October 24, 2018

OAWeek 2018: Open Access, Open Science, Open Source

For this OAWeek post, we will discuss the connections between open access, open science, and open source. As an organizing principle, I will introduce each concept with a working definition, and then discuss relationships with other "open" concepts.


Open Access: availability to the general public, research output can be distributed freely without restrictions.

A typology of different forms of Open Access publishing.

As a publishing phenomenon, open access can take a number of forms [1, 2]. Aside from a distinction between peer-reviewed and non peer-reviewed materials, Open Access publishing is color-coded as green (self-archiving) or golden (archival at the publisher's site for a fee) [3]. There is also a version of golden open access called diamond open access, the difference being that diamond open access does not require the author to pay a fee to the publisher [4]. Self-archival can be done through a personal server (website), a preprint site such as bioRxiv, or a site that allows for public hosting of documents (ResearchGate, Figshare). Golden open access usually requires an APC fee, the funds for which go to the publisher. While cheaper, self-archival requires adherence to a set practices that ensure ease of access.

In a narrow sense then, open access is a publishing issue seemingly unconnected to open science and particularly open source. Yet in fact, open access is both critical to and an enabling factor in open science and open source. Aside from making materials open (free or affordable), they mush also be made accessible. There are many other benefits to open access [5], but the most important of which is that they enable access to many different components of a set of scientific results.


Open Science: make research and data (scholarly outputs) publically accessible. This requires efforts to make scholarly outputs transparent and accessible, which should enable reproducibility.


Open Science is an extension of open access in that not only is the manuscript made public, but the research products are made public as well [6, 7]. An open pipeline (or system) might include any number of the following: version-controlled manuscript editing, preprints, preregistration of study design, open datasets, demonstrable analyses, open source code, social media engagement, post-publication review, and open manuscript review. While it is up to the scientist or scientific organization what components to utilize, each component has value to both the scientist [8] and the scientific audience.

One way to make the benefits of being open explicit without violating the rights of scientists to their original work is to adopt an open license. While there are a number of options for both open science and open source, one popular type of license is Creative Commons (CC) [9]. There are many types of CC license, but one commonly used in open science is CC-BY (or alternatively CC-BY-NC). The BY license allows others to distribute and/or recombine your work with acknowledgement of the original author (you). BY-NC licenses explicitly disallow commercial derivatives.


A successful open science strategy is more than simply the production of science and the least publishable unit. Open science also includes access to educational materials, such as screencasts, lecture notes, and even course development [10]. As a suitable example, Open Science MOOC provides all of their course modules at the level of a consumable lesson and a Github repository of sharable lesson plans.


Open Source: make source code publically available and editable. Software architecture is licensed so that it can be modified in collaborative fashion.

In many ways, open source (OS) can be considered a crucial component of open science, as the ability to collaboratively and transparently solve problems is a key part of the ethos. Yet open source has its own set of concerns surrounding project-building and the management of contributors. The development of open source software is not simply the production of free software, as there are significant version control and human resource issues that go into OS [11]. Open source projects (such as Wikimedia Foundation or Linux Foundation) tend to operate at a much larger scale than open science collaborations. In the case of hybrid open science/open source organizations (such as the OpenWorm Foundation), there are a number of management concerns that also draw from making research methods and data transparent.

Open Source provides not only an avenue to transparency, but also as a tool for collaboration. An open source infrastructure that provides version-control [12] and source code annotation in the public domain can serve to enable public discussion and encourage future development outside of a specific project or set of experiments. The ability to open up code used in analysis and simulation aids in the peer review process. For published methods, open source provides a means for people to improve upon and use the code base. Open source efforts such as the open hardware movement allows labs to share standardized plans for DIY lab equipment, lowering the costs of science.


NOTES:
[1] Jeffrey, K.G. (2006). Open Access: an introduction. ERCIM News. https://www.ercim.eu/publication/Ercim_News/enw64/jeffery.html.

[2] Suber, P. (2012). Open Access. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

[3] Kienc, W. (2015). Green OA vs. Gold OA. Which one to choose? Open Science blog, June 3.

[4] Kelly, J.M. (2013). Green, Gold, and Diamond?: A Short Primer on Open Access. Jason M. Kelly blog, January 27.

[5] PLoS. Why Open Access? https://www.plos.org/open-access.

[6] Guide to Open Science Publishing. F1000Research.

[7] McKiernan, E.C., Bourne, P.E., Brown, C.T., Buck, S., Kenall, A., Lin, J., McDougall, D., Nosek, B.A., Ram, K., Soderberg, C.K., Spies, J.R., Thaney, K., Updegrove, A., Woo, K.H., and Yarkoni, T. (2016). How open science helps researchers succeed. eLife. 2016; 5: e16800. doi:10.7554/eLife. 16800.001.

[8] Ali-Khan, S.E., Jean, A., MacDonald, E., Gold, E.R. (2018). Defining Success in Open Science. MNI Open Research, 2, 2. doi:10.12688/mniopenres.12780.

[9] Creative Commons. About the licenses. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

[10] Jhangiani, R. and Biswas-Diener, R. (2017). Open: the philosophy and practices that are revolutionizing education and science. Ubiquity Press. doi:10.5334/bbc.

[11] Fogel, K. (2017). Producing Open Source Software: how to run a successful free software project. Version 2.3088 http://producingoss.com/

[12] Blischak, J.D., Davenport, E.R, and Wilson, G. (2016). A Quick Introduction to Version Control with Git and GitHub. PLoS Computational Biology, 12(1), e1004668. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi. 1004668.

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