I have to recognize I had a mistaken concept about Open Science. In a deep part of me, there was the reminiscent idea that opened means free. In the past, I tried to convince other people that we have to be conscious about the differences between public and free, and the necessity of give to general population always a normal bill as a way to raise their awareness of the cost of each service to the State and achieve more responsible citizens. Now I feel a little bit guilty because I did not put my focus on my own field, and I did not make the same reasoning. Perhaps first time I saw an open access paper I should have think about the requirement for accessible information, instead the convenience of not having to pay for it.
It is hopeful to see how a great number of people, institutions, enterprises and other stakeholders are leading a change in the concept of science, in the way of transmit data and ensure its fairness, in the manner of share knowledge, talent, resources between Universities, recruit talent, etc. And that is what I learnt during the workshop: different visions from various angles of some organizations on how this transition to Open Science should be: its philosophy, objectives and strategies, what can contribute each link of the chain to this new world.
Maybe because I am at the beginning of my career path as a scientist, or I am just a dreamer, I strongly believe that all PhD students are open scientists, even having fought for our grants or positions with many people. The reason is simple: we need to learn almost everything. If you want to go further, deeper, you always need somebody’s help. And its knowledge. Therefore it is not wild to think that the more communicated we are, the faster we will progress as a society. And that implies that citizens must participate deeper and actively in science.
It is difficult to transmit that we are trying to build a better world when Science sometimes seems is just a business, a way of living like any other profession.
Our main problem today is insecurity, especially in our country, where the inversion in research and development is laughable. Four years doing our thesis for the minimum salary or even without any compensation, just to come back to the beginning: try to get another position as a postdoc, competition, bureaucracy, uncertain future. It is difficult nowadays to get funds if you are not in a big lab, prestigious university, and this competition instead of collaboration is dangerous for the future of some institutions.
We are pressed to publish, to be mentioned, to «enter» in this world even assuming that is not the most proper way, we have to play the game with the ancient rules. Sometimes it is very difficult to be concentrated in your research when your contract is next to expire, when you don’t know if you are going to continue due to funds, if every three years you have to move to another place. Stability is the main challenge for us.
The experience of participating in the Focus on Open Science workshop was fantastic, the communications made, in addition to being interdisciplinary, were multidisciplinary, making clear the relevance of open science in all social spheres.
With the communications, it was possible to see more clearly the need for the information produced by scientists to be open access to society in general.
It can be seen that Open Science is a scientific movement based on cooperative work among scientists, professionals, and citizens to ensure that information and knowledge can be disseminated using digital technologies and new collaborative tools.
The expectations I had about the event were very well overcome when I realized that the speakers were addressing the concept of open science from different perspectives.
Of all the presentations, the ones that I liked most was about leading the change to openness in European Universities, which broadly shows the need for open access to science for and in universities. For this to be possible the universities and research agencies should keep in mind that the results of these studies should serve to improve society
To make it possible is necessary that the society has free access to the information; in addition, the speaker left us a series of recommendations for open science to be effective.
Another communication that I found to be fascinating and which really represents the link between society and science was about Citizen Science in open Science contextual: measuring and underselling impacts of deeper public participation science. This approach clearly leaves out the importance and contribution that citizens or by other the society has for the realization and production of scientific studies, that is, the participation of the citizen, as a producer of scientific information.
Through the citizen science approach, it is possible to perceive the importance and the need of the collaboration between scientists and professionals of different areas with the communities
And in this line of idea, if the citizen is called to participate as a producer, and data collector, it becomes necessary that the results compiled later are open to access. This means, in other words, the availability of data obtained from these investigations to society, because this collaboration turns science into a public good and must be promoted to emancipate the citizen.
As we can see, these new ways of doing science, giving the citizen the possibility to participate, also make the scientists and specialists closer to the community and know that the work they develop is only valuable if it is to emancipate society.
While there are some drawbacks to this new way of doing science, it can be said that this must be the way to be followed to develop society and the world.
