Why open science?

and how did we get here?

Open Science for Physicists, Lecture 1

Sanli Faez

Distributed under CC BY 4.0

The *star* system of science

is bulging!

" I have failed as a scientist, as a researcher. I have manipulated research data and faked studies. Not once, but several times, not for a short period, but over a longer period of time. I realize that by this behavior I have left my immediate colleagues bewildered and angry and have put my field of study, social psychology, in a bad light. I'm ashamed of that and I deeply regret it."

You probably haven’t heard of cardiologist Don Poldermans, but experts who study scientific misconduct believe that thousands of people may be dead because of him.

DUB News 9/10/2012

One provocative analysis from cardiologists Graham Cole and Darrel Francis estimated that there were 800,000 deaths compared to if the best practices had been established five years sooner.

Vox News 26/8/2024

‘The last few years have been tough, but I am happy to have accounted for the research I have led all these years. Both the LOWI and the Executive Board have concluded that there has been no violation of scientific integrity. Regarding the Quantized Majorana Conductance publication, it was concluded that I should have been more careful as a supervisor, and I fully agree.’

the Integrity Committee of the National Organization for Scientific Integrity (LOWI in Dutch) ruled that Kouwenhoven and his postdoctoral researcher, Hao Zhang, had been negligent in their 2018 Majorana article.

In the conclusion of their report (8 March 2021) the SIC had previously written that ‘the authors were so carried away by their enthusiasm that they were blind to the data not fitting the purpose they were pursuing.’

Delta News, 8/12/2023

 Gopalakrishna et al, PLOS One 2022, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263023

University world news

The egocentric research culture

is NOT self-correcting

The cycle of credibility

Frank Miedema, Open Science: the Very Idea, Springer 2022

Show Your Work. Share Your Work. Advance Science. That’s Open Science.

Kramer, Bianca and Jeroen Bosman. “Innovations in scholarly communication - global survey on research tool usage.” (2016)

More information: https://on.unesco.org/openscience

• increases scientific collaborations and sharing of information for the benefits of science and society;

• makes multilingual scientific knowledge openly available, accessible and reusable for everyone; and

• opens the processes of scientific knowledge creation, evaluation and communication to societal actors beyond the traditional scientific community.

Our interconnected world needs open science to help solve complex social, environmental, and economic challenges and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

https://science.nasa.gov/open-science

For a deeper discussion, check: https://open-science.cwts.nl/ 

For a deeper discussion, check: https://open-science.cwts.nl/ 

• Public: The obligation to make science accessible to the public

• Democratic: Making research products available

• Pragmatic: Making research more efficient

• Infrastructure: Architecture matters most

• Measurement: Finding alternative measurements for scientific output

the OS4P course

Scientists interact with a complex

knowledge development and attribution network.

Rule #1: Interactions matter (at least) as much as the achievements

Community over Code

healthy community is a higher priority than good code

Guide for Collaboration, https://the-turing-way.netlify.app/collaboration/collaboration

The altruism rule

“Selfishness beats altruism within groups.

Altruistic groups beat selfish groups.”

Does Altruism Exist? Culture, Genes, and the Welfare of Others, by David Sloan Wilson, Yale UP, 2015

• Gifting : giving away something of value for others to use and adapt.

• Creating together : inviting others to contribute to a set objective or project.

• Soliciting ideas : asking a question or giving a challenge

• Learning through use : studying usage patterns, and offering subsequent

  enhancements

• Enhancing value exchanges : improving the value of interactions between project organizers, contributors, and users.

• Networking common interests : building mutually-reinforcing relationships with the power to attract a passionate community.

Community interactions

Taxonomy of open value exchange - Mozilla Open Leadership Framework

what does it mean in practice?

• To foster research integrity
• To stimulate the development of intellectual virtues
• To address the big questions of life
• To cultivate the diversity of disciplinary fields
• To serve and engage with the society at large
• To safeguard and cultivate academic freedom

What are universities for?

academics' perspective

Lechner, Tijdink et al, The core epistemic responsibilities of universities: Results from a Delphi study, Accountability in Research, DOI: 10.1080/08989621.2023.2255826