Sticks <i>and</i> carrots: encouraging open science at its source

Leonelli, Sabina; Spichtinger, Daniel; Prainsack, Barbara

doi:10.1002/geo2.2

Cited by 48 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…This is particularly true in the case of research biobanks where the finite nature of samples complicates their free circulation. Moreover, biobanks face the issue of operating (and often cooperating) in different countries where privacy laws not always coincide (Dove et al, 2013 (Leonelli et al, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Samples and data accessibility in research biobanks: an explorative survey

Capocasa

Anagnostou

D’Abramo

et al. 2015

Preprint

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Biobanks hold human biological samples and/or data giving a crucial contribution to the progress of biomedical research. However, the effective and efficient exploitation of these resources depends on their accessibility. In fact, making bio-resources promptly accessible to all, can favour collaboration among research groups as well as multidisciplinarity. Although this has become a rather common belief, several laboratories still apply secrecy and withholding of samples and data. In this study we conducted a questionnaire based survey in order to investigate sample and data accessibility in research biobanks operating all over the world. 46 out of the 238 contacted biobanks have decided to participate. Most of them provide permission to access their samples (95.7%) and data (85.4%), but free and unconditioned accessibility seems not to be a common practice. The analysis of the biobanks guidelines regarding the accessibility of their resources reveal the importance of three aspects: (i) request for applicants to explain what they would like to do with the required resources; (ii) the role of funding, public or private, in the establishment of fruitful collaborations between biobanks and research labs; (iii) request of co-authorship in order to give access to their data. These results suggest that economic and academic aspects are involved in determining the extent of sharing of samples and data stored in biobanks. As a second step of this study, we investigated the reasons behind the high diversity of the requirements for accessing to biobanks’ resources. The analysis of informative answers suggested that the different modalities of resource accessibility seem to be largely influenced by both social context and legislation of the countries where biobanks operate.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Samples and data accessibility in research biobanks: an explorative survey

Capocasa

Anagnostou

D’Abramo

et al. 2015

Preprint

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“…But more positively, any scholarly work published OA is instantly available to anybody and in most cases, with authorial control retained. By any measure, this is better than paywalled content, or breaching copyright (Leonelli et al 2015). Free-to-publish OA journals are already the norm in the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking world where departments and societies assemble and publish them, and in Eastern Europe, and they have strong representation in France and Scandinavia 1 .…”

Section: Solutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socially just publishing: implications for geographers and their journals

Batterbury

2017

Fennia

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There have been a range of protests against the high journal subscription costs, and author processing charges (APCs) levied for publishing in the more prestigious and commercially run journals that are favoured by geographers. But open protests across the sector like the ‘Academic Spring’ of 2012, and challenges to commercial copyright agreements, have been fragmented and less than successful. I renew the argument for ‘socially just’ publishing in geography. For geographers this is not limited to choosing alternative publication venues. It also involves a considerable effort by senior faculty members that are assessing hiring and promotion cases, to read and assess scholarship independently of its place of publication, and to reward the efforts of colleagues that offer their work as a public good. Criteria other than the citation index and prestige of a journal need to be foregrounded. Geographers can also be publishers, and I offer my experience editing the free online Journal of Political Ecology.

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“…The Open Access movement began in the nineties and continues to the present [1,8]. It calls for public access to the methods and data collected by government, industry, and academia, particularly those that feed into policy decisions [6,9,10]. Allowing open access to data, reports, and findings increases research visibility and encourages more participatory research [1,10,11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To increase transparency and trust in its policies and decisions, the European Union has embraced Open Access by creating a platform for research and data to be collated and shared [9,10,16]. The United Kingdom's data portals rank amongst the highest in the world in terms of ease of use and accessibility [16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disparate Environmental Monitoring as a Barrier to the Availability and Accessibility of Open Access Data on the Tidal Thames

Lanoue

2020

Publications

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Open Access data plays an increasingly important role in discussions of environmental issues. Limited availability or poor quality data can impede citizen participation in environmental dialogue, leading to their voices being undermined. This study assesses the quality of Open Access environmental data and barriers to its accessibility in the Thames Estuary. Data quality is assessed by its ability to track long-term trends in temperature, salinity, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen. The inconsistencies found in the data required analyses and careful interpretation beyond what would be expected of a citizen. The lack of clear documentation and centralized database acted as a major barrier to usability. A set of recommendations are produced for estuarine monitoring, including defining minimum standards for metadata, creating a centralized database for better quality control and accessibility, and developing flexible monitoring protocols that can incorporate new hypotheses and partnerships. The goal of the recommendations is to create monitoring which can encourage better science and wider participation in the natural environment.

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Sticks and carrots: encouraging open science at its source

Cited by 48 publications

References 10 publications

Samples and data accessibility in research biobanks: an explorative survey

Samples and data accessibility in research biobanks: an explorative survey

Socially just publishing: implications for geographers and their journals

Disparate Environmental Monitoring as a Barrier to the Availability and Accessibility of Open Access Data on the Tidal Thames

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