Open Scholarship

Introduction

Open scholarship as part of the national policy work

Culture of open scholarship requires new courses of action. In order for culture to become more open, an organisation can require changes in the courses of action and, at the same time, it must offer services and incentives to support the activity.

In accordance with the Declaration For Open Science and Research 2020–2025, the Finnish research community has drawn up a policy for open scholarship. The starting point of the policy is to support the strategic goal set out in the Declaration, according to which ”responsible openness is part of daily life in the research community, and research organisations have the evaluation practices, incentives and services needed to support open science and research” (Figure 1).

When drafting the policy for open scholarship, all previous policies and recommendations made within the framework of the Open Science Coordination in Finland have been reviewed. This policy brings together previous perspectives so that the focus is on the culture of open scholarship of an organisation. In addition, previous policies will be supplemented with perspectives related to services, incentives, and interaction. The policy does not address all dimensions of open science interaction but focuses on citizen science and business cooperation. Interaction with decision-makers can best be addressed in a separate recommendation.

Figure 1. The policy for open scholarship in the Declaration on Open Science and Research. Source: Declaration on Open Science and Research 2020–2025, Open Science Coordination, Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, 2020.

Structure, implementation and monitoring of the policy

This policy includes the principles, objectives and actions of the culture of open scholarship. The following three recommendation documents specify the policy on the culture of open scholarship:

A self-evaluation tool for the service of culture of open scholarship
Recommendation for open scholarship and checklist for research, development and innovation activities carried out in business collaboration between research organisations and companies
Recommendation on citizen science

Recommendations supporting the implementation and monitoring of strategic objectives and actions contain detailed checklists or evaluation criteria that are scaled to the needs of each organisation. This way both the starting level and monitoring can be implemented as organisational self-assessment and as part of the national open science monitoring model. The objectives of the policy must be achieved within the schedule of the Declaration on Open Science, i.e., by the end of 2025. The set schedule does not replace the target schedules presented in previous policies and recommendations.

Business collaboration

Business collaboration has not been discussed in previous national policies on open science. Business collaboration refers to collaboration between research organisations and companies for consideration or free of charge, which may vary from informal interaction to organised collaboration. Forms of collaboration include contract research, commissioned research, training and consulting. The collaboration can be funded by a public or private sector organisation. Research, development and innovation (RDI) projects implemented in collaboration with businesses must take into account the European and national objectives of open science.

In RDI projects conducted in business collaboration, the starting points for promoting openness are trust and understanding of the objectives and needs of the other party. Collaboration between researchers and companies is governed by a number of laws, the conditions of those funding the research and responsible conduct of research. Business collaboration must balance between open and confidential information, so the open access to research data, communication and publication of results must be agreed upon with an agreement between the research organisation and the company participating in the RDI activities. It is important to agree on how research results, data and material from business collaboration can be utilised and/or disseminated safely, efficiently and as openly as possible taking the interests of different parties into account.

As part of creating the policy for open scholarship, the work group for open collaboration with companies has prepared a recommendation on the implementation of open science practices in RDI activities between research organisations and companies. The recommendations are intended for researchers working in research organisations and research support service personnel who prepare and conduct RDI projects in collaboration with companies.

Citizen science

Citizen science has not been discussed in previous national policies on open science. Throughout history, not only researchers have participated in science in different ways. However, the development of universities and other research organisations, the complexity and distance of research questions from everyday life as well as the need to maintain expensive and complex equipment have limited the participation of non-researchers in scientific research over the past decades. Constantly evolving information and communication technologies improve the opportunities for citizen scientists to participate in scientific projects and thus promote public awareness of scientific processes and methods. Interaction between research organisations and the rest of the community is also an effective means of reducing the negative social impacts of fake news and disinformation.

Learning

In 2020, Open education and educational resources. National policy and executive plan by the higher education and research community for 2021–2025. Policy component 1 – open access to educational resources was published. The policy for open scholarship supports and complements the implementation of the policy for education, but this policy does not alter the target timetables presented by previous policies and recommendations.

Research data

In 2021, Open research data and methods. National policy and executive plan by the higher education and research community for 2021–2025. Policy component 1: Open access to research data was published. The policy for open scholarship supports and complements the implementation of the policy for research data, but this policy does not alter the target timetables presented by previous policies and recommendations. The openness of research methods and measures to promote it will be addressed in a separate policy to be published later.

Publications

In 2019, Open access to scholarly publications. National Policy and executive plan by the research community in Finland for 2020–2025 (1): Policy component for open access to journal and conference articles was published. The policy for open scholarship supports and complements the implementation of the policy for publications, but this policy does not alter the target timetables presented by previous policies and recommendations. Recommendations on Open Publication Technology will be published later.

Responsible assessment

In 2020, Good Practice in Research Evaluation. Recommendation for the responsible evaluation of a researcher in Finland, produced by a broad-based working group assembled by the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, was published. Although the Recommendation for the evaluation of a researcher in Finland has been drafted from the point of view of an individual researcher evaluation, the recommendation states that “the same principles should also be followed when evaluating research organisations, research units and research in a broader context”. As the Recommendation for the responsible evaluation of a researcher in Finland extensively addresses evaluation practices and incentives at a general level, this policy focuses specifically on services promoting responsible assessment. The policy also emphasises the importance of incentives used by organisations to promote open science and a culture of open scholarship. With regard to incentives, the Recommendation for the responsible evaluation of a researcher in Finland states that the evaluation of scientific quality will broadly consider research output in different formats and languages. The evaluation must also take into account the considerations of open science, including activities to promote open access, compliance with the ethical principles of research, activities as a teacher and supervisor, societal impact and interaction, and activities in research and other communities. The recommendations for action in the policy for open scholarship support the implementation plan in the policy for responsible evaluation.

Encouraging open scholarship

This policy focuses on the open nature of the organisation’s courses of action, including the coordination, implementation and monitoring of open science services and support for researchers’ interaction with society. The policy does not deal with open government, which has its own national guidelines for open government and promoting inclusion in Finland (pdf, in Finnish). The role of the state, ministries and other actors at the national level is also important, as organisations need an operating environment in which regulations and resources enable the promotion of open scholarship.

International framework

The policy for open scholarship is strongly based on the international objectives of the policy for open science. According to Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “[e]veryone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.”

In the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, published in 2021, “open science is defined as an inclusive construct that combines various movements and practices aiming to make multilingual 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.”

The European Commission’s policy on open science defines open science broadly to be based on eight pillars: Open data, EOSC infrastructure, next-generation metrics, merit, the future of scientific communication, research ethics and reproducibility of results, education and skills, and citizen science. The reform of the evaluation culture is also at the heart of European open science policy. The Commission’s report Towards a reform of the research assessment system, published in November 2021, is well in line with the Recommendation for the responsible evaluation of a researcher in Finland, produced by the Finnish research community.

Cost of open scholarship

The transition to a culture of open scholarship requires resources and expertise, and the resulting costs cannot be left to organisations alone. However, international studies show that the cost of non-transparency is considerably higher1, but the relationship between the costs and benefits of open science is not self-evident2. More research and studying is needed on the inputs and revenues of open science from the perspectives of Finnish society, the research system and organisations, taking into account the international context of open science. Cost-effectiveness can be increased through national and international cooperation.

Freedom and responsibility of a researcher