the future
Glenn Hampson
Hi Everyone,
This peer review conversation has been great---brilliant stuff. Is it okay to ask a new question to the group? I’m adding a new subject line for it---the future of open.
So far, it’s clear that “connected issues” like peer review and reforming the culture of communication in academia need to be addressed as part of our quest to create the best possible future for open solutions. The same is true for APCs; maintaining the status quo seems like an iffy proposition.
Clearly, we need to look closely at how to “fix” all these issues.
Or do we?
I guess it depends whether your path to change cuts through the swamp or goes around it. So far (as in for the last 20+ years) we’ve focused mightily on the “how” of our open strategies (better licensing, more preprints, etc.), but much less so on the “why” --- on the strategic thinking we all do together as a community committed to improving the future of research, including the voices of researchers who are almost entirely absent (ironically) from most of our open conversations and efforts. We’ve been approaching the open reform space as though “open” is the end goal instead of a tool for improving research. And the result is that our path through the reform swamp has looked like more an obstacle course from the TV show Wipeout than a race down a track with a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end.
The main idea put forward in OSI’s policy paper 4 is to use a Theory of Change approach to figure all this out, which is to say, to work backward from what we want to achieve. Rather than focus only on what open should look like, as we doing now, and then struggle mightily to reach the promised land of a more open world, we should first figure out what we want and then work backward from these goals. In the process, we might discover the bridge we’ve been building should be a boat instead.
|
Theory of Change is essentially a comprehensive description and illustration of how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context. It is focused in particular on mapping out or “filling in” what has been described as the “missing middle” between what a program or change initiative does (its activities or interventions) and how these lead to desired goals being achieved. It does this by first identifying the desired long-term goals and then works back from these to identify all the conditions (outcomes) that must be in place (and how these related to one another causally) for the goals to occur. These are all mapped out in an Outcomes Framework. |
|
|
Source: Theory of Change website at What is Theory of Change? - Theory of Change Community |
|
In OSI’s policy paper 6 (paper 5 was our global survey of researcher needs), we took this approach one step farther. That missing middle? Look to the evidence. We know open comes in a wide variety of forms (T. Scott Plutchak authored this great summary for OSI a few years ago). And we know open motives and goals vary widely, and that the mandates, uptake, resources, and outcomes of open are literally all over the map. What’s missing in our policy efforts to-date is noticing what’s happening in research itself---the research networks, data-sharing networks, and efforts to improve data standards and reusability, public data dumps, efforts to summarize work, and so much more. Some of this comes from OA initiatives, but most of what we’re ignoring does not (because it’s not “open” by the strictest definitions)---it’s just research being research. If we can learn what’s happening here, catalog it, find best practices, and help connect and support promising “real-world” initiatives, that might create enough of a “land mass” in the great middle to help connect the idealists in this space with our common goals. Over time, the best practices that support reuse, integrity, accessibility, and so on, will be able to migrate more freely across the gaps and boundaries in this space if we can first connect the beginning (where we are now), the middle (the current reality of research), and the end (our goals).
As for creating these end goals, we need to be MUCH more inclusive than we have been to-date; we can’t proclaim that our vision for the future of research is what should come to pass, because researchers have been woefully underrepresented in this thinking. This said, there is already a TON of common ground in this space---more than we realize, I think. I’ll repost the main points that came out of OSI. Between 2014 and 2018, OSI participants identified and agreed on four main pillars:
1. Science and society will benefit from open done right (not just any kind of open policies)
2. Successful solutions will require broad collaboration across stakeholder groups, fields, and regions of the world
3. Connected issues also need to be addressed in order for open solutions to work—issues like impact factors, peer review, and the culture of communication in academia, and
4. Open isn’t a single outcome but a spectrum of outcomes (as defined in OSI’s DART spectrum).
Since 2018, OSI identified three additional pillars through its reports and outreach efforts. While OSI hasn’t voted on these three ideas, they have been open for global feedback, and the feedback we’ve received to-date has been entirely positive.
5. Our global open policy solutions must be equitable
6. Open should not be treated as goal unto itself, but as one tool among many that can help researchers succeed. To this end, our common ground policy foundations should be built on what we can do together to help research succeed, pulling in common elements of open ideas along the way.
7. Our global open policies must be built on evidence rather than ideology—evidence like understanding what kinds of open solutions exist, which of these solutions work best for which purposes, which solutions researchers want and need the most, and a clear and unbiased evaluation of how our current open policy efforts are falling short and even making access and equity worse.
I respectfully submit all this for your consideration, and look forward to hearing your ideas. Have a good weekend everyone.
Thank you and best regards,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
Glenn Hampson
Hi Mario,
Y’all need to take weekends off---focus on important stuff like whether Taylor Swift is going to make it Vegas by game time. But since I’m just sitting here watching home repair shows…
I think Rob Johnson (cc’d here) can give you the most authoritative take on the state of OA in the EU. I personally don’t think there’s been any open-washing (if by this you mean adopting the open label even if it isn’t truly open). There is lots of energy and diversity in the region for sure, and lots of pioneering work, and lots of different voices, but it’s all very “authentic” if you will---probably not as “connected” as it should be for maximum effectiveness though. Plan S, as we know, has changed emphasis from its beginnings, but it still has a commanding presence in both the EU and global policy space. Rob?
