Challenge 6: Open Science: reproducibility, transparency and reliability

Open Science is becoming a new paradigm in scientific research and complex changes are being done. This new way in knowledge development requires a great transformation that will allow science to adapt efficiently and effectively to the urgency of the problems to be solved while ensuring the reproducibility, transparency and reliability of scientific results. This chapter analyzes the impact of this change of model, the challenges to be addressed and the expected benefits.Peer reviewe

A tale of two 'opens': intersections between Free and Open Source Software and Open Scholarship

There is no clear-cut boundary between Free and Open Source Software and Open Scholarship, and the histories, practices, and fundamental principles between the two remain complex. In this study, we critically appraise the intersections and differences between the two movements. Based on our thematic comparison here, we conclude several key things. First, there is substantial scope for new communities of practice to form within scholarly communities that place sharing and collaboration/open participation at their focus. Second, Both the principles and practices of FOSS can be more deeply ingrained within scholarship, asserting a balance between pragmatism and social ideology. Third, at the present, Open Scholarship risks being subverted and compromised by commercial players. Fourth, the shift and acceleration towards a system of Open Scholarship will be greatly enhanced by a concurrent shift in recognising a broader range of practices and outputs beyond traditional peer review and research articles. In order to achieve this, we propose the formulation of a new type of institutional mandate. We believe that there is substantial need for research funders to invest in sustainable open scholarly infrastructure, and the communities that support them, to avoid the capture and enclosure of key research services that would prevent optimal researcher behaviours. Such a shift could ultimately lead to a healthier scientific culture, and a system where competition is replaced by collaboration, resources (including time and people) are shared and acknowledged more efficiently, and the research becomes inherently more rigorous, verified, and reproducible

The risk of losing thick description: Data management challenges Arts and Humanities face in the evolving FAIR data ecosystem

In recent years, FAIR principles have come a long way to serve the global need for generic guidelines governing data management and stewardship. Considering their wide embrace and the support received from governments, policy-makers, governing bodies and funding bodies, FAIR principles have all the potential to have a huge impact on the future landscape of knowledge creation for the better. This opportunity, however, may easily be missed if the specific dynamics of scientific production are not addressed in its disciplinary implementation plans. With the goal of making FAIR meaningful and helping to realise its promises in an arts and humanities context, this paper describes some of the defining aspects underlying the domain-specific epistemic processes that pose hidden or visible challenges in the FAIRification of knowledge creation in Arts and Humanities. By applying the FAIR data guiding principles to arts and humanities data curation workflows, we will show that contrary to their general scope and deliberately domain-independent nature, they have been implicitly designed along underlying assumptions about how knowledge creation operates and communicates. These are: 1. scholarly data or metadata is digital by nature, 2. scholarly data is always created and therefore owned by researchers, and 3. there is a wide community-level agreement on what can be considered scholarly data. The problems around such assumptions in arts and humanities are cornerstones in reconciling disciplinary traditions with the productive implementation of FAIR data management. By addressing them one by one, we aim to contribute to the better understanding of discipline-specific needs and challenges in data production, discovery and reuse. Based on these considerations, we make recommendations that may facilitate the inclusive and optimal implementation of the high-level principles that serve the flourishing of the arts and humanities disciplines rather than imposing limitations on its epistemic practices

Scholarly Communication Librarianship and Open Knowledge

The intersection of scholarly communication librarianship and open education offers a unique opportunity to expand knowledge of scholarly communication topics in both education and practice. Open resources can address the gap in teaching timely and critical scholarly communication topics—copyright in teaching and research environments, academic publishing, emerging modes of scholarship, impact measurement—while increasing access to resources and equitable participation in education and scholarly communication. Scholarly Communication Librarianship and Open Knowledge is an open textbook and practitioner’s guide that collects theory, practice, and case studies from nearly 80 experts in scholarly communication and open education. Divided into three parts: *What is Scholarly Communication? *Scholarly Communication and Open Culture *Voices from the Field: Perspectives, Intersections, and Case Studies The book delves into the economic, social, policy, and legal aspects of scholarly communication as well as open access, open data, open education, and open science and infrastructure. Practitioners provide insight into the relationship between university presses and academic libraries, defining collection development as operational scholarly communication, and promotion and tenure and the challenge for open access. Scholarly Communication Librarianship and Open Knowledge is a thorough guide meant to increase instruction on scholarly communication and open education issues and practices so library workers can continue to meet the changing needs of students and faculty. It is also a political statement about the future to which we aspire and a challenge to the industrial, commercial, capitalistic tendencies encroaching on higher education. Students, readers, educators, and adaptors of this resource can find and embrace these themes throughout the text and embody them in their work

