Exploring enablers and barriers to implementing the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines: a theory-based survey of journal editors

Authors : Kevin Naaman, Sean Grant, Sina Kianersi, Lauren Supplee, Beate Henschel, Evan Mayo-Wilson

The Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines provide a framework to help journals develop open science policies. Theories of behaviour change can guide understanding of why journals do (not) implement open science policies and the development of interventions to improve these policies.

In this study, we used the Theoretical Domains Framework to survey 88 journal editors on their capability, opportunity and motivation to implement TOP. Likert-scale questions assessed editor support for TOP, and enablers and barriers to implementing TOP.

A qualitative question asked editors to provide reflections on their ratings. Most participating editors supported adopting TOP at their journal (71%) and perceived other editors in their discipline to support adopting TOP (57%). Most editors (93%) agreed their roles include maintaining policies that reflect current best practices.

However, most editors (74%) did not see implementing TOP as a high priority compared with other editorial responsibilities. Qualitative responses expressed structural barriers to implementing TOP (e.g. lack of time, resources and authority to implement changes) and varying support for TOP depending on study type, open science standard, and level of implementation.

We discuss how these findings could inform the development of theoretically guided interventions to increase open science policies, procedures and practices.

URL : Exploring enablers and barriers to implementing the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines: a theory-based survey of journal editors

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.221093

Influence of research on open science in the public policy sphere

Authors : Daniela De Filippo, Pablo Sastrón‑Toledo

This paper analyses the scientific activity related to open science in Spain and its influence on public policy from a bibliometric perspective. For this purpose, Spanish centres’ projects and publications on open science from 2010 to 2020 are studied. Subsequently, policy documents using papers related to open science are analysed to study their influence on policymaking.

A total of 142 projects and 1491 publications are analysed, 15% of which are mentioned in policy documents.

The publications cited in policy documents display high proportions of international collaboration, open access publication and publication in first-quartile journals. The findings underline governments’ leading role in the implementation of open science policies and the funding of open science research.

The same government agencies that promote and fund open science research are shown to use that research in their institutional reports, a process known as knowledge flow feedback.

Other non-academic actors are also observed to make use of the knowledge produced by open science research, showing how the open science movement has crossed the boundaries of academia.

URL : Influence of research on open science in the public policy sphere

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04645-1

Close to open—Factors that hinder and promote open science in ecology research and education

Authors  : Christian B. Strømme, A. Kelly Lane, Aud H. Halbritter, Elizabeth Law, Chloe R. Nater, Erlend B. Nilsen, Grace D. Boutouli, Dagmar D. Egelkraut, Richard J. Telford, Vigdis Vandvik, Sehoya H. Cotne

The Open Science (OS) movement is rapidly gaining traction among policy-makers, research funders, scientific journals and individual scientists. Despite these tendencies, the pace of implementing OS throughout the scientific process and across the scientific community remains slow. Thus, a better understanding of the conditions that affect OS engagement, and in particular, of how practitioners learn, use, conduct and share research openly can guide those seeking to implement OS more broadly.

We surveyed participants at an OS workshop hosted by the Living Norway Ecological Data Network in 2020 to learn how they perceived OS and its importance in their research, supervision and teaching. Further, we wanted to know what OS practices they had encountered in their education and what they saw as hindering or helping their engagement with OS.

The survey contained scaled-response and open-ended questions, allowing for a mixed-methods approach. We obtained survey responses from 60 out of 128 workshop participants (47%). Responses indicated that usage and sharing of open data and code, as well as open access publication, were the most frequent OS practices.

Only a minority of respondents reported having encountered OS in their formal education. A majority also viewed OS as less important in their teaching than in their research and supervisory roles. The respondents’ suggestions for what would facilitate greater OS engagement in the future included knowledge, guidelines, and resources, but also social and structural support.

These are aspects that could be strengthened by promoting explicit implementation of OS practices in higher education and by nurturing a more inclusive and equitable OS culture. We argue that incorporating OS in teaching and learning of science can yield substantial benefits to the research community, student learning, and ultimately, to the wider societal objectives of science and higher education.

URL : Close to open—Factors that hinder and promote open science in ecology research and education

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278339

Perceptions regarding open science appraised by editors of scholarly publications published in Spain

Authors : Remedios Melero, Juan-José Boté-Vericad, Alexandre López-Borrull

Pillars of open science are often included within the editorial policies of scholarly journals, including policies on open access publication, availability of underlying research data, preprints and open peer review.