As for our disagreement about the “future of open” crystal ball, you put me in a difficult spot. You are a distinguished professor of law and communication who has taught the history of science at Harvard and written books on the subject. I’m not. So…pardon my hubris, but I’m sticking by my words. I think the “commons” was more of a concept than a policy. Open is both, in spades: It’s a whole cornucopia of concepts and policies. And the evolution of these has been a bit of a shoving match over the last 20 years---lots of jockeying for position, and not a lot of pausing to see who we’re shoving and why. My contention---well, not mine, but the small universe of people who have come together in this space to talk---is that we’ve been ignoring the common ground here, as well as the evidence of what’s working, what’s not, and what researchers want and need. To me, anyway---and I think to this small group as well---the “let’s go ahead and see what happens” approach sets us up for more failure. We’ll just keep making it up as we go along, and in the process, cause more unintended consequences, neglect our real need to work together, further exhaust the goodwill in this space, and delay progress (by years) toward a creating a truly vibrant, robust open space that delivers the benefits for science and society we all want to see.
All for what it’s worth. There’s really more meat here than can be summarized in a paragraph. If you aren’t going to watch the Super Bowl, you can read all 556 pages of OSI Policy Perspectives 1-6 for a much more complete discussion (no grades please).
Cheers,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
From: Biagioli, Mario <biag...@law.ucla.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 9, 2024 8:51 PM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>; 'OpenCafe-l' <OPENC...@LISTSERV.BYU.EDU>
Cc: 'osi20...@googlegroups.com' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: the future
Hi Glenn,
I appreciate the big questions you are posing about the future, But my brain—formerly trained in history recoils when it sees “future of open”. Sligthly more productively, I believe that the meaning of open and the shape it will take in the future are emerging questions and the answer will depend on what happens as we all deal or try to bring about that future. I am not suggesting that we should just make it up as we go, but that ‘open’ is a kind of concept like the common/s. For a while the commons seemed to solution to many of our problems, but 10/15 yrs later we still lack a viable definition of the commons, despite the fact that many common-like arrangements have since developed. Still, the many conversations spurred by the commons have been (in my view) quite constructive and consequential. So let’s go ahead and see what happens to ‘open’ as we approach the future. One hypothetical/cynical question: OA and Plan S have been well received in Europe, where funding agencies have demanded OA publishing of all results of research supported by these agencies. I don’t have a clear/strong position on that but wonder whether that could be the result of ‘open washing” to make those stakeholders look good. (that the cynical bit, but cant help it.
MB
From:
osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Date: Friday, February 9, 2024 at 9:34 AM
To: 'OpenCafe-l' <OPENC...@LISTSERV.BYU.EDU>
Cc: 'osi20...@googlegroups.com' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: the future
Hi Everyone,
This peer review conversation has been great---brilliant stuff. Is it okay to ask a new question to the group? I’m adding a new subject line for it---the future of open.
So far, it’s clear that “connected issues” like peer review and reforming the culture of communication in academia need to be addressed as part of our quest to create the best possible future for open solutions. The same is true for APCs; maintaining the status quo seems like an iffy proposition.
Clearly, we need to look closely at how to “fix” all these issues.
Or do we?
I guess it depends whether your path to change cuts through the swamp or goes around it. So far (as in for the last 20+ years) we’ve focused mightily on the “how” of our open strategies (better licensing, more preprints, etc.), but much less so on the “why” --- on the strategic thinking we all do together as a community committed to improving the future of research, including the voices of researchers who are almost entirely absent (ironically) from most of our open conversations and efforts. We’ve been approaching the open reform space as though “open” is the end goal instead of a tool for improving research. And the result is that our path through the reform swamp has looked like more an obstacle course from the TV show Wipeout than a race down a track with a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end.
The main idea put forward in OSI’s policy paper 4 is to use a Theory of Change approach to figure all this out, which is to say, to work backward from what we want to achieve. Rather than focus only on what open should look like, as we doing now, and then struggle mightily to reach the promised land of a more open world, we should first figure out what we want and then work backward from these goals. In the process, we might discover the bridge we’ve been building should be a boat instead.
