What is it?
Open Science (OS) involves free access to publications (Open Access) and to scientific infrastructures / data / software / methods, Open Educational Resources, but also Open Evaluation or Citizen Science. Where feasible, OS allows the acceleration of scientific research (see the international response to the COVID–19 crisis) by bringing added inclusivity and accessibility for the scientific community, socio-economic or socio-cultural actors, and citizens.
How does it work?
Any effort to streamline access to scientific results, at any level (generating data / procedures / methods, putting them in the public domain, accessing and processing them, accessing intermediate and final results – including publication, recruiting the public in the effort to generate data, opening communication to the widest possible audience, including through open courses and conferences) can be considered as part of OS. Each of these components requires complex efforts and resources (including infrastructure). Making primary scientific research data publicly available requires dedicated platforms. External repositories can be used, but some institutions also choose to create their own repositories. There are two major challenges: (1) that these repositories stand the test of time (especially surviving administrative and funding cycles) and (2) that the data is in an easily accessible format. In this latter problem, the concept of FAIR data – findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable – has been defined. In other words, the data must be easily found by those interested, easily accessible, in a format that is as uniform and compatible as possible (interoperable), and reusable by anyone (which also means keeping intellectual property claims to a minimum). A separate subcategory of this field is represented by databases and computer programs for managing bibliographic references, especially those adapted to new data sharing models.
Releasing software packages into the public domain has long been an established practice.
Open publication of results has also been well-known for a long time – although far from being a uniform practice. Through its journals, UBB has long promoted the so-called Diamond Open Access model – where neither access to online articles nor publication are charged. In contrast, a number of other Open Access publishing models include fees for authors and / or partially unrestricted access (either for fixed periods of time or with limitations on intellectual property elements). The practice of charging authors or readers is controversial, especially where the quality of publications borders on pseudoscience or where there are accusations that financial arguments take precedence over scientific ones when publishing. More recently, the idea of a new publishing model, along the lines of a blog, is being promoted – where results and their interpretations are made available to the public as they are accumulated, without being placed in independent journal articles. Regardless of whether this model is adopted or not, the central idea of SD is that the entire scientific research process should be as transparent as possible – from primary data collection to processing, interpretation and publication.
Open review of results is a challenging concept – where reviewers’ comments and even their identities remain public. While in some fields or publishing models the anonymity of review offers notable advantages, it is argued that in other contexts open review can help eliminate borderline ethical practices and hold reviewers accountable. Such a practice could also allow for fair recognition for reviewer work.
Citizen Science is already operational in areas where the collection of large volumes of data from locations / contexts, or the pooling of distributed computing resources in different locations, matters. In some areas (e.g., public policy) citizen participation can go beyond data collection, towards decisions about what and how to do with that data – including from the point of view of public policies based on them.
Open educational resources (training sessions, courses, or even entire academic programs) are already established as a practice – especially with the help of increasingly complex online resources.
What is the use?
The promoters of OS (among them various EU institutions – including those that fund scientific research) argue that making research results available to the academic public, as well as to industry and citizens in general, as quickly and efficiently as possible can have various benefits. For example, they can make science:
– more reliable and more performant – through the possibility of verifying the accuracy of data and their interpretations more quickly and reliably;
– more efficient – by avoiding redundant efforts to conduct similar research, or by making collaboration more accessible to a wider range of researchers;
– more responsive to the societal demands of citizens, as science can become more transparent and open;
– more quickly transferable from the laboratory to citizen use (through industry/economic environment) – especially for applied research;
– more credible – the integrity of research is seen more effectively in an open and transparent environment;
– more representative / inclusive;
– more global, allowing scientists to exchange knowledge and data before publication, science to progress at a faster pace, and innovations to become accessible more quickly.
The most frequently cited example is that of the international community’s response to the COVID–19 crisis, where making data and publications available to the entire community or even the entire public facilitated the adaptation of society’s response on a more solid scientific basis and allowed for the accelerated development of response solutions – such as treatment protocols, medicines, vaccines.
What is it not useful for?
There are, obviously, areas where OS is not applicable. For example, for security reasons, terrorism prevention, etc. There may also be situations in which the relevance of OS is overestimated with harmful effects on the quality of science and on value scales. The risk is often raised that publishing results could become a popularity contest where “fans” and publicity matter more than the scientific substance of the contributions. At UBB, these considerations are a constant concern – expressed also within and with the support/consensus of the organizations of which UBB is a part – such as The Guild or EUTOPIA.