A tale of two 'opens': intersections between Free and Open Source Software and Open Scholarship

Abstract

There is no clear-cut boundary between Free and Open Source Software and Open Scholarship, and the histories, practices, and fundamental principles between the two remain complex. In this study, we critically appraise the intersections and differences between the two movements. Based on our thematic comparison here, we conclude several key things. First, there is substantial scope for new communities of practice to form within scholarly communities that place sharing and collaboration/open participation at their focus. Second, Both the principles and practices of FOSS can be more deeply ingrained within scholarship, asserting a balance between pragmatism and social ideology. Third, at the present, Open Scholarship risks being subverted and compromised by commercial players. Fourth, the shift and acceleration towards a system of Open Scholarship will be greatly enhanced by a concurrent shift in recognising a broader range of practices and outputs beyond traditional peer review and research articles. In order to achieve this, we propose the formulation of a new type of institutional mandate. We believe that there is substantial need for research funders to invest in sustainable open scholarly infrastructure, and the communities that support them, to avoid the capture and enclosure of key research services that would prevent optimal researcher behaviours. Such a shift could ultimately lead to a healthier scientific culture, and a system where competition is replaced by collaboration, resources (including time and people) are shared and acknowledged more efficiently, and the research becomes inherently more rigorous, verified, and reproducible.

Appraising Contemporary Social Work Research: Meta-Research on Statistical Reporting, Statistical Power, and Evidential Value

“…How meta-research fits into scientific practice. Meta-research and the broader "open science" movement (see Spellman, Gilbert, & Corker, 2018;and generally Dunleavy, 2020;Tennant et al, 2020aTennant et al, , 2020b, encourages the identification and correction of suboptimal research practices and the promotion of rigorous (i.e. severe) testing of hypotheses (Mayo, 2018).…”

Introducing Massively Open Online Papers (MOOPs)

“…This open participation might start before the project even formally begins (e.g., when a project instigator encourages engagement with a topic on social media and starts recruiting potential collaborators), or it might occur at a later stage, when a MOOP core group puts out a general call for contributors after the project structure has been established, seeking to bring in new perspectives throughout the writing and editing process. Open sharing and collaboration are fundamental to FOSS, Open Education, Wikis, and other similar communities and concepts (Willinsky 2005;Tennant et al 2020). This open model encourages us to break out of our personal social bubbles by allowing anyone inside and outside the research community to freely participate in the knowledge generation and dissemination process.…”

The varying openness of digital open science tools

“…The specific geographic location of many DOSTs, as reflected by the location of their development, registration and hosting, contrasts to the approach championed by the FOSS movement. FOSS has long been calling for and implementing a more representative form of democracy for software development and distribution by promoting models that avoid specific geographically-clustered nodes (Tennant et al, 2020;Vermeir et al, 2018). This model of "software mirrors" 15 is commonly used in systems such as GNU as well as Linux distributions like Debian and Fedora.…”