|
Theory of Change is essentially a comprehensive description and illustration of how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context. It is focused in particular on mapping out or “filling in” what has been described as the “missing middle” between what a program or change initiative does (its activities or interventions) and how these lead to desired goals being achieved. It does this by first identifying the desired long-term goals and then works back from these to identify all the conditions (outcomes) that must be in place (and how these related to one another causally) for the goals to occur. These are all mapped out in an Outcomes Framework. |
|
|
Source: Theory of Change website at What is Theory of Change? - Theory of Change Community |
|
In OSI’s policy paper 6 (paper 5 was our global survey of researcher needs), we took this approach one step farther. That missing middle? Look to the evidence. We know open comes in a wide variety of forms (T. Scott Plutchak authored this great summary for OSI a few years ago). And we know open motives and goals vary widely, and that the mandates, uptake, resources, and outcomes of open are literally all over the map. What’s missing in our policy efforts to-date is noticing what’s happening in research itself---the research networks, data-sharing networks, and efforts to improve data standards and reusability, public data dumps, efforts to summarize work, and so much more. Some of this comes from OA initiatives, but most of what we’re ignoring does not (because it’s not “open” by the strictest definitions)---it’s just research being research. If we can learn what’s happening here, catalog it, find best practices, and help connect and support promising “real-world” initiatives, that might create enough of a “land mass” in the great middle to help connect the idealists in this space with our common goals. Over time, the best practices that support reuse, integrity, accessibility, and so on, will be able to migrate more freely across the gaps and boundaries in this space if we can first connect the beginning (where we are now), the middle (the current reality of research), and the end (our goals).
As for creating these end goals, we need to be MUCH more inclusive than we have been to-date; we can’t proclaim that our vision for the future of research is what should come to pass, because researchers have been woefully underrepresented in this thinking. This said, there is already a TON of common ground in this space---more than we realize, I think. I’ll repost the main points that came out of OSI. Between 2014 and 2018, OSI participants identified and agreed on four main pillars:
Science and society will benefit from open done right (not just any kind of open policies)
Successful solutions will require broad collaboration across stakeholder groups, fields, and regions of the world
Connected issues also need to be addressed in order for open solutions to work—issues like impact factors, peer review, and the culture of communication in academia, and
Open isn’t a single outcome but a spectrum of outcomes (as defined in OSI’s DART spectrum).
Since 2018, OSI identified three additional pillars through its reports and outreach efforts. While OSI hasn’t voted on these three ideas, they have been open for global feedback, and the feedback we’ve received to-date has been entirely positive.
Our global open policy solutions must be equitable
Open should not be treated as goal unto itself, but as one tool among many that can help researchers succeed. To this end, our common ground policy foundations should be built on what we can do together to help research succeed, pulling in common elements of open ideas along the way.
Our global open policies must be built on evidence rather than ideology—evidence like understanding what kinds of open solutions exist, which of these solutions work best for which purposes, which solutions researchers want and need the most, and a clear and unbiased evaluation of how our current open policy efforts are falling short and even making access and equity worse.
I respectfully submit all this for your consideration, and look forward to hearing your ideas. Have a good weekend everyone.
Thank you and best regards,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
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Biagioli, Mario
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2024 11:57 AM
To: Biagioli, Mario <biag...@law.ucla.edu>; 'OpenCafe-l' <OPENC...@LISTSERV.BYU.EDU>
Cc: 'osi20...@googlegroups.com' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>; 'Rob Johnson' <rob.j...@research-consulting.com>
Subject: RE: the future
Glenn Hampson
Thanks for your reply Mario. LOL. My son is a college baseball player so we also split our attention and loyalties.
We should (all) talk more about this fascinating point you raise about the commons. It took a while for your idea to detonate in my brain---you tossed it out there so casually and I’m afraid I tossed it aside even more casually. But on further reflection, I think you’re onto something really powerful here. Even if you don’t ever write the definitive book on this topic, this history seems worth digging into for its lessons of experience.
When you initially mentioned this idea, I thought (in my ignorance) that you were just referring to the knowledge commons, which is a relatively “modern” and fuzzy concept; but the deeper concept of commons goes back millennia in terms of practices and policies, doesn’t it (from common grazing land to common water, air, and so on---mostly property rights based)? In OSI’s Open Solution paper, I wrote a brief overview of the history of the various open knowledge tendrils---open data, open source, open access, open science, open government, etc.---with the goal of seeing how these might all overlap. They don’t really---they all have distinct histories, origins, influences, methods, etc. (which is why the current fashion of claiming that open science is some sort of umbrella or mushroom concept that includes everything else is wrong in my mind---open science utilizes a variety of tools but it shouldn’t be portrayed as some sort of parent body; but I digress). But I didn’t even touch on the historical concept of the commons---the oldest and most pervasive open concept of all.
Has anyone here worked on this connection? I think this is where the evidence-based approach to open policy can help because (spoiler alert: I’m tying in Timonthy’s community idea here) there are indeed many “communities” of scholarship that maintain and care for viable commons areas---research networks that share data (but only with network members), and so on. The “community” element seems to be key because communities have a vested interested. So while OA writ large may not create an ideal commons situation (because of the lack of ideal gatekeeping, because of bias and exclusion, because the market gets flooded with suppliers, etc.), smaller communities seem to be better at creating commons situations that work well and that convey benefits back to the communities. Yes no maybe?
