Open science- who is left behind?

Open Access initiatives promise to extend access to scholarly conversations. However, the dominant model of Article Processing Charges, whilst lowering financial barriers for readers, has merely erected a new paywall at the other end of the pipeline, blocking access to publication for less-privileged authors. In this post, Tony Ross-Hellauer, Angela Fessl, and Thomas Klebel, ask ... Continue

Value dissonance in research(er) assessment: individual and perceived institutional priorities in review, promotion, and tenure

There are currently broad moves to reform research assessment, especially to better incentivize open and responsible research and avoid problematic use of inappropriate quantitative indicators. This study adds to the evidence base for such decision-making by investigating researcher perceptions of current processes of research assessment in institutional review, promotion, and tenure processes. Analysis of an international survey of 198 respondents reveals a disjunct between personal beliefs and perceived institutional priorities (‘value dissonance’), with practices of open and responsible research, as well as ‘research citizenship’ comparatively poorly valued by institutions at present. Our findings hence support current moves to reform research assessment. But we also add crucial nuance to the debate by discussing the relative weighting of open and responsible practices and suggesting that fostering research citizenship activities like collegiality and mentorship may be an important way to rebalance criteria towards environments, which better foster quality, openness, and responsibility

Quantifying the influence of Open Access on innovation and patents

Background: Open Access aims at improving the discovery, access and re-use of research not only within the scientific community, but also within broader society, for instance to promote innovation in industry. Yet, the extent to which openly available scientific work impacts technological inventions remains largely unknown. Methods: We combine publicly available data sources about patents and scholarly publications to explore the extent to which Open Access scientific literature is cited in patents. Results: Investigating over 22 million patent families indexed in Google Patents between 2010 and 2020, we found that around one third referenced non-patent literature. However, the number of references per patent family can vary considerably across technological sectors and inventor countries. Based on a sample of 215,962 scientific non-patent references published between 2008 and 2020, we determined the Open Access status using Unpaywall, Europe PubMed Central and arXiv. The proportion of Open Access citations grew over the years, with nearly half of cited articles being openly available. Discussion: In line with research on both technology-science linkage and Open Access, we found considerable country- and subject- specific variations. In particular, patents representing inventions from the US and the UK cited Open Access work disproportionately more often, although it is challenging to link these observations to specific science policies and incentives. We recommend that follow-up research and monitoring exercise take advantage of a growing evidence base associated with patent citations and Open Access evidence

Dynamics of cumulative advantage and threats to equity in open science: a scoping review

Open Science holds the promise to make scientific endeavours more inclusive, participatory, understandable, accessible and re-usable for large audiences. However, making processes open will not per se drive wide reuse or participation unless also accompanied by the capacity (in terms of knowledge, skills, financial resources, technological readiness and motivation) to do so. These capacities vary considerably across regions, institutions and demographics. Those advantaged by such factors will remain potentially privileged, putting Open Science's agenda of inclusivity at risk of propagating conditions of ‘cumulative advantage’. With this paper, we systematically scope existing research addressing the question: ‘What evidence and discourse exists in the literature about the ways in which dynamics and structures of inequality could persist or be exacerbated in the transition to Open Science, across disciplines, regions and demographics?’ Aiming to synthesize findings, identify gaps in the literature and inform future research and policy, our results identify threats to equity associated with all aspects of Open Science, including Open Access, Open and FAIR Data, Open Methods, Open Evaluation, Citizen Science, as well as its interfaces with society, industry and policy. Key threats include: stratifications of publishing due to the exclusionary nature of the author-pays model of Open Access; potential widening of the digital divide due to the infrastructure-dependent, highly situated nature of open data practices; risks of diminishing qualitative methodologies as ‘reproducibility’ becomes synonymous with quality; new risks of bias and exclusion in means of transparent evaluation; and crucial asymmetries in the Open Science relationships with industry and the public, which privileges the former and fails to fully include the latter

Indicators of research quality, quantity, openness and responsibility in institutional review, promotion and tenure policies across seven countries

The need to reform research assessment processes related to career advancement at research institutions has become increasingly recognised in recent years, especially to better foster open and responsible research practices. Current assessment criteria are believed to focus too heavily on inappropriate criteria related to productivity and quantity as opposed to quality, collaborative open research practices, and the socio-economic impact of research. Evidence of the extent of these issues is urgently needed to inform actions for reform, however. We analyse current practices as revealed by documentation on institutional review, promotion and tenure processes in seven countries (Austria, Brazil, Germany, India, Portugal, United Kingdom and United States of America). Through systematic coding and analysis of 143 RPT policy documents from 107 institutions for the prevalence of 17 criteria (including those related to qualitative or quantitative assessment of research, service to the institution or profession, and open and responsible research practices), we compare assessment practices across a range of international institutions to significantly broaden this evidence-base. Although prevalence of indicators varies considerably between countries, overall we find that currently open and responsible research practices are minimally rewarded and problematic practices of quantification continue to dominate

TIER2: enhancing Trust, Integrity and Efficiency in Research through next-level Reproducibility

Lack of reproducibility of research results has become a major theme in recent years. As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, economic pressures and exposed consequences of lack of societal trust in science make addressing reproducibility of urgent importance. TIER2 is a new international project funded by the European Commission under their Horizon Europe programme. Covering three broad research areas (social, life and computer sciences) and two cross-disciplinary stakeholder groups (research publishers and funders) to systematically investigate reproducibility across contexts, TIER2 will significantly boost knowledge on reproducibility, create tools, engage communities, implement interventions and policy across different contexts to increase re-use and overall quality of research results in the European Research Area and global R&I, and consequently increase trust, integrity and efficiency in research

tklebel/sdg_knowledge_production: Code for "Investigating patterns of knowledge production in research on three UN Sustainable Development Goals"

<p>This release contains the code for the paper "Investigating patterns of knowledge production in research on three UN Sustainable Development Goals". The data underlying this analysis will be made available via a separate release on Zenodo.</p> <p>Details on how to run the code and reproduce the analysis are available in the README.md file.</p&gt

The societal impact of Open Science–a scoping review

Au cours des dernières décennies, les bailleurs de fonds, les institutions et les organisations gouvernementales pour encourager, surveiller et démontrer les impacts de la recherche ont redoublé leurs efforts. Au sein de l’Europe, le Royaume-Uni et les Pays-Bas évaluent l’impact sociétal de la recherche, parallèlement à d’autres critères de qualité , et la Commission européenne a mis l’accent sur l’impact sociétal dans les récents programmes-cadres de financement. Le programme-cadre Horizon Europe(HE) met l’accent sur la recherche financée et répond aux priorités stratégiques de l’Union européenne (UE) et aux défis mondiaux, offre des avantages grâce à des missions de recherche et d’innovation, et renforce l’adoption de la recherche et de l’innovation

Peer review and preprint policies are unclear at most major journals.

Clear and findable publishing policies are important for authors to choose appropriate journals for publication. We investigated the clarity of policies of 171 major academic journals across disciplines regarding peer review and preprinting. 31.6% of journals surveyed do not provide information on the type of peer review they use. Information on whether preprints can be posted or not is unclear in 39.2% of journals. 58.5% of journals offer no clear information on whether reviewer identities are revealed to authors. Around 75% of journals have no clear policy on co-reviewing, citation of preprints, and publication of reviewer identities. Information regarding practices of open peer review is even more scarce, with <20% of journals providing clear information. Having found a lack of clear information, we conclude by examining the implications this has for researchers (especially early career) and the spread of open research practices