Open Science - towards a commons of knowledge?
"Open Science-towards a commons of knowledge?" by Gwen Franck is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except otherwise noted.
What do we talk about when we talk 'open science'?
TL; DR:
- Open Access to publications
- Open Data
- Open Notebooks
- Open Peer Review
- Open Source Software
- ...
General principles:
- findable
- accessible
- interoperable
- reusable
- economical benefits
- accountability
- societal benefits
- practical advantages
- career advantages
All icons found on The Noun Project
- scientific knowledge is a common good
- production costs are mostly covered by the public
- it should be accessible for the public (i.e. taxpayers)
- business models based on shielding knowledge from the public should not be supported by public funds
- who knows what chances we miss due to lack of access?
- Closed science = bad science ...
Scientific publishing is broken
- Based on monopolies
- Based on outdated copyright laws
- System = the same as 3 centuries ago
- 'Gold' Open Access: is just another business model
- Relies on academic inertia!
Accident ! by clement127 found on Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Scientific publishing is broken
- OA is not (exclusively) aimed against commercial businesses
- but at the excessive profits some legacy publishers make
- profit not only for sustainability journals but shareholders
- 'double dipping': subscriptions + OA publishing fees for the same journal
- based on a lot of 'free' labour
- based on a model of artificial scarcity - enforced by measuring tools owned by the same companies
What can you do?
- Publish in a quality Open Access Journal if possible and affordable
- Make a version available via a repository (such as Biblio)
- Try to keep your rights to your article - apply an open license if possible (such as Creative Commons)
- Get an ORCID ID
- Underlying data = essential part of a publication - treat it as such
- Use open formats as much as possible (csv, docx, ...)
- Respect the citation (get a permanent identifier for your article!)
- Take care of your own metadata
Common misgivings
- Open Access is illegal
- Open Access does equals expensive processing charges
- Open Access Journals are low quality journals
- Depositing research in a repository is time-consuming and useless
- Too much knowledge is dangerous for laypeople
- 'Open' means that I relinquish my intellectual rights
- Granting access to read is enough
Hack the system!
Kitten playing with String by Bilal Khan on Flickr (CC BY-SA)
- it is possible, even within academia
- lead by example
- talk to your peers and to your superiors
- go for FAIR open access