Following on this logic (or lack thereof?), is there a model of open access that can help foster small and vibrant communities---that researchers can engage in because they are tending to a community garden and not just creating a global garden? I don’t know. Maybe we need a new model, like S2S (I’m making this up)---a “subscribe to subsidize” model where, similar to the S2O model (subscribe to open), the subscriber pays a small premium, which is then used to pay for (or at least lower) the subscription for researchers in the same community who can’t pay full price. Opening this knowledge can still happen on pace with embargos (6 months or whatever). I realize this isn’t ideal, but it takes the S2O one step further toward community building. Instead of asking community members to create open products because it’s the right thing to do, it asks them to help support their fellow researchers (not all researchers, but the ones in their community) from around the world first and foremost. Whether this community decides then to have a 6 month embargo or a zero month embargo is up to them---it’s their community (and if they choose 6 months, then they can also come up with other tools to help bridge the access gap---e.g., lay summaries, immediate data releases, etc.). Maybe?
Anyway, thank you again---always a pleasure to hear from you.
Best regards,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
David Wojick
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Glenn Hampson
Fun stuff: The lead story in James Butcher’s newsletter today highlights how three science publishers---AIP, APS, and IOP---will be implementing this community-centric strategy that Timothy brought up. In last week’s announcement, “AIP Publishing, the American Physical Society, and IOP Publishing have joined forces to create Purpose-Led Publishing (PLP), a new coalition with a promise to always put purpose above profit. The three scholarly publishers are united by their not-for-profit status, with all the funds made from publishing going back into the research ecosystem. Their collective contributions support the physical science community globally through a range of initiatives, including educational training and mentorship programmes, and awards and grants — all geared toward making science accessible and inclusive to everyone.”
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Rick Anderson
Naïve question: isn’t it already the case for all non-profit publishers (which comprise, I believe, the great majority of scholarly publishers) that “funds made from publishing go back into the research ecosystem”?
Maybe it depends on how broadly you define “research ecosystem.” But certainly they don’t go into the pockets of shareholders.
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Biagioli, Mario
Hi Glenn,
I appreciate the big questions you are posing about the future, But my brain—formerly trained in history recoils when it sees “future of open”. Sligthly more productively, I believe that the meaning of open and the shape it will take in the future are emerging questions and the answer will depend on what happens as we all deal or try to bring about that future. I am not suggesting that we should just make it up as we go, but that ‘open’ is a kind of concept like the common/s. For a while the commons seemed to solution to many of our problems, but 10/15 yrs later we still lack a viable definition of the commons, despite the fact that many common-like arrangements have since developed. Still, the many conversations spurred by the commons have been (in my view) quite constructive and consequential. So let’s go ahead and see what happens to ‘open’ as we approach the future. One hypothetical/cynical question: OA and Plan S have been well received in Europe, where funding agencies have demanded OA publishing of all results of research supported by these agencies. I don’t have a clear/strong position on that but wonder whether that could be the result of ‘open washing” to make those stakeholders look good. (that the cynical bit, but cant help it.
MB
From:
osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Date: Friday, February 9, 2024 at 9:34 AM
To: 'OpenCafe-l' <OPENC...@LISTSERV.BYU.EDU>
Cc: 'osi20...@googlegroups.com' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: the future
Hi Everyone,
This peer review conversation has been great---brilliant stuff. Is it okay to ask a new question to the group? I’m adding a new subject line for it---the future of open.
So far, it’s clear that “connected issues” like peer review and reforming the culture of communication in academia need to be addressed as part of our quest to create the best possible future for open solutions. The same is true for APCs; maintaining the status quo seems like an iffy proposition.
Clearly, we need to look closely at how to “fix” all these issues.
Or do we?
I guess it depends whether your path to change cuts through the swamp or goes around it. So far (as in for the last 20+ years) we’ve focused mightily on the “how” of our open strategies (better licensing, more preprints, etc.), but much less so on the “why” --- on the strategic thinking we all do together as a community committed to improving the future of research, including the voices of researchers who are almost entirely absent (ironically) from most of our open conversations and efforts. We’ve been approaching the open reform space as though “open” is the end goal instead of a tool for improving research. And the result is that our path through the reform swamp has looked like more an obstacle course from the TV show Wipeout than a race down a track with a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end.
The main idea put forward in OSI’s policy paper 4 is to use a Theory of Change approach to figure all this out, which is to say, to work backward from what we want to achieve. Rather than focus only on what open should look like, as we doing now, and then struggle mightily to reach the promised land of a more open world, we should first figure out what we want and then work backward from these goals. In the process, we might discover the bridge we’ve been building should be a boat instead.
|
Theory of Change is essentially a comprehensive description and illustration of how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context. It is focused in particular on mapping out or “filling in” what has been described as the “missing middle” between what a program or change initiative does (its activities or interventions) and how these lead to desired goals being achieved. It does this by first identifying the desired long-term goals and then works back from these to identify all the conditions (outcomes) that must be in place (and how these related to one another causally) for the goals to occur. These are all mapped out in an Outcomes Framework. |
|
|
Source: Theory of Change website at What is Theory of Change? - Theory of Change Community |
|
In OSI’s policy paper 6 (paper 5 was our global survey of researcher needs), we took this approach one step farther. That missing middle? Look to the evidence. We know open comes in a wide variety of forms (T. Scott Plutchak authored this great summary for OSI a few years ago). And we know open motives and goals vary widely, and that the mandates, uptake, resources, and outcomes of open are literally all over the map. What’s missing in our policy efforts to-date is noticing what’s happening in research itself---the research networks, data-sharing networks, and efforts to improve data standards and reusability, public data dumps, efforts to summarize work, and so much more. Some of this comes from OA initiatives, but most of what we’re ignoring does not (because it’s not “open” by the strictest definitions)---it’s just research being research. If we can learn what’s happening here, catalog it, find best practices, and help connect and support promising “real-world” initiatives, that might create enough of a “land mass” in the great middle to help connect the idealists in this space with our common goals. Over time, the best practices that support reuse, integrity, accessibility, and so on, will be able to migrate more freely across the gaps and boundaries in this space if we can first connect the beginning (where we are now), the middle (the current reality of research), and the end (our goals).
