Open Science, Open Data, and Open Scholarship: European Policies to Make Science Fit for the Twenty-First Century

Open science will make science more efficient, reliable, and responsive to societal challenges. The European Commission has sought to advance open science policy from its inception in a holistic and integrated way, covering all aspects of the research cycle from scientific discovery and review to sharing knowledge, publishing, and outreach. We present the steps taken with a forward-looking perspective on the challenges laying ahead, in particular the necessary change of the rewards and incentives system for researchers (for which various actors are co-responsible and which goes beyond the mandate of the European Commission). Finally, we discuss the role of artificial intelligence (AI) within an open science perspective

Strategic issues for LIS practitioner-researcher journals

Our intention in this Editorial is to explore some of the key issues being faced by library and information science (LIS) research based journals. We are, respectively, Editor of Health Information and Libraries Journal(HILJ) (Grant) and Editor of New Review of Academic Librarianship (NRAL)(Walton). The Editorial is very much our shared perspective and does not claim to be representative of all LIS practitioner-researcher journals. Our intention is not to give a theoretical perspective but to give a practical insight into the day-to-day realities of editing a practitioner-researcher LIS journal and how you, as a writer, can use this knowledge to inform your contact with us

Knowledge Practices: A Critique Of Scientific Ideology

The scientific ideology is identified as that perspective which considers knowledge to consists in propositional truths or representations of reality--knowledge-that--and which grants ultimate epistemic authority to science. A critical alternative view (the praxical perspective ) is presented in which know-how, modeled after simple skills, is epistemologically primary. The view of know-how developed in the context of simple skills is used as a model to re-conceptualize higher-order abilities--such as the achievements of modern science and technology--as forms of skilled practice rather than applied theoretical knowledge. In order to accomplish this, non-representational views of perception and language are presented. Perception is characterised as the acquired skill of learning how to recognize a situation as meaningfully structured for potential action. This view, in which learning how to do something is prior to the recognition of meaningful structures, is extended to cover the process of scientific discovery. A Wittgenstein-inspired view of language as practice is presented in order to undercut the tendency to model knowledge on propositional statements. This view characterises theoretical and factual statements as manifestations of enacted know-how rather than cognitive objects corresponding to features of the world. These elements are combined into a view of science as practice which makes sense of the progress and rationality of science without succumbing to many of the problems endemic to the perspective of the scientific ideology. Finally, it is argued that by situating knowledge in know-how rather than knowledge-that, the praxical perspective undercuts the notion that science embodies a special epistemic method. Science is characterised as one form of skilled practice among other possibilities, rather than the one correct route to true knowledge

Development of quantum perspectives in modern physics

Introductory undergraduate courses in classical physics stress a perspective that can be characterized as realist; from this perspective, all physical properties of a classical system can be simultaneously specified and thus determined at all future times. Such a perspective can be problematic for introductory quantum physics students, who must develop new perspectives in order to properly interpret what it means to have knowledge of quantum systems. We document this evolution in student thinking in part through pre- and post-instruction evaluations using the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey. We further characterize variations in student epistemic and ontological commitments by examining responses to two essay questions, coupled with responses to supplemental quantum attitude statements. We find that, after instruction in modern physics, many students are still exhibiting a realist perspective in contexts where a quantum-mechanical perspective is needed. We further find that this effect can be significantly influenced by instruction, where we observe variations for courses with differing learning goals. We also note that students generally do not employ either a realist or a quantum perspective in a consistent manner.Comment: 18 pages, plus references; 3 figures; 9 tables. PACS: 01.40.Fk, 03.65._