Legacy of Jon Tennant, “Open science is just good science”

This work is a transcribed and edited collection of the message delivered by Jon Tennant in his talk “Open science is just good science”, May 21st, 2018. In readable form with many links, this paper provides a primer on open science and the open science movement. It details the problems with closed access science as it is still practiced today, and how big publishing as an industry is largely responsible. It talks about the ethics behind open science practices. It provides many statistics and links to information about paywalls, movements such as Project DEAL, workflows, and personal and community issues such as fear and cultural inertia that may prevent us from adopting better science practices.

Open Science, Replicability, and Transparency in Modelling

Recent years have seen large changes to research practices within psychology and a variety of other empirical fields in response to the discovery (or rediscovery) of the pervasiveness and potential impact of questionable research practices, coupled with well-publicised failures to replicate published findings. In response to this, and as part of a broader open science movement, a variety of changes to research practice have started to be implemented, such as publicly sharing data, analysis code, and study materials, as well as the preregistration of research questions, study designs, and analysis plans. This chapter outlines the relevance and applicability of these issues to computational modelling, highlighting the importance of good research practices for modelling endeavours, as well as the potential of provenance modelling standards, such as PROV, to help discover and minimise the extent to which modelling is impacted by unreliable research findings from other disciplines.

Standing on the shoulders of programmers

Free and open-source software is growing to be a powerful tool in academic research, helping scientists to collaborate better and work smarter. Achintya Rao investigates how such software is being used in physics research, and its role in the wider open-science movement.

Semantic Search to Foster Scientific Findability: A Systematic Literature Review

One of the main goals of the Open Science movement is to leverage scientific collaboration through, among others, promoting the sharing and reuse of research outputs, such as publications, data and software. Sharing is enabled by public and accessible scientific repositories where these outputs are managed throughout their lifecycle. In this context, finding these digital artifacts has become a key problem. Semantic search mechanisms have risen as a means to solve this issue. However, implementing and integrating them into scientific repositories presents many challenges. This article presents a systematic literature review of research efforts on mechanisms for supporting search for scientific papers, data and processes. Our investigation is based on extracting and analyzing the entire contents of nine digital libraries using the associated search engines – in alphabetical order: ACM Digital Library, arXiV, Engineering Village, IEEE Xplore, SBC OpenLib, Springer Link, Scopus, Wiley Online Library and Web of Science. After retrieving a combined amount of 5012 documents, we identified 2054 unique papers that were used as a basis for our analysis. Our findings provide, among others, a new categorization of literature on search and discuss unexplored gaps, thereby contributing to advancing research on semantic search mechanisms to support Open Science.

Open science, data sharing and solidarity: who benefits?

Research, innovation, and progress in the life sciences are increasingly contingent on access to large quantities of data. This is one of the key premises behind the “open science” movement and the global calls for fostering the sharing of personal data, datasets, and research results. This paper reports on the outcomes of discussions by the panel “Open science, data sharing and solidarity: who benefits?” held at the 2021 Biennial conference of the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB), and hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL).

Trusting on the Shoulders of Open Giants? Open Science Increases Trust in Science for the Public and Academics

Researchers often focus on the benefits of adopting open science practices for improving the credibility of research studies, yet questions remain whether the general public, as well as academics, value and trust studies consistent with open science practices. In the current package of studies, we examined how open science can increase trust in science for the public and academics as well. In three preregistered experiments (total N = 2,214), we manipulated journal article abstracts to contain descriptions of open science practices or not. Across all studies, open science research was perceived as more credible and trustworthy than non-open science research. Study 2 explored if open science practices compensated for negative perceptions of privately-funded research versus publicly-funded research, though we did not find evidence for this claim. Finally, Study 3 examined perceptions of open science from communication science scholars and observed open science research was perceived more favorably than non-open science research, though the effect was only pronounced for early career researchers. We discuss implications for the open science movement and public trust in science.

Cultural Psychology, Diversity, and Representation in Open Science

The current moment in psychology is one of great challenges and great opportunities. The open science movement—the move toward more transparent, credible, and reproducible science—has led to a redefinition of what constitutes “normal science.” However, the field of cultural psychology, broadly construed, has by and large not engaged with the open science movement and, likewise, the open science movement has by and large not engaged with cultural psychology. The purpose of the present chapter is to bring open science and cultural psychology closer together, highlighting how they can benefit one another. In doing so, the discussion is focused on three types of representations regarding diversity in psychological research and how they intersect with open science: representation of researchers, or the diversity of the scientists actually doing the research; representation of samples, or who is included as participants in our research studies; and representation of perspectives, or the substantive conceptual and theoretical views we bring to our work. For each of these three types of representation the problem is outlined, followed by a discussion of how embracing the principles and behaviors of open science can help.

The Open Science Movement: Causes, State of the Art, and Prospects for Development

An important feature of the development of modern science is the increasing spread of open access to the results of research activities. The article provides an analytical review of the spread of open access to scientific literature in the world, identifies the reasons for this phenomenon (development of the latest information technology, support from a large part of the scientific community), examines the reasons for the emergence of the open science movement, reviews the situation with access to scientific literature and the development of the publishing business in this area in the second half of XX - early XXI centuries. The mainarguments of both supporters of open access and critics of the movement are identified and analyzed. The main types of open access are considered: “gold”, “platinum”, “bronze”, “green” open access, scientific journals with a hybrid model of open access. The main development trends are identified. The level of support for the open science movement by scientific organizations and foundations, as well as by the governments of different countries is analyzed. The situation in Russia and worldwide has been compared. Recommendations on the introduction in Russia of measures to support open access at the level of the state and organizations that finance research activities have been developed. The proposed measures include regulatory regulation of the practice of paying for publications in open access journals at the expense of grants and “Government assignments” in science, determination of the range of the share of all research funds that can and must be spent on publication of results in open access journals; approval of the list of prestigious and ethically clean open access journals, on payment for publications in which government funds can be spent.