Author: 100286790

Ever since I worked as the director of the Sciences library in the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), I’ve been interested in the practice of OS, due to the fact that open access was a very relevant concept at the time.
Firstly, it is important to define the concept of OS. I find the definition given by Draft UNESCO to be very accurate, OS is described “as an inclusive construct that combines various movements and practices aiming to make scientific knowledge openly available, accessible and reusable for everyone, to increase scientific collaborations and sharing of information for the benefits of science and society, and to open the processes of scientific knowledge creation, evaluation and communication to societal actors beyond the traditional scientific community.” (When highlighting the practices of OS, the concept of FOSTER project comes up) Highlighting the practices of OS, like the definition of FOSTER project, “OS as the practice of science in such a way that others can collaborate and contribute”.
Based on this idea, I personally believe Open Science is the “paradigm” that should have an impact and guide the behaviour of researchers nowadays. We should focus on imposing this model on the researchers’ attitude, to consequently direct the outputs of researchers in the public sector and institutions where their main objective is to produce knowledge.
Therefore, if we are able to shift from closed science to OS, we would need to work towards fixing the main flaw within this practice. For a better understanding of this “flaw” we should focus on the highlighted roots in the OS mushroom graphics by Eva Mendez. In my opinion and as reinforced by (as shown in the drawing below) the fundamental concept that needs to be worked on is how the evaluation system functions related to the rewarding system, taking into account the characteristics of OS throughout the process. By working on this we will be able to shift towards a total OS model in the academic world.

On this blog I will  particularly discuss reward systems like motivators of will. When discussing this aspect of OS, it is necessary to consider: the various existing obstacles, as well as the different kinds of incentives, and the revision of institutional policies. To deal with the aspects I previously mentioned, we should work on this process by creating different stages. More specifically in the case of Universities I would consider the following plan of action relevant:

• The institution can review their internal policies regarding students and teachers’  grants, provision of additional funding, etc. In summary, analyzing all the institutional policies to find the interstices/breaches in the OS principles.
• Recognize the most important needs of the research community to release knowledge (with surveys), and organize training accordingly with the library. 

• Offer the course regularly for doctoral students, as well as divide the course into independent components according to the needs of students / teachers and researchers. 
• Build a MOOC with an evaluation that is separated into independent modules: data management plan, access practices and open data, data repositories, metadata, etc.
• Evaluate the compliance with OS of teachers, researchers, PhD and postdoc students, according to the following list:

• Generate an entity to control OS compliance with those policies to boost the OS system.

I particularly enjoyed the session by Sabina Leoneli and her practical approach about Plan S. Sabina understands this concept as an intermediate and necessary step towards a more advanced and new model of an open publishing system. She shows us that we need work together in this sense, to achieve the results we are looking for. Nevertheless, the evaluation system of the science nowadays, is based on the traditional publishing system, meaning that Plan S is a gateaway to “free” articles within developing countries. We should consider the Plan S as a possibility inside the actual publishing system, however, it is an expensive option.

I believe that the course was excellent and extremely helpful. It updated my knowledge and understanding of OS, as much as it allowed me to learn how to manage many tools that directly boost my abilities on how to manage OS as a PHD student. The different perspectives and topics discussed by the keynote speakers from the Science Cafe, such as OpenAire, Plan S, Citizen Science allowed me to achieve a more global vision on the topic.