Mutual Support for Open Science

If you are reading this, you likely work, or have worked, as a scientific researcher, or as a professional who supports research. If you haven’t, you probably at least care about how scientific scholarship impacts society beyond universities, industry R&D labs, and other venues where research typically takes place.

In any case, I doubt I need to tell you how big and complex the global research system is. It’s a system that has developed over several decades and includes many kinds of occupational roles, fields of study, funding schemes, and national contexts.

At the Center for Open Science, we are realistic about the challenge presented by our mission to bring change to this system. The tendency to continue doing science “as it’s always been done” is strong. Habits, and the incentives that produce them, are tough to alter. And, sadly, some stakeholders benefit from parts of the system that lack transparency and accountability.

One of our main convictions at COS is that the only way to make real progress in reforming the research system is through collective action—including, crucially, mutual support. No one individual or organization can make science a more open, rigorous endeavor. Ensuring the credibility of research requires not only that we all participate, but that we do so in ways that enhance each other’s contributions.

How do researchers support our efforts to reform research?

Each year, our team at COS works with hundreds of research professionals on different projects and programs, both here in the United States and around the world. We often refer to them as “research community partners.” These partners help ensure that the open science technology tools and training resources we offer to the global scientific community meet the day-to-day needs of researchers, their teams, their students, and their institutions.

For instance, partners in Brazil and in Ghana have worked with us to make preregistration templates and other resources on the Open Science Framework (OSF) available in more languages. Elsewhere, volunteers on our TOP Advisory Board co-created open science policy recommendations with us, helping us to account for unique challenges in different disciplinary contexts. And, dozens of researchers have contributed papers to help inform our automated confidence assessment R&D project, in which we are exploring whether AI technologies might scale the evaluation of the credibility of causal claims made in research studies.

These are just a few examples of the many ways COS benefits from the talent and expertise of our many research partners.

Likewise, how does COS support the reform efforts of research partners?

I spoke to a few research professionals recently to get their perspectives on practicing open research and how COS has helped them to do so.

Andrea Ford and Carrie Rountrey are researchers and instructors in Communication Science and Disorders at the University of Cincinnati. They work together to promote open research among their students and colleagues. I asked them what techniques are key to incorporate when getting others bought into open research—and whether any COS tools or services help to enable those techniques.

“The downloadable preregistration templates on OSF are helpful because research team members can complete the form questions collaboratively yet asynchronously,” Andrea said. “They are also helpful for students who are planning their dissertations or other research projects to plan out their studies.”

“OSF allows researchers to document their projects comprehensively, with transparent version control for datasets, protocols, analyses, and manuscripts,” Carrie added. She also mentioned appreciating OSF’s integration capabilities: “I’m excited that some of the tools I’m already working with integrate well with OSF, including Google Drive. Overhauling systems is not something any of us has time for.”

Andrea and Carrie weren’t the only research professionals who see value in the interoperability of OSF and other research tools. Clarke Iakovakis is a Scholarly Services Librarian and Associate Professor at Oklahoma State University. Clarke told me that not only does an integrated user experience between software platforms make open science easier to practice, it also makes it less burdensome for researchers and their institutions to comply with research policy requirements, such as those of a grant funder or a government agency.

Free, open-source research infrastructure like OSF enables the required sharing of data and other study materials for researchers regardless of the support they might (or might not) receive for such requirements from their institutions. “That’s another reason why OSF is so valuable,” Clarke said.

Another theme that surfaced in my conversations was open research as an effort that transcends boundaries between research fields. John Kubale, Research Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, shared that he believes open science practices, and the values and norms behind them, help to make interdisciplinarity a reality.

“Open research strategies and techniques bring greater clarity to how the work is being done,” John said. “By making things more explicit, as happens in open science, researchers can avoid a lot of confusion and frustration that can occur from having unspoken expectations or practices among team members that may conflict.”

Like the others, John highlighted how OSF contributes to this: “Tools like OSF Projects help mitigate what can often be an obstacle in research projects, which is forcing team members to use research tools they don’t prefer—particularly teams with folks from different backgrounds or institutions.”

“As researchers, our focus areas are so different and our specialties so disparate, but I think open science is a place where we can find common ground and build communities of practice,” said Carrie.

Andrea agreed on the importance of the community-building power of open science: “I don’t feel alone in this work,” she said. “In fact, I feel the opposite, as there are quite a few folks in my field who are using open science practices and encouraging others to use them.”

Referring to open science trainings offered by COS, Andrea added: “I have really enjoyed them and found that they offer a wealth of information. I haven’t had the chance to attend other trainings but would love to connect with folks outside our content area and university who are using open science practices.”

How can you support open science reform efforts?

The conversations I drew from above were just a small sample of what we hear regularly from the hundreds of research professionals we work with: that researchers and those who support them want to be part of a new way of doing science and scholarship, one which emphasizes the integrity of the research process over how much attention the outputs can grab. This process-over-products approach informs the strategies we develop and the resources we offer to researchers that enable open practices throughout the research lifecycle.

In the same way that COS and our research community partners support each other, you can partner with COS and our research community by donating during our 2024 Year-End Fundraiser. Your contribution will fund the technical development, community engagement, and data insights needed to make our open science tools and training resources more powerful, responsive, and accessible. Find more information and donate here.