Archives des mots-clés : open science

Open Science at the University of Toronto. Exploration of Researcher, Staff and Librarian Perspectives

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Authors : Madelin Burt-D’Agnillo, Mindy Thuna

Objective: The impetus for this project is to begin to understand open science practices and obstacles at the University of Toronto. This project uses open-ended questions to understand the ways in which university-affiliated individuals learn about, think about, and interact with open science. The goal of this study is to showcase the complexity and diversity of activity and challenges in this domain to help determine how best to move open science forward.

Methods: From March to October 2022, 45 semi-structured interviews were conducted with faculty, graduate students, librarians and administrative staff. Interviews were conducted and recorded using Zoom and the audio was transcribed using Otter.ai. As part of a commitment to open science practices, a data management plan was created and with participant consent, 26 transcripts were uploaded to Dataverse. Data analysis used structured coding and thematic development to investigate responses.

Results: The core finding of this study is that there is no singular status of open science at University of Toronto. The qualitative findings reflect a diversity of opinions, practices and relationships to open science.

Conclusion: For open science practices and scholarship to have longevity, there must be systemic changes to adopt more open activities. The University of Toronto is well positioned to guide the transition and harness open principles to move into the future.

URL : Open Science at the University of Toronto. Exploration of Researcher, Staff and Librarian Perspectives

DOI : https://doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v19i2.7847

How to build an Open Science Monitor based on publications? A French perspective

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Authors : Laetitia Bracco, Eric Jeangirard, Anne L’Hôte, Laurent Romary

Many countries and institutions are striving to develop tools to monitor their open science policies. Since 2018, with the launch of its National Plan for Open Science, France has been progressively implementing a monitoring framework for its public policy, relying exclusively on reliable, open, and controlled data. Currently, this monitoring focuses on research outputs, particularly publications, as well as theses and clinical trials.

Publications serve as a basis for analyzing other dimensions, including research data, code, and software. The metadata associated with publications is therefore particularly valuable, but the methodology for leveraging it raises several challenges. Here, we briefly outline how we have used this metadata to construct the French Open Science Monitor.

URL : How to build an Open Science Monitor based on publications? A French perspective

Arxiv : https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.02856

Gaps between Open Science activities and actual recognition systems: Insights from an international survey

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Authors : Florencia Grattarola, Hanna Shmagun, Christopher Erdmann, Anne Cambon-Thomsen, Mogens Thomsen, Jaesoo Kim, Laurence Mabile

There are global movements aiming to promote reform of the traditional research evaluation and reward systems. However, a comprehensive picture of the existing best practices and efforts across various institutions to integrate Open Science into these frameworks remains underdeveloped and not fully known. The aim of this study was to identify perceptions and expectations of various research communities worldwide regarding how Open Science activities are (or should be) formally recognised and rewarded.

To achieve this, a global survey was conducted in the framework of the Research Data Alliance, recruiting 230 participants from five continents and 37 countries. Despite most participants reporting that their organisation had one form or another of formal Open Science policies, the majority indicated that their organisation lacks any initiative or tool that provides specific credits or rewards for Open Science activities. However, researchers from France, the United States, the Netherlands and Finland affirmed having such mechanisms in place. T

he study found that, among various Open Science activities, Open or FAIR data management and sharing stood out as especially deserving of explicit recognition and credit. Open Science indicators in research evaluation and/or career progression processes emerged as the most preferred type of reward.

URL : Gaps between Open Science activities and actual recognition systems: Insights from an international survey

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0315632

Notebook and Open science : toward more FAIR play

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Authors : Mariannig Le Béchec, Célya Gruson Daniel, Clémence Lascombes, Émilien Schultz

Notebooks are now commonly used in digital research practices. Despite their increasing ubiquity, the characteristics, roles, and uses associated with notebooks have seldom been studied from a social science perspective.

In this article, we present an overview of the available empirical work on notebooks in order to describe existing practices, typologies crafted to grasp their diversity, and their limitations when used in data analysis workflows.