As for creating these end goals, we need to be MUCH more inclusive than we have been to-date; we can’t proclaim that our vision for the future of research is what should come to pass, because researchers have been woefully underrepresented in this thinking. This said, there is already a TON of common ground in this space---more than we realize, I think. I’ll repost the main points that came out of OSI. Between 2014 and 2018, OSI participants identified and agreed on four main pillars:
Science and society will benefit from open done right (not just any kind of open policies)
Successful solutions will require broad collaboration across stakeholder groups, fields, and regions of the world
Connected issues also need to be addressed in order for open solutions to work—issues like impact factors, peer review, and the culture of communication in academia, and
Open isn’t a single outcome but a spectrum of outcomes (as defined in OSI’s DART spectrum).
Since 2018, OSI identified three additional pillars through its reports and outreach efforts. While OSI hasn’t voted on these three ideas, they have been open for global feedback, and the feedback we’ve received to-date has been entirely positive.
Our global open policy solutions must be equitable
Open should not be treated as goal unto itself, but as one tool among many that can help researchers succeed. To this end, our common ground policy foundations should be built on what we can do together to help research succeed, pulling in common elements of open ideas along the way.
Our global open policies must be built on evidence rather than ideology—evidence like understanding what kinds of open solutions exist, which of these solutions work best for which purposes, which solutions researchers want and need the most, and a clear and unbiased evaluation of how our current open policy efforts are falling short and even making access and equity worse.
I respectfully submit all this for your consideration, and look forward to hearing your ideas. Have a good weekend everyone.
Thank you and best regards,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
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Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2024 19:57
To: 'Biagioli, Mario' <biag...@law.ucla.edu>; 'OpenCafe-l' <OPENC...@LISTSERV.BYU.EDU>
Cc: 'osi20...@googlegroups.com' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>; Rob Johnson <rob.j...@research-consulting.com>
Subject: RE: the future
Hi Mario,
Rick Anderson
I agree with Rob that political ideology is an underexamined aspect of the global OA movement. It’s not very comfortable to talk about – when you do (even just by using the word “ideology”), you open yourself up to accusations of using right-wing talking points. I hope this list will provide a venue for thoughtful consideration of this issue, along with others that may be difficult or fraught.
On this particular topic, I don’t believe it’s in any way coincidental that the Holdren Memo was written during the Obama administration, and that the Nelson update was issued during the Biden administration. It’s difficult to imagine either of those documents coming out of a Republican White House.
One other point regarding politics and political structures: prevailing ideologies definitely play a role in scholcomm policymaking in Europe and Latin America (and everywhere else), but political structure is also very important. One reason that mandatory OA struggles to gain a foothold in the US is that there is no centralized control of higher education. For what it’s worth, I wrote about this a few years back in Learned Publishing:
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David Wojick
I agree with Rob that political ideology is an underexamined aspect of the global OA movement. It’s not very comfortable to talk about – when you do (even just by using the word “ideology”), you open yourself up to accusations of using right-wing talking points. I hope this list will provide a venue for thoughtful consideration of this issue, along with others that may be difficult or fraught.
On this particular topic, I don’t believe it’s in any way coincidental that the Holdren Memo was written during the Obama administration, and that the Nelson update was issued during the Biden administration. It’s difficult to imagine either of those documents coming out of a Republican White House.
One other point regarding politics and political structures: prevailing ideologies definitely play a role in scholcomm policymaking in Europe and Latin America (and everywhere else), but political structure is also very important. One reason that mandatory OA struggles to gain a foothold in the US is that there is no centralized control of higher education. For what it’s worth, I wrote about this a few years back in Learned Publishing:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/leap.1034
From:
<osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rob Johnson <rob.j...@research-consulting.com>
Date: Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 2:26 AM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>, "'Biagioli, Mario'" <biag...@law.ucla.edu>, 'OpenCafe-l' <OPENC...@LISTSERV.BYU.EDU>
Cc: "'osi20...@googlegroups.com'" <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: the future
Hi Glenn, Mario,
Sorry for not chipping in sooner, I'm just back from a few days' leave. I'd agree that open-washing probably isn't quite the right term for EU policymaking, though I think the term could be levelled at a number of publishers with some justification.
