Multiple Data Sources |The National Academies Press

“Much of the statistical information currently produced by federal statistical agencies – information about economic, social, and physical well-being that is essential for the functioning of modern society – comes from sample surveys. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of data from other sources, including data collected by government agencies while administering programs, satellite and sensor data, private-sector data such as electronic health records and credit card transaction data, and massive amounts of data available on the internet. How can these data sources be used to enhance the information currently collected on surveys, and to provide new frontiers for producing information and statistics to benefit American society?

Toward a 21st Century National Data Infrastructure: Enhancing Survey Programs by Using Multiple Data Sources, the second report in a series funded by the National Science Foundation, discusses how use of multiple data sources can improve the quality of national and subnational statistics while promoting data equity. This report explores implications of combining survey data with other data sources through examples relating to the areas of income, health, crime, and agriculture….”

Open Science for Ukraine: the Case for International Cooperation

“The war in Ukraine and resulting destruction of research institutions have severely affected Ukrainian scientists. Almost 100,000 scientists still reside in Ukraine and require international support to continue their work. Ukrainian scientists would strongly benefit from an organized effort to support them through open science policies. As a result of the ongoing invasion, academic and research institutions in Ukraine have been physically damaged, and researchers face significant obstacles in trying to continue their work. This year, the International Science Council and an international collective of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine called on the scientific community to assist Ukraine by providing free access to archives, licensed software, and databases. International scientific societies and organizations such as UNESCO can use their resources to encourage collaboration and facilitate remote access to scientific resources for Ukrainian scientists. Open science policies will be key for preserving Ukrainian science and helping rebuild in the future.”

Open Scholarship Priorities and Next Steps: Public Workshop Registration, Mon, Dec 5, 2022 at 8:30 AM | Eventbrite

“The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Scholarship will organize a one-day public workshop in conjunction with its Fall 2022 meeting. The workshop will explore actions being taken by various stakeholder organizations to foster the broad adoption of policies and practices in support of open scholarship. It will bring together participants from universities, scholarly societies, federal agencies, and private research funders. A Proceedings of a Workshop–in Brief will be prepared by designated rapporteurs and distributed broadly.

The public is invited to register to join virtually….”

Widespread use of National Academies consensus reports by the American public | PNAS

Significance

Advocates for open access argue that people need scientific information, although they lack evidence for this. Using Google’s recently developed deep learning natural language processing model, which offers unrivalled comprehension of subtle differences in meaning, 1.6 million people downloading National Academies reports were classified, not just into broad categories such as researchers and teachers but also precisely delineated small groups such as hospital chaplains, veterans, and science fiction authors. The results reveal adults motivated to seek out the most credible sources, engage with challenging material, use it to improve the services they provide, and learn more about the world they live in. The picture contrasts starkly with the dominant narrative of a misinformed and manipulated public targeted by social media.

Abstract

In seeking to understand how to protect the public information sphere from corruption, researchers understandably focus on dysfunction. However, parts of the public information ecosystem function very well, and understanding this as well will help in protecting and developing existing strengths. Here, we address this gap, focusing on public engagement with high-quality science-based information, consensus reports of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). Attending to public use is important to justify public investment in producing and making freely available high-quality, scientifically based reports. We deploy Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), a high-performing, supervised machine learning model, to classify 1.6 million comments left by US downloaders of National Academies reports responding to a prompt asking how they intended to use the report. The results provide detailed, nationwide evidence of how the public uses open access scientifically based information. We find half of reported use to be academic—research, teaching, or studying. The other half reveals adults across the country seeking the highest-quality information to improve how they do their job, to help family members, to satisfy their curiosity, and to learn. Our results establish the existence of demand for high-quality information by the public and that such knowledge is widely deployed to improve provision of services. Knowing the importance of such information, policy makers can be encouraged to protect it.

Who Uses Open Access Research? Evidence from the use of US National Academies Reports   | Impact of Social Sciences

“A fundamental principle of open access is that publication technology enables the widest possible audience for research findings. However, the extent to which open research is used outside of academia is often underexplored. Drawing on a dataset covering over a million user comments about their use of US National Academies consensus study reports, Ameet Doshi, Diana Hicks, Matteo Zullo and Omar I. Asensio find widespread use of open research in the public sphere….

Our classification project reveals that the impact of these reports extend far beyond the research community (see Results, Fig 1). We find that half of all report downloads are used for non-academic purposes, including to improve the provision of services by medical professionals, local and regional planners, public health workers, and veterans’ advocates, to name just a few of the 64 total categories of report use.  Heavy use is made of Academies reports on STEM education and how people learn by teachers, school administrators and teachers’ coaches.  Other notable reports with their prominent users included Dying in America (chaplains), Nutrient Requirements for Beef Cattle (farmers), and Best Care at Lower Costs (clinicians and hospital administrators)….

