Tag Archives: open science

Young European Associated Researchers (YEAR) Conference

“Sharing is caring“! This is probably a good way to describe what Open Science really means: a new approach to science to share ideas, research results, research data, and publications with the rest of the world, through the newly available network technologies.

The YEAR Annual Conference is a two-day event for young researchers, which offers a platform for exchange and training focused on key aspects of EU projects. For the 2015 edition, co-funded by FOSTER, YEAR chooses to focus the conference on Open Science in Horizon 2020.

Open Science @ “Grenzwertig”

Offene Wissenschaft: Potenziale und Grenzen


Digitale Technologien bringen eine neue Dimension in den Wissensschaffungsprozess. Wissenschaftlerinnen können über Grenzen und Zeitzonen hinweg zusammenarbeiten. Wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse können online zugänglich gemacht werden. Die Grenzen zwischen Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft, und Gesellschaft sind nicht mehr starr.  Aber was passiert wenn Wissenschaft transparent wird? Was sind die Potenziale und wo sind die Grenzen?

New Open Glossary

This is a resource designed to equip people with the terminology that is used within discussions about the general field of open scholarship. Additionally, it possesses numerous external resources that may be of use.

Jon Tennant

10 steps you can take to make sure you contribute to a culture shift towards open science.

Introduction to Open Science: Why data versioning and data care practices are key for science and social science.

Carly Strasser has put together a useful guide to embracing open science, pitched largely at graduate students. But the tips shared will be of interest far beyond the completion of a PhD. If time is spent up front thinking about file organization, sample naming schemes, backup plans, and quality control measures, many hours of heartache can be averted.

An Open Science Peer Review Oath

Open science is a movement that seeks to ensure that the results and the data of scientific research are, and continue to be, available to all. One way in which reproducibility issues can be tackled is through the use of open-science and open-data practices. As attendees of the AllBio: Open Science & Reproducibility Best Practice Workshop, we discussed how the problem of keeping science transparent and reproducible in an increasingly technology-driven, and specialised, domain could be addressed.
One route, at the heart of scientific endeavour, is through the peer-review process.

Opening Science: New publication forms in science

Digital technologies change how scientists access and process information and consequently impact publication forms in science. Even though the core of scientific publications has remained the same, established publication formats, such as the scientific paper or book, are succumbing to the transitions caused by digital technologies. At the same time, new online tools enable new publication forms, such as blogs, microblogs or wikis, to emerge. This article explores the changing and emerging publications forms in science and also reflects upon the changing role of libraries. The transformations of publishing forms are discussed in the context of open science.

Open season in science

The change in scientific culture towards openness is a recognition that the public are interested in research and discerning in their support of it. Science thrives when supported by the public; allowing the public and researchers to access work produced by Sanger Institute will help its researchers continue to provide the best science that is most beneficial to society.

Sarion Bowers

The Great Potential of Citizen Science

Citizen science is nothing new, but what makes internet-enabled citizen science different, is the sheer scale of amateur involvement. Benedikt Fecher sees great potential for citizen science, but argues a return to smaller-scale, high-involvement projects would be beneficial. This alternative model depends on citizen analysis, rather than just data collection. The core challenges for this kind of citizen science is to motivate and enable expert volunteers to make a long-term commitment to a scientific problem.

Putting open science into practice: A social dilemma?

Digital technologies carry the promise of transforming science and opening up the research process. We interviewed researchers from a variety of backgrounds about their attitudes towards and experiences with openness in their research practices. We observe a considerable discrepancy between the concept of open science and scholarly reality. While many researchers support open science in theory, the individual researcher is confronted with various difficulties when putting open science into practice. We analyse the major obstacles to open science and group them into two main categories: individual obstacles and systemic obstacles. We argue that the phenomenon of open science can be seen through the prism of a social dilemma: what is in the collective best interest of the scientific community is not necessarily in the best interest of the individual scientist. We discuss the possibilities of transferring theoretical solutions to social dilemma problems to the realm of open science.


First Monday. Kaja Scheliga, Sascha Friesike.

Path Dependence and Academic Publishing

Publishing in academia still bears the imprints of the book age.
Just as in the story of the QWERTY keyboard, a system of academic publishing prevailed that works, but is suboptimal. The established system of academic publishing, from submission, review, and publication is in the eye of the socio-technological opportunities outdated. It takes too much time, it is too expensive and leads to an artificial scarcity of content. It no longer reflects the zeitgeist.

System error: Open research data and publication-driven research

Blog post on data sharing in a publication-driven academic system:
Would more researchers share data if they got more for it? Possibly. The currency does not even have to change. What is missing in the academic system is the recognition for intermediaries, also for data. Those who publish well get cited. The H-index increases and thereby the chances for professional advancement. Good articles are good for the career. Good data however are still not as important than they should be.