What is Open Science

A good way to start thinking about this is to look at the various components shown in the picture in the introduction above. Here is another:

From Danny Kingsley & Sarah Brown licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

One of the aspects confronting anyone exploring the concepts of Open Science, is that while the concept is reasonably clear - science should be available to all who might benefit from it - there are many different aspects from which the concept can be viewed. Here is one from Paul Stacey taking the viewpoint of Open Education which places it in the context of higher education (relevant to anyone accessing this course!): 

Open education is only one of many forms of open in higher education. It is part of a broader spectrum of opens including open research, open science, open access, open data, open innovation, open hardware, open source, and open governance. Each open provides additional autonomy. Combining them together creates a synergistic effect that maximizes autonomy for the good of all involved.

This links nicely to yet another definition—that of open access, as described by Open Education Global:

Open Access (OA) refers to research published in a way that is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. OA removes price barriers such as subscriptions and pay-per-view fees giving researchers, students, and public access to research. As most research is publicly funded OA ensures the public has access to what is funded. OA makes research discoverable, available and reproducible for the advancement of science. When used for teaching and learning Open Access articles are a form of OER [Open Educational Resources] (Open Access (OA)).

Why Open Science

Here is another nice graphic that covers many of the benefits:

By Gaelen Pinnock, CC BY-SA 4.0

How the response to the COVID pandemic illustrated the value of Open Science:

The response to COVID was shaped by open sharing of data. This was appreciated, even in the early days, as shown in this paper: Open science: after the COVID-19 pandemic there can be no return to closed working. The authors identify these issues:

• Science is largely publicly funded but not publicly accessible.
• When science is not openly accessible, it does not, and cannot, reach everyone who needs it.
• Research relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic has been made open access, which has enabled a unified and rapid global scientific response—but COVID-19 open access agreements are likely to be temporary.
• Open access to all research is an ongoing issue. If we are to advance our global effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, we must reframe what the standard is.

And, after a full discussion and set of suggestions, the authors summarise as follows:

The COVID-19 pandemic is leading to rapid rethinking of how many parts of society function. It should also be the catalyst that finally lays to rest the myth that closed research as the norm is acceptable, either morally, economically or technically. We need a whole-of-system coordinated reshaping from grassroots initiatives through to national policy and political commitment, that aligns with international initiatives—such as the Sustainable Development Goals for which access to information is key—and which are sensitive to national needs. Though there are many issues to work through, as for the other challenges we are facing with COVID-19, these issues can be solved if we only choose to do so. Arguably, we can’t afford not to.

A particular problem for the Global South

Due to a relative scarcity of research capacity, much of the Global South lacks locally relevant and globally valid research on its populations. Research publications from the Global South are low relative to the Global North. Despite a 51% increase between 2008 and 2014, in 2014 sub-Saharan Africa produced only 1.4% of the world’s share of scientific publications. Research outputs from Africa have mainly been limited to 10 countries, with more than 90% of total publications in Africa from these countries.

Reasons for this poor research output may include lack of access to scientific literature, and open publishing provides one way to improve the situation.

Funding of research in the Global South is also low in comparison with that in the Global North.

Compounding this issue is that research into Open Science itself is also biased against the Global South. Nazarovets and da Silva find that

Geographically, open science research is led by the USA (2,058 publications; 32.9%), followed by the UK (977; 15.6%), Germany (922; 14.8%), Canada (691; 11.1%), Australia (496; 7.9%), The Netherlands (516; 8.3%) and several other European countries.

The issue is nicely covered in the paper Why Are African Researchers Left Behind in Global Scientific Publications? – A Viewpoint.

In a study of 174 journals from 13 African countries reporting on public health research, the majority of articles were freely available to download. However, only a minority were indexed so could be easily found by other researchers or policy makers. These findings stimulated the development of this course.