One observation I would add is that OA policy is undoubtedly shaped by national and regional politics, perhaps to a greater degree that we tend to acknowledge. It's surely no coincidence that publicly-funded publishing infrastructures have been most successful in Latin America, where socialist policies have long found more support than in other parts of the world. I've also observed a leftward trend in European open access policies since the UK's departure from the EU. Diamond OA and publicly-funded infrastructures are now much more in vogue than they were five years ago and there are fewer advocates for a marketised approach to publishing. Besides Germany and Netherlands, few European countries have significant academic publishing industries, so why endorse policies that will see an ever-increasing flow of funds to non-EU countries like the US and UK? Clearly the same argument applies with even greater force in China.
In terms of the common ground approach, I agree wholeheartedly that we need evidence, but I think the evidence also shows that we can't ignore ideology. The policies and solutions which work best will inevitably be context-dependent but I think the task of international groups like this is to find ways to keep them connected and interdependent.
Best wishes,
Rob
Rob Johnson (he/him)
Managing Director
From: Biagioli, Mario <biag...@law.ucla.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 9, 2024 8:51 PM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>; 'OpenCafe-l' <OPENC...@LISTSERV.BYU.EDU>
Cc: 'osi20...@googlegroups.com' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: the future
Hi Glenn,
I appreciate the big questions you are posing about the future, But my brain—formerly trained in history recoils when it sees “future of open”. Sligthly more productively, I believe that the meaning of open and the shape it will take in the future are emerging questions and the answer will depend on what happens as we all deal or try to bring about that future. I am not suggesting that we should just make it up as we go, but that ‘open’ is a kind of concept like the common/s. For a while the commons seemed to solution to many of our problems, but 10/15 yrs later we still lack a viable definition of the commons, despite the fact that many common-like arrangements have since developed. Still, the many conversations spurred by the commons have been (in my view) quite constructive and consequential. So let’s go ahead and see what happens to ‘open’ as we approach the future. One hypothetical/cynical question: OA and Plan S have been well received in Europe, where funding agencies have demanded OA publishing of all results of research supported by these agencies. I don’t have a clear/strong position on that but wonder whether that could be the result of ‘open washing” to make those stakeholders look good. (that the cynical bit, but cant help it.
MB
From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Date: Friday, February 9, 2024 at 9:34 AM
To: 'OpenCafe-l' <OPENC...@LISTSERV.BYU.EDU>
Cc: 'osi20...@googlegroups.com' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: the future
Hi Everyone,
This peer review conversation has been great---brilliant stuff. Is it okay to ask a new question to the group? I’m adding a new subject line for it---the future of open.
So far, it’s clear that “connected issues” like peer review and reforming the culture of communication in academia need to be addressed as part of our quest to create the best possible future for open solutions. The same is true for APCs; maintaining the status quo seems like an iffy proposition.
Clearly, we need to look closely at how to “fix” all these issues.
Or do we?
I guess it depends whether your path to change cuts through the swamp or goes around it. So far (as in for the last 20+ years) we’ve focused mightily on the “how” of our open strategies (better licensing, more preprints, etc.), but much less so on the “why” --- on the strategic thinking we all do together as a community committed to improving the future of research, including the voices of researchers who are almost entirely absent (ironically) from most of our open conversations and efforts. We’ve been approaching the open reform space as though “open” is the end goal instead of a tool for improving research. And the result is that our path through the reform swamp has looked like more an obstacle course from the TV show Wipeout than a race down a track with a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end.
The main idea put forward in OSI’s policy paper 4 is to use a Theory of Change approach to figure all this out, which is to say, to work backward from what we want to achieve. Rather than focus only on what open should look like, as we doing now, and then struggle mightily to reach the promised land of a more open world, we should first figure out what we want and then work backward from these goals. In the process, we might discover the bridge we’ve been building should be a boat instead.
|
Theory of Change is essentially a comprehensive description and illustration of how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context. It is focused in particular on mapping out or “filling in” what has been described as the “missing middle” between what a program or change initiative does (its activities or interventions) and how these lead to desired goals being achieved. It does this by first identifying the desired long-term goals and then works back from these to identify all the conditions (outcomes) that must be in place (and how these related to one another causally) for the goals to occur. These are all mapped out in an Outcomes Framework. |
|
|
|
Source: Theory of Change website at What is Theory of Change? - Theory of Change Community |
In OSI’s policy paper 6 (paper 5 was our global survey of researcher needs), we took this approach one step farther. That missing middle? Look to the evidence. We know open comes in a wide variety of forms (T. Scott Plutchak authored this great summary for OSI a few years ago). And we know open motives and goals vary widely, and that the mandates, uptake, resources, and outcomes of open are literally all over the map. What’s missing in our policy efforts to-date is noticing what’s happening in research itself---the research networks, data-sharing networks, and efforts to improve data standards and reusability, public data dumps, efforts to summarize work, and so much more. Some of this comes from OA initiatives, but most of what we’re ignoring does not (because it’s not “open” by the strictest definitions)---it’s just research being research. If we can learn what’s happening here, catalog it, find best practices, and help connect and support promising “real-world” initiatives, that might create enough of a “land mass” in the great middle to help connect the idealists in this space with our common goals. Over time, the best practices that support reuse, integrity, accessibility, and so on, will be able to migrate more freely across the gaps and boundaries in this space if we can first connect the beginning (where we are now), the middle (the current reality of research), and the end (our goals).