A SOCIO-TECHNICAL PERSPECTIVE ON REPRODUCIBILITY IN RESEARCH DATA MANAGEMENT

The Open Science paradigm has brought the dissemination of experimental artifacts on the agenda of funding agencies, research institutions, and academic publishers. Managing research data is a crucial part of guaranteeing the reusability and reproducibility of published results. In this research, we suggest a conceptualization of reproducibility based on threats, risks, and vulnerabilities identified in current research data management (RDM) practices. By doing so, we can describe a range of threats to reproducibility and pinpoint areas where current RDM practices and the scholarly communication infrastructure insufficiently address these threats. Further, we elaborate on a socio-technical approach to reproducibility in RDM by collecting evidence from researchers and scientific publications. We show that the STS approach complements current IS research on RDM by offering a holistic view of reproducibility challenges in RDM

Emerging roles and responsibilities of libraries in support of reproducible research

Ensuring the reproducibility of research is a multi-stakeholder effort that comes with challenges and opportunities for individual researchers and research communities, librarians, publishers, funders and service providers. These emerge at various steps of the research process, and, in particular, at the publication stage. Previous work by Knowledge Exchange highlighted that, while there is growing awareness among researchers, reproducible publication practices have been slow to change. Importantly, research reproducibility has not yet reached institutional agendas: this work seeks to highlight the rationale for libraries to initiate and/or step up their engagement with this topic, which we argue is well aligned with their core values and strategic priorities. We draw on secondary analysis of data gathered by Knowledge Exchange, focusing on the literature identified as well as interviews held with librarians. We extend this through further investigation of the literature and by integrating the findings of discussions held at the 2022 LIBER conference, to provide an updated picture of how libraries engage with research reproducibility. Libraries have a significant role in promoting responsible research practices, including transparency and reproducibility, by leveraging their connections to academic communities and collaborating with stakeholders like research funders and publishers. Our recommendations for libraries include: i) partnering with researchers to promote a research culture that values transparency and reproducibility, ii) enhancing existing research infrastructure and support; and iii) investing in raising awareness and developing skills and capacities related to these principles

ITC's strategic plan for Open Science 2021-2025:towards an open future

Open Science (OS) is an umbrella term comprising principles to increase the transparency of research. Besides Open Access to scientific articles, these principles contain public availability of reusable methods (e.g., code and tools), data, and educational materials. This document outlines a plan to achieve the transition towards OS. ITC’s Strategic Plan for OS 2021-2025 - Towards an Open Future contains five initiatives: 1.OS at ITC aims to provide guidelines and OS capacity development to address the obstacles ITC researchers encounter when doing OS. 2.The ITC Knowledge Hub will provide services and tools to access, create, and publish open research, including scientific results based on qualitative/quantitative analyses using computational workflows. 3.Open Educational Resources will be addressed by exploring options to realise Open Educational Resources at ITC and providing lecturers with guidelines and support to create them. 4.The OS Community Twente serves as an inter-disciplinary, bottom-up community to promote, learn, share, and discuss OS practices. 5.Research & Funding aims to address challenges in OS through innovative developments and user studies. A further output is to generate funding to realise the ambitious aims presented in the plan. For a successful OS transition, the initiatives aim to address the Rewards & Recognition system, valorise Sharing & Collaboration, develop OS Knowledge & Skills, and foster Cultural change & Societal impact