The aim of this paper is to examine and analyse perceptions and editorial practices related to open access, preprints, open research data and open peer review, from the perspective of editors of scientific journals published in Spain, to gain an insight into editorial policies related to open science.

Results and data were obtained by a combined method of online interviews and an online questionnaire. The online survey was sent to editors from journals indexed in the Dulcinea directory, which at the time of the study included 1875 academic journals. A total of 420 responses (22.4%) were obtained.

The results indicated that 92% of the journals were open access journals, 2% of the journals conducted open peer review, 15% of the journals had instructions to allow archiving preprints, and out of 375 responses, only 59 journals (16%) reported having a policy on underlying research data.

Based on these results, there is a trend in favour of open access, but the perceived barriers to open peer review outweighed the advantages. There is also some reluctance to allow preprints to be made available.

This concern might be because editors want authors and readers to read and cite the contents published in their journals, rather than their preprint versions.

URL : Perceptions regarding open science appraised by editors of scholarly publications published in Spain

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1511

Les systèmes d’information recherche : un nouvel objet du questionnement éthique

Auteur/Authors : Joachim Schöpfel, Otmane Azeroual

La politique en faveur de la science ouverte interroge les critères et les procédures de l’évaluation de la recherche, tout en mettant en avant les principes fondamentaux de l’éthique scientifique, comme la transparence, l’ouverture et l’intégrité.

Dans ce contexte, nous menons depuis 2020 une analyse de la dimension éthique des systèmes d’information consacrés à l’évaluation de la recherche (SI recherche).

Cet article présente les résultats d’une enquête internationale conduite en 2021 avec un petit échantillon de professionnels et de chercheurs sur deux aspects : l’éthique comme objet du modèle de données de ces systèmes (métriques), et l’aspect éthique de la mise en place et de l’utilisation de ces systèmes.

La discussion fait le lien avec la qualité de ces systèmes, insiste sur la distinction entre l’évaluation des institutions et des personnes et propose l’analyse de ces systèmes à partir du concept d’une responsabilité morale répartie des infrastructures éthiques (infraéthique).

DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/rfsic.13254

La science (dé)confinée

Autrice/Author : Clara Galliano

Plusieurs pays d’Asie, d’Afrique, d’Europe, d’Amérique latine et certains états américains ont mis en place des mesures de confinement pour lutter contre la propagation du virus et l’arrivée de nouveaux variants.

En France comme ailleurs, ces mesures ont provoqué de lourdes conséquences sur l’économie du pays, ainsi que sur le moral des populations. Cet article propose d’évaluer, à partir de plusieurs méthodes, les impacts du confinement sur la recherche en étudiant plusieurs éléments comme : les collaborations internationales, les efforts des éditeurs sur l’accessibilité aux ressources numériques et les différentes enquêtes menées au sein des communautés scientifiques.

La Science Ouverte, entre mouvement et norme, a été un point clé stratégique et libérateur pendant la crise sanitaire afin d’accéder aux résultats pour faire avancer les recherches sur le vaccin, mais aussi pour continuer à maintenir l’activité scientifique quand tout la contraignait.

URL : https://revue-cossi.numerev.com/articles/revue-11/2750-la-science-deconfinee

Champions of Transparency in Education: What Journal Reviewers Can Do to Encourage Open Science Practices

Authors : Rachel Renbarger, Jill L. Adelson, Joshua Rosenberg, Sondra M Stegenga, Olivia Lowrey, Pamela Rose Buckley, Qiyang Zhang

As the field of education and especially gifted education gradually moves towards open science, our research community increasingly values transparency and openness brought by open science practices.

Yet, individual researchers may be reluctant to adopt open science practices due to low incentives, barriers of extra workload, or lack of support to apply these in certain areas, such as qualitative research.

We encourage and give guidelines to reviewers to champion open science practices by warmly influencing authors to consider applying open science practices to quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research and providing ample support to produce higher-quality publications.

Instead of imposing open science practices on authors, we advocate reviewers suggest small, non-threatening, specific steps to support authors without making them feel overwhelmed, judged, or punished.

We believe that these small steps taken by reviewers will make a difference to create a more supportive environment for researchers to adopt better practices.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.35542/osf.io/xqfwb