As for creating these end goals, we need to be MUCH more inclusive than we have been to-date; we can’t proclaim that our vision for the future of research is what should come to pass, because researchers have been woefully underrepresented in this thinking. This said, there is already a TON of common ground in this space---more than we realize, I think. I’ll repost the main points that came out of OSI. Between 2014 and 2018, OSI participants identified and agreed on four main pillars:
Science and society will benefit from open done right (not just any kind of open policies)
Successful solutions will require broad collaboration across stakeholder groups, fields, and regions of the world
Connected issues also need to be addressed in order for open solutions to work—issues like impact factors, peer review, and the culture of communication in academia, and
Open isn’t a single outcome but a spectrum of outcomes (as defined in OSI’s DART spectrum).
Since 2018, OSI identified three additional pillars through its reports and outreach efforts. While OSI hasn’t voted on these three ideas, they have been open for global feedback, and the feedback we’ve received to-date has been entirely positive.
Our global open policy solutions must be equitable
Open should not be treated as goal unto itself, but as one tool among many that can help researchers succeed. To this end, our common ground policy foundations should be built on what we can do together to help research succeed, pulling in common elements of open ideas along the way.
Our global open policies must be built on evidence rather than ideology—evidence like understanding what kinds of open solutions exist, which of these solutions work best for which purposes, which solutions researchers want and need the most, and a clear and unbiased evaluation of how our current open policy efforts are falling short and even making access and equity worse.
I respectfully submit all this for your consideration, and look forward to hearing your ideas. Have a good weekend everyone.
Thank you and best regards,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
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Glenn Hampson
Hi Rick,
To me, the “ideology” of open has less to do with politics and more to do with insisting that open solutions are black or white, good or bad, right or wrong, born from this and essential to that. This ideology of absolute certainty and exclusivity finds its way into all kinds of articles and policy documents--- proclamations of “fact” about open that aren’t factual, and that are in turn cited by other articles and policies (e.g., whereas Institution X has declared open to be This, then our policy should be built along the same lines).
By keeping an open mind about all this work instead---understanding the big picture, following the evidence, acknowledging our missteps, finding our common ground, protecting equity and inclusion, and in general being more scientific in our approach to reforming science---I think we’re much more likely to develop open policies that are widely embraced, and that churn out real and sustainable benefits for science and society. It’s curious that we’ve gotten so bogged down in all this, but even science isn’t immune to being hard-headed (e.g., read Simon Schama’s latest book, Foreign Bodies, for a history of how “official science” ignored evidence for decades about the effectiveness of vaccines, simply because the official leaders of science didn’t give this knowledge their seal of approval).
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
David Wojick
Hi Rick,
To me, the “ideology” of open has less to do with politics and more to do with insisting that open solutions are black or white, good or bad, right or wrong, born from this and essential to that. This ideology of absolute certainty and exclusivity finds its way into all kinds of articles and policy documents--- proclamations of “fact” about open that aren’t factual, and that are in turn cited by other articles and policies (e.g., whereas Institution X has declared open to be This, then our policy should be built along the same lines).
By keeping an open mind about all this work instead---understanding the big picture, following the evidence, acknowledging our missteps, finding our common ground, protecting equity and inclusion, and in general being more scientific in our approach to reforming science---I think we’re much more likely to develop open policies that are widely embraced, and that churn out real and sustainable benefits for science and society. It’s curious that we’ve gotten so bogged down in all this, but even science isn’t immune to being hard-headed (e.g., read Simon Schama’s latest book, Foreign Bodies, for a history of how “official science” ignored evidence for decades about the effectiveness of vaccines, simply because the official leaders of science didn’t give this knowledge their seal of approval).
Best,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
Managing Director
From: Biagioli, Mario <biag...@law.ucla.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 9, 2024 8:51 PM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>; 'OpenCafe-l' <OPENC...@LISTSERV.BYU.EDU>
Cc: 'osi20...@googlegroups.com' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: the future
Hi Glenn,
I appreciate the big questions you are posing about the future, But my brain—formerly trained in history recoils when it sees “future of open”. Sligthly more productively, I believe that the meaning of open and the shape it will take in the future are emerging questions and the answer will depend on what happens as we all deal or try to bring about that future. I am not suggesting that we should just make it up as we go, but that ‘open’ is a kind of concept like the common/s. For a while the commons seemed to solution to many of our problems, but 10/15 yrs later we still lack a viable definition of the commons, despite the fact that many common-like arrangements have since developed. Still, the many conversations spurred by the commons have been (in my view) quite constructive and consequential. So let’s go ahead and see what happens to ‘open’ as we approach the future. One hypothetical/cynical question: OA and Plan S have been well received in Europe, where funding agencies have demanded OA publishing of all results of research supported by these agencies. I don’t have a clear/strong position on that but wonder whether that could be the result of ‘open washing” to make those stakeholders look good. (that the cynical bit, but cant help it.
