update

12 views
Skip to first unread message

National Science Communication Institute

unread,
Sep 28, 2021, 4:21:58 PM9/28/21
to The Open Scholarship Initiative
(My apologies if you end up receiving multiple versions of this message. It wouldn't post through email so I'm posting it directly through the Google Groups interface. Please let me know if you have any problems replying---if you're so inclined.)

-----

Hi Fellow OSIers,

I haven’t emailed you in a while---here’s a quick update on how things are going with official OSI business. As you know, we’re now into the “policy action” phase of our group’s lifespan. To that end, I’ve continued working with UNESCO to translate the thinking of this group into policy documents. The most detailed attempt at this to-date has been our “open solutions” paper (https://bit.ly/3ARpLsH), which was published earlier this year. The short, issue brief version of this paper is at https://bit.ly/2Y7v8ps, and I’m going back and forth with UNESCO to create a short report version of this concept that UNESCO can brand, which largely parallels the several speeches I’ve made on this concept over the past year (see https://osiglobal.org/conferences/).

The general idea is this: We all agree that open comes in many flavors (the DARTS spectrum) and that there are many different needs and perspectives when it comes to open. In addition to embracing these differences and trying to find common ground and common goals for action, we should also break down the walls that separate open access from open data, OER, open code, and so on. These movements all have their different histories, motives, methods and actors, but increasingly, they are all being summoned to the fore. If we can remove these efforts from their silos and instead unleash them on solving real world challenges like climate change, we can shift our focus from the abstract to the concrete---from debating which open licenses are best, to working together hand in glove to improve science in whatever way works best, letting the best open (access, code, data, etc.) practices and lessons of experience mix and mingle and lead the way to a richer and more effective open future.

Speaking of speeches, I’ve been making about one presentation per month to various global audiences about OSI’s work and big tent perspective. The latest was this morning for UNESCO as part of their IDUAI celebration (International Day of Universal Access to Information; see https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/accesstoinformationday, panel 3). My panel was discussing how to leverage digital technologies for peace and sustainable development, and my task was to demonstrate how open scholarship fit into a conversation that normally just involves open government and the right to access information (answer: the world needs research today more than ever, and research is integral to economic development).

My fellow panelists made some very interesting observations that overlapped with OSI’s conclusions, such as one panelist who described how openness alone should not be a goal because just accumulating a bunch of open material leads to “practical obscurity”---a situation where we have mountains of information that aren’t usable because the data is poorly formatted, not interoperable, and so on. Another panelist highlighted the “trust deficit” in their country with regard to opening government data---similar to the trust deficit we see amongst researchers when it comes to sharing their data. I look forward to continuing down this path and seeing how OSI’s broad and inclusive approach to open can integrate into the global effort to utilize open as a tool for peace and sustainable development; there are a lot of synergies and opportunities for collaboration.

More speeches are on the radar for this Fall (in one, Abel and I will be teaching a course for the next BRISPE conference), and I’ll also try to work on at least one or two more issue briefs (as always, volunteers are welcome for these and/or for other reports, videos, etc.). In the meantime, a book chapter on “Measuring Impact” that I wrote this Spring for the Routledge Handbook of Science Communication should be coming out soon (thank you to Joe for your editing help).

I think that’s everything….(for now). Good luck with your Fall semesters, pumpkin carving, leaf raking, and other activities (personally, when I’m not working on OSI stuff I’m trying to build a new shed before the winter rains hit here in Seattle…).

All the best as always,

Glenn

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

 

 

Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages