Week 9

Monday March 7

Topics:

• Open Research
• Working Open

Readings (5):

Open Access Explained! (video, 8:22)

This video is one of the most concise and entertaining explanations of Open Access available. The video explains the basic of academic publishing and how two factor have influenced the growing demand for open access to research publications: 1) the way technology (software, Internet, etc) has made it easier than ever to share research and 2) rising costs associated with journal subscription fees. When searching for academic literature, it's common for individuals to be charged $40 or $50 or even $100 for single-user access to an article. Members of academic institutions often have increased access to journals based on the subscriptions, but that access does not extend to the public. The academic publishing industry is in is going through a sort of renaissance as researchers with software/development skills are pushing the boundaries of how we can share the results of research without the heavy reliance on publishers that grew the publishing industry.

Can’t Disrupt This: Elsevier and the 25.2 Billion Dollar A Year Academic Publishing Business (webpage)

This article covers much of financial background of the academic publishing industry, including the exorbitant profits being made by large publishers. One of the folks interviewed in the article is a representative of the Center for Open Science (COS), which has successfully created a FOSS research platform called Open Science Framework (OSF) for documenting all stages of the research process. I highly recommend perusing the documentation and features of OSF on the COS website.

Defining open notebook science: why do it? (video, 11:45)

In this video, Cameron Neylon outlines what open science is, and what an "open notebook science" is, and how his use of online electronic lab notebooks transformed into an open practice. Neylon outlines several advantages to doing science in the open (in an open lab notebook), despite it being an intimidating way of working. When anyone can see mistakes that are made, or ideas that are not fully developed or thought out, researchers can be left open to criticism that they wouldn't otherwise experience if they did their work behind closed doors until the final publication. On the other hand, he asserts that the research and documentation will likely be of a higher quality because there will be more eyes on it. Similarly, doing science openly can attract potential collaborators and allow for synergies and overlap with the work of other researchers that can help speed scientific progress.

Working Open (webpage)

In this blog post, a senior Mozillian (yes, that's a thing) explains what it means to "work open" as part of a team contributing to common goals. Organizations like Mozilla have found great success working in a distributed way, openly, with team members thousands of miles away. In this course, it's likely that you've been contributing to a FOSS project that "works open" in some ways. Do the folks you interact with have regular dialogue about how they work together, how to improve it, or how to bring others into the fold (invite new members)?

ROADIES VS. ROCK STARS: The Art of Open Leadership (webpage)

Digging into the concept of working open a bit further, read this interview of Allen "Gunner" Gunn is interview by openmatt. Gunner is a mainstay in FOSS and technology-enabled activism circles, and in this article he shares principles that have guided his work, even when they seem counter intuitive to folks who have had a hand in leading large-scale projects with many moving pieces (and humans).

In the open paradigm, control takes a back seat to collaboration.

The above line is one of my favorite quotes from Gunner, and it embodies a lot of what FOSS communities stand to gain when working openly. Instead of top-down hierarchical organizations structures, working open means that a great deal of thought, planning and trust go into the work of a group. When shared goals are identified, and a proper collaborative climate is reached, there's no limit to the collective strength that a distributed team can wield, which again, has contribute to the success of FOSS projects at Mozilla and the world over.

Assignments:

Blog post #6

The transition from a closed way of working to one that might be considered "open" is not a simple task. For individual creators and professionals and organizations alike, it's important to (as Gunner said in one of the above articles) "leave the tender moment alone." Consider your current place of work. It is likely that your job duties include some sort of production or service, somewhere along the supply chain or workflow of your organization. Are you an educator? Are you a designer? Are you an author? A researcher? How might you go about opening up processes or your workflow to be more collaborative with your colleagues or, gasp(!), outside parties? What might this tender moment look like?

Do not limit your ideas to only "let's all use FOSS at work now," but consider ways to facilitate more open communication through software. Could your work meetings be done in a more collaborative way? What would the "tender moment" look like if you were to implement something more "open" where you work?

If you are not currently working, use your current academic career in place of your job. In what ways could you leverage openness to improve your productivity, communication, or creativity in your personal scholarship?