I believe that all research funded by public funds should be open access, because as citizens we directly or indirectly contribute to the institutions having funds for the development of their activities, which in turn, the practical exercise of this work should be reflected in the development So if the data, research, and information obtained from public fund research are not shared with the people who really matter that they are the citizens, we are in a way building a non-emancipated society
With this seminar I was able to learn that the movement of open science should not be a cause of a group, but rather of all who work for the development of science, regardless of the discipline or field of knowledge, it is still important to make the citizen as a part of the process of producing information and knowledge, because in this way, the whole society will be contributing to the intellectual, social and economic emancipation of citizens.
Since my doctoral thesis is focused on social issues, I used citizen science to involve the community or group with which work, which are young adolescents, rather than being part of the study as an object, they would work with me in the search to find a solution or to minimize school drop-out and early pregnancy through digital literacy.
The seminar opens the way and the awareness of young and junior scientists of the need to advocate for open science. One of the problems we face as junior researchers when it came time to publish our work is to achieve scientific recognition through open access journals and agencies, which perhaps could easily be achieved on restricted agencies.
Combining this reflection with the way I would like it evaluated in my career as a scientist, I would like more than to evaluate the quality of the published content, also pay attention on the premise that to what extent I take my science to the community, and what impact it has on the academic and social community, this last premise incorporates subjectively the objectively the type of tools used for scientific diffusion. And the more widespread it is through open science channels, the more likely it is that it will come and be accessed by anyone.
Looking at the question of the difficulty of obtaining scientific recognition for junior researchers through open science journals, I think that even if the process of recognition and maturation is long through open access journals, it is important that as scientists we engage in these journals. For the results, we produce rather than serve other scientists must primarily serve and influence society in a positive way, and this is only possible when citizens have access to the insights and knowledge in an easy, simple and open way.
Open Science is a public scientific works database with the aim of making the results of research and publications accessible to the entire scientific community. It is a model that supports global collaboration, promotes free accessibility and opens up citizen participation as part of the researching process.
Open Science implies a new idiosyncrasy based on cooperation and a new viewpoint abut research, so that the author renounces the direct benefit of charging the reader for his work, but in return he can access to the rest of published works without paying for it. This results in a good exchange to implement and improve their own research. In this way, public funds play a major role not only sustaining the research function economically, but also creating an open network which allows a scientific development. This platform to consider science as a common good that must be maintained and shared.
Thus, if we implement this idea to the reality the responsability to change the current system falls not only in the authors, but also in the readers. On the one hand, scientific community have to assume science as a public good. On the another hand, the reader’s support it could be an amazing help to contribute that governments improve this system’s financiation and mantaining it
Nonetheless, under the researcher’s -and my own perspective as a PhD student and part of scientific community- I am agree on pointing out the educational system’s deficiencies (not only Spanish) and the utopia of trying to achieve a quality science, not only for the results -which allow us to advance in the knowledge- also for improving scientist’s working conditions.
In my opinion and following the same line, I believe that legal research and their different subjects should be dealt distinctly too. It would be great that legal discipliness would have a free access for every scientific publications, which not only could allow researchers an easy access to other legal models that could serve as a basis for proposing internal legislative changes, but also would help for an educational reasons – versed people in the matter and not specialized people- and an international comparative law.
Therefore, as doctoral student it would be pleasing to contribute unselfishly to support law researching with my own studies. In my case, age has left me «objectively» out of any postdoctoral fellowship as well as all the benefits that college includes -potential professional contacts and a continue knowledge accumulation and absorption- and -despite my long career and work experience, having to combine studies with work- still unable to access to an university degree by the merits’s way. For this reason, I think it’s necessary that another students like me to promote free sharing and wide dissemination of multidisciplinary scientific knowledge which allows that all sort of people -with or without proffessional experience- can boost that people could differentiate between the theoretical foundation and the real practise.
Finally, on this way I want to point out that open science is a worthy system, but that it will not be possible to implement globally if it is not followed by a global support and public funds. The governments are the only ones with the ability to promote the viability of these proposals which I consider a common good and a essential right as a invaluable patrimony that it is