MB
From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Date: Friday, February 9, 2024 at 9:34 AM
To: 'OpenCafe-l' <OPENC...@LISTSERV.BYU.EDU>
Cc: 'osi20...@googlegroups.com' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: the future
Hi Everyone,
This peer review conversation has been great---brilliant stuff. Is it okay to ask a new question to the group? I’m adding a new subject line for it---the future of open.
So far, it’s clear that “connected issues” like peer review and reforming the culture of communication in academia need to be addressed as part of our quest to create the best possible future for open solutions. The same is true for APCs; maintaining the status quo seems like an iffy proposition.
Clearly, we need to look closely at how to “fix” all these issues.
Or do we?
I guess it depends whether your path to change cuts through the swamp or goes around it. So far (as in for the last 20+ years) we’ve focused mightily on the “how” of our open strategies (better licensing, more preprints, etc.), but much less so on the “why” --- on the strategic thinking we all do together as a community committed to improving the future of research, including the voices of researchers who are almost entirely absent (ironically) from most of our open conversations and efforts. We’ve been approaching the open reform space as though “open” is the end goal instead of a tool for improving research. And the result is that our path through the reform swamp has looked like more an obstacle course from the TV show Wipeout than a race down a track with a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end.
The main idea put forward in OSI’s policy paper 4 is to use a Theory of Change approach to figure all this out, which is to say, to work backward from what we want to achieve. Rather than focus only on what open should look like, as we doing now, and then struggle mightily to reach the promised land of a more open world, we should first figure out what we want and then work backward from these goals. In the process, we might discover the bridge we’ve been building should be a boat instead.
|
Theory of Change is essentially a comprehensive description and illustration of how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context. It is focused in particular on mapping out or “filling in” what has been described as the “missing middle” between what a program or change initiative does (its activities or interventions) and how these lead to desired goals being achieved. It does this by first identifying the desired long-term goals and then works back from these to identify all the conditions (outcomes) that must be in place (and how these related to one another causally) for the goals to occur. These are all mapped out in an Outcomes Framework. |
|
|
|
Source: Theory of Change website at What is Theory of Change? - Theory of Change Community |
In OSI’s policy paper 6 (paper 5 was our global survey of researcher needs), we took this approach one step farther. That missing middle? Look to the evidence. We know open comes in a wide variety of forms (T. Scott Plutchak authored this great summary for OSI a few years ago). And we know open motives and goals vary widely, and that the mandates, uptake, resources, and outcomes of open are literally all over the map. What’s missing in our policy efforts to-date is noticing what’s happening in research itself---the research networks, data-sharing networks, and efforts to improve data standards and reusability, public data dumps, efforts to summarize work, and so much more. Some of this comes from OA initiatives, but most of what we’re ignoring does not (because it’s not “open” by the strictest definitions)---it’s just research being research. If we can learn what’s happening here, catalog it, find best practices, and help connect and support promising “real-world” initiatives, that might create enough of a “land mass” in the great middle to help connect the idealists in this space with our common goals. Over time, the best practices that support reuse, integrity, accessibility, and so on, will be able to migrate more freely across the gaps and boundaries in this space if we can first connect the beginning (where we are now), the middle (the current reality of research), and the end (our goals).
As for creating these end goals, we need to be MUCH more inclusive than we have been to-date; we can’t proclaim that our vision for the future of research is what should come to pass, because researchers have been woefully underrepresented in this thinking. This said, there is already a TON of common ground in this space---more than we realize, I think. I’ll repost the main points that came out of OSI. Between 2014 and 2018, OSI participants identified and agreed on four main pillars:
Science and society will benefit from open done right (not just any kind of open policies)
Successful solutions will require broad collaboration across stakeholder groups, fields, and regions of the world
Connected issues also need to be addressed in order for open solutions to work—issues like impact factors, peer review, and the culture of communication in academia, and
Open isn’t a single outcome but a spectrum of outcomes (as defined in OSI’s DART spectrum).
Since 2018, OSI identified three additional pillars through its reports and outreach efforts. While OSI hasn’t voted on these three ideas, they have been open for global feedback, and the feedback we’ve received to-date has been entirely positive.
Our global open policy solutions must be equitable
Open should not be treated as goal unto itself, but as one tool among many that can help researchers succeed. To this end, our common ground policy foundations should be built on what we can do together to help research succeed, pulling in common elements of open ideas along the way.
Our global open policies must be built on evidence rather than ideology—evidence like understanding what kinds of open solutions exist, which of these solutions work best for which purposes, which solutions researchers want and need the most, and a clear and unbiased evaluation of how our current open policy efforts are falling short and even making access and equity worse.
I respectfully submit all this for your consideration, and look forward to hearing your ideas. Have a good weekend everyone.
Thank you and best regards,
Glenn
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit
http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
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Danny Kingsley
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/D1BC6E51-541E-4637-974B-A9B1351BF64F%40craigellachie.us.
Visiting Fellow, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, ANU
Member, Board of Directors, FORCE11
Member, Australian Academy of Science National Committee for Data in Science
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m: +61 (0)480 115 937
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o: 0000-0002-3636-5939