Following this review, which highlights a focus of studies on interactive computational notebooks specifically within data science rather than research practices in academic contexts, we discuss the role of notebooks as a vector and lever for the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles associated with open science.

URL : Notebook and Open science : toward more FAIR play

DOI : https://doi.org/10.46298/jdmdh.13428

Essential work, invisible workers: The role of digital curation in COVID-19 Open Science

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Authors : Irene V. Pasquetto, Amina A. Abdu, Natascha Chtena

In this paper, we examine the role digital curation practices and practitioners played in facilitating open science (OS) initiatives amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In Summer 2023, we conducted a content analysis of available information regarding 50 OS initiatives that emerged—or substantially shifted their focus—between 2020 and 2022 to address COVID-19 related challenges. Despite growing recognition of the value of digital curation for the organization, dissemination, and preservation of scientific knowledge, our study reveals that digital curatorial work often remains invisible in pandemic OS initiatives.

In particular, we find that, even among those initiatives that greatly invested in digital curation work, digital curation is seldom mentioned in mission statements, and little is known about the rationales behind curatorial choices and the individuals responsible for the implementation of curatorial strategies. Given the important yet persistent invisibility of digital curatorial work, we propose a shift in how we conceptualize digital curation from a practice that merely “adds value” to research outputs to a practice of knowledge production.

We conclude with reflections on how iSchools can lead in professionalizing the field and offer suggestions for initial steps in that direction.

URL : Essential work, invisible workers: The role of digital curation in COVID-19 Open Science

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24965

Open Science Alternatives to Scopus and the Web of Science: A Case Study in Regional Resilience

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Authors : Irina D. Turgel, Olga A. Chernova

The recent years have seen increasing support for open science in academic circles. However, the large number of scientometric databases calls into question the comparability of the search and analysis tools they provide.

Using the subject area of regional resilience as an example, in this study, the aim was to analyze the capabilities of widely used databases to serve as alternatives to Scopus and Web of Science in solving research problems.

As alternatives, in the present article, the following open, free scientometric databases were considered: AMiner, Wizdom.ai, the Lens, Dimensions, and OpenAlex. Their capabilities were demonstrated for the subject area under study, and the obtained results were compared.

The study results showed that alternative databases provide essential data on trends in scientific development. It is noteworthy that they largely replicate the provided data, supplementing and expanding them by using different types of data sources. However, open databases do not guarantee a high quality of materials and exhibit a relatively low level of metadata.

Thus, it is premature to abandon the use of Scopus and Web of Science in research activities. Since scientometric databases were developed in different contexts, they are characterized by structural and functional heterogeneity, which complicates their comparison.

Therefore, a selective approach should be adopted for the choice of scientometric databases, taking into account financial and other constraints, as well as the specifics of research problems.

URL : Open Science Alternatives to Scopus and the Web of Science: A Case Study in Regional Resilience

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications12040043

Two scholarly publishing cultures? Open access drives a divergence in European academic publishing practices

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Authors : Leon Kopitar, Nejc Plohl, Mojca Tancer Verboten, Gregor Štiglic, Roger Watson, Dean Korošak

The current system of scholarly publishing is often criticized for being slow, expensive, and not transparent. The rise of open access publishing as part of open science tenets, promoting transparency and collaboration, together with calls for research assesment reforms are the results of these criticisms. The emergence of new open access publishers presents a unique opportunity to empirically test how universities and countries respond to shifts in the academic publishing landscape. These new actors challenge traditional publishing models, offering faster review times and broader accessibility, which could influence strategic publishing decisions.

Our findings reveal a clear division in European publishing practices, with countries clustering into two groups distinguished by the ratio of publications in new open access journals with accelerated review times versus legacy journals. This divide underscores a broader shift in academic culture, highlighting new open access publishing venues as a strategic factor influencing national and institutional publishing practices, with significant implications for research accessibility and collaboration across Europe.

Arxiv : https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.06282