Towards a culture of open science and data sharing in health and medical research

Author : Anisa Rowhani-Farid

This thesis investigated the factors that contribute to the cultural shift towards open science and data sharing in health and medical research, with a focus on the role health and medical journals play.

The findings of this research demonstrate that journal data sharing policies are not effective and that journals do not currently provide incentives for sharing.

This study contributed to the movement towards more reproducible research by providing empirical evidence for the strengthening of journal data sharing policies and the adoption of an incentive for open research.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5204/thesis.eprints.119697

Open Education Science

Authors : Tim van der Zee, Justin Reich

Scientific progress is built on research that is reliable, accurate, and verifiable. The methods and evidentiary reasoning that underlie scientific claims must be available for scrutiny.

Like other fields, the education sciences suffer from problems such as failure to replicate, validity and generalization issues, publication bias, and high costs of access to publications—all of which are symptoms of a nontransparent approach to research. Each aspect of the scientific cycle—research design, data collection, analysis, and publication—can and should be made more transparent and accessible.

Open Education Science is a set of practices designed to increase the transparency of evidentiary reasoning and access to scientific research in a domain characterized by diverse disciplinary traditions and a commitment to impact in policy and practice.

Transparency and accessibility are functional imperatives that come with many benefits for the individual researcher, scientific community, and society at large—Open Education Science is the way forward.

URL : Open Education Science

Alternative location : http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2332858418787466

Health science libraries in Sweden: new directions, expanding roles

Authors : Lotta Haglund, Annikki Roos, Petra Wallgren-Björk

Librarians in Sweden are facing huge challenges in meeting the demands of their organisations and users. This article looks at four key areas: coping with open science/open access initiatives; increasing demands from researchers for support doing systematic reviews; understanding user experiences in Swedish health science libraries; and the consequences of expanding roles for recruitment and continuing professional development.

With regard to changing roles, there is an increasing shift from the generalist towards the expert role. The authors raise the issue as to how to prepare those new to the profession to the changing environment of health science libraries.

URL : Health science libraries in Sweden: new directions, expanding roles

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1111/hir.12229

Ten considerations for open peer review

Authors : Birgit Schmidt, Tony Ross-Hellauer, Xenia van Edig, Elizabeth C Moylan

Open peer review (OPR), as with other elements of open science and open research, is on the rise. It aims to bring greater transparency and participation to formal and informal peer review processes.

But what is meant by `open peer review’, and what advantages and disadvantages does it have over standard forms of review? How do authors or reviewers approach OPR? And what pitfalls and opportunities should you look out for?

Here, we propose ten considerations for OPR, drawing on discussions with authors, reviewers, editors, publishers and librarians, and provide a pragmatic, hands-on introduction to these issues.

We cover basic principles and summarise best practices, indicating how to use OPR to achieve best value and mutual benefits for all stakeholders and the wider research community.

URL : Ten considerations for open peer review

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.15334.1

Open Science and Public Sector Information – Reconsidering the exemption for educational and research establishments under the Directive on re-use of public sector information

Author : Heiko Richter

The article discusses the possibilities of including public research and educational establishments within the scope of the Directive regulating the re-use of public sector information (2003/98/EC – ‘PSI Directive’).

It subsequently evaluates the legal consequences of such an inclusion. Focusing on scientific information, the analysis connects the long-standing debates about open access and open educa-tion to open government data.

Their common driving force is the call for a wide-spread dissemination of publicly funded information. However, the regulatory standard set out by the PSI Directive is characterized by considerable legal uncer-tainty.

Therefore, it is difficult to derive robust assumptions that can form the ba-sis for predicting the effects of extending the PSI Directive’s scope to research in-formation. A potential revision of the PSI Directive should reduce this uncertain-ty.

Moreover, PSI regulation must account for the specific incentives linked to the creation and dissemination of research results.

This seems of primary importance for public-private research collaborations because there is a potential risk that a full application of the PSI Directive might unduly affect incentives for such col-laborations.

URL : http://www.jipitec.eu/issues/jipitec-9-1-2018/4679

Open Science Support as a Portfolio of Services and Projects: From Awareness to Engagement

Authors : Birgit Schmidt, Andrea Bertino, Daniel Beucke, Helene Brinken, Najko Jahn, Lisa Matthias, Julika Mimkes , Katharina Müller, Astrid Orth, Margo Bargheer

Together with many other universities worldwide, the University of Göttingen has aimed to unlock the full potential of networked digital scientific communication by strengthening open access as early as the late 1990s.

Open science policies at the institutional level consequently followed and have been with us for over a decade. However, for several reasons, their adoption often is still far from complete when it comes to the practices of researchers or research groups.

To improve this situation at our university, there is dedicated support at the infrastructural level: the university library collaborates with several campus units in developing and running services, activities and projects in support of open access and open science.

This article outlines our main activity areas and aligns them with the overall rationale to reach higher uptake and acceptance of open science practice at the university. The mentioned examples of our activities highlight how we seek to advance open science along the needs and perspectives of diverse audiences and by running it as a multi-stakeholder endeavor.

Therefore, our activities involve library colleagues with diverse backgrounds, faculty and early career researchers, research managers, as well as project and infrastructure staff. We conclude with a summary of achievements and challenges to be faced.

URL : Open Science Support as a Portfolio of Services and Projects: From Awareness to Engagement

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications6020027

Data Driving Sustainability—the African Open Science Platform Project

Authors : Ina Smith, Susan Veldsman

Exploitation of the digital revolution offers great potential for less affluent and least economically developed countries (LEDCs) and for the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

However, LEDCs typically have poorly resourced national research systems. If they cannot participate in research based on big and open data, the gap could grow exponentially in coming years.

They will be unable to collect, store and share data, unable to participate in the global research enterprise, unable to contribute as full partners to global efforts on climate change, health care, and resource protection, and unable to fully benefit from such efforts, where global solutions will only be achieved if there is global participation.

Thus, both emerging and developed countries have a clear and direct interest in helping to fully mobilize LEDC science potential and thereby to contribute to achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The initiative described here (African Open Science Platform or AOSP) is directed towards minimising a divide between emerging and developed countries in what is arguably the most important current opportunity to enhance the power and efficiency of the scientific enterprise and its contribution to societal benefit.

URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01816711