Sabina Leonelli is professor of philosophy and history of science at the university of Exeter in the UK, where she co-directs the center for the study of the life sciences. Her research focuses on the methods and assumptions involved in the use of big data for discovery, the challenges involved in the extraction of knowledge from digital infrastructure, and the role of the open science movement within current landscapes of knowledge production.
Several obstacles needs to be overcome in order to achieve transparency and openness, at legislative as well as day-to-day practical level, including rewards for scientists that devote time and resources to documenting their data sets, to assessment methods to monitor whether data are actually being re-used – not to mention the gap between research fields which produce very different types of data.
Highlights from the episode
0:34: Sabina gives an overview of the progress of the Open Science Movement.
0:56: Recently, we have seen the most activity in Open Access publishing, especially due to the PlanS.
1:43: Sabina mentioned Wiley and Springer Nature, as examples of publishers that are responding to Plan S and setting up “transformative agreements” to transition from the current situation to a situation where everything is freely accessible to the readers.
2:45: Sabina talks about the FAIR Data Principles: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable.
4:00: Data managing is not a detail in your research, it affects the entire research design.
4:43: Implementing Open Science requires that we abandon quantitative metrics (in research assessment.)
5:33: Ghent University in Belgium is mentioned as an example of an institution that has revised its guidelines for the advancement of the career of the professors by including Open Science criteria.
7:00: The ESOF2020 conference is mentioned. This interview was recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the organization to postpone the event to September 2020.
7:14: What is a platform where researchers can engage in a conversation about Open Science, keep up to date, and feel involved? Sabina mentions:
– Open Science on the website of the European Commission
– Open Science Monitor (tool of the European Commission)
– OpenAire
9:35: Europe has played a leading role in promoting Open Science.
9:42: Recently the United Nations have committed to Open Science by implementing it into its UN 2030 Agenda.
The full list of highlights is available in the description of the video on YouTube.
The Open Science Movement
The Open Science movement has recently gained momentum among publishers, funders, institutions and practicing scientists across all areas of research.
Its goal is to make scientific research and data accessible to all. It includes practices such as publishing open scientific research, campaigning for open access and generally making it easier to publish and communicate scientific knowledge.
Sabina is an expert in Open Science and she gives a very well informed account of where we are today and where the Open Science movements wants us to go, in Europe and across the world.
External Resources
The episode was originally published on this page.
The full transcript of episode #13 is available here.
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Featured image credit: Federica Bressan
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