Open access repositories require significant resources, both technological and human, to sustain and innovate. The National Academies Press, for example, has developed an engaging user interface to incentivize browsing and ease of access to NASEM publications. The PubMed Central server, developed and managed by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), requires millions of dollars per year to operate. Our research indicates there is an identifiable payoff to society for these taxpayer investments into people, technology and design to support OA publishing….

Librarians and open access advocates have long presupposed that open access to high-quality scientific knowledge could and should be viewed as a public good. Our empirical research suggests that the initial utopian aspirations regarding the public use and societal impact of OA may indeed rest on sound footing.”

 

Board/Program Director – Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable

“The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine seeks a Program Director to develop and manage the portfolio of activities related to innovation and S&T competitiveness within the Policy and Global Affairs Division’s U.S. Science and Innovation Policy Theme. In particular, the incumbent will serve as the director of the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR), a forum for dialogue among top government, university, and industry leaders of the national science and technology enterprise. …”

Study reveals strong demand for open-access science

“The study, published Feb. 23, 2022, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), analyzed the reasons for 1.6 million downloads of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) consensus reports, considered among the highest credibility science-based literature.

The resulting analysis, which included U.S. downloads only, is the first to look at who is using such information and why. Professor Diana Hicks, Assistant Professor Omar I. Asensio, and Ph.D. students Matteo Zullo and Ameet Doshi, all of Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy, co-authored the study.

They found that while nearly half of the reports were downloaded for academic purposes, even more were accessed by people outside strictly educational settings, such as veterans, chaplains, and writers. The word “edification” appeared 3,700 times in the data set, signaling a strong desire for lifelong learning among users….”

Widespread use of National Academies consensus reports by the American public | PNAS

In seeking to understand how to protect the public information sphere from corruption, researchers understandably focus on dysfunction. However, parts of the public information ecosystem function very well, and understanding this as well will help in protecting and developing existing strengths. Here, we address this gap, focusing on public engagement with high-quality science-based information, consensus reports of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). Attending to public use is important to justify public investment in producing and making freely available high-quality, scientifically based reports. We deploy Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), a high-performing, supervised machine learning model, to classify 1.6 million comments left by US downloaders of National Academies reports responding to a prompt asking how they intended to use the report. The results provide detailed, nationwide evidence of how the public uses open access scientifically based information. We find half of reported use to be academic—research, teaching, or studying. The other half reveals adults across the country seeking the highest-quality information to improve how they do their job, to help family members, to satisfy their curiosity, and to learn. Our results establish the existence of demand for high-quality information by the public and that such knowledge is widely deployed to improve provision of services. Knowing the importance of such information, policy makers can be encouraged to protect it.

Study Reveals Strong Demand for Open-Access Science

While a dominant narrative of American life paints a bleak picture of poorly informed internet partisans duking it out over a landscape denuded of anything resembling truth or reality, a new study from the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy offers a different take while also advancing the use of machine learning in the social sciences and an understanding of the importance of open-access, science-based information to everyday Americans.

The study, published Feb. 23, 2022, in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), analyzed the reasons for 1.6 million downloads of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) consensus reports, considered among the highest credibility science-based literature.

 

Developing a Toolkit for Fostering Open Science Practices: Public Release Registration, Thu, Sep 30, 2021 at 3:30 PM | Eventbrite

“The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science will host a public release of Developing a Toolkit for Fostering Open Science Practices: Proceedings of a Workshop on Thursday, September 30, 2021 from 3:30-4:30 pm EDT. Please register in advance to receive information on how to participate in the event.”

Developing a Toolkit for Fostering Open Science Practices: Proceedings of a Workshop | The National Academies Press

“The National Academies Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science, established in 2019, has taken on an important role in addressing issues with open science. The roundtable convenes critical stakeholders to discuss the effectiveness of current incentives for adopting open science practices, current barriers of all types, and ways to move forward in order to align reward structures and institutional values. The Roundtable convened a virtual public workshop on fostering open science practices on November 5, 2020. The broad goal of the workshop was to identify paths to growing the nascent coalition of stakeholders committed to reenvisioning credit/reward systems (e.g., academic hiring, tenure and promotion, and grants)to fully incentivize open science practices. The workshop explored the information and resource needs of researchers, research institutions, government agencies, philanthropies, professional societies, and other stakeholders interested in further supporting and implementing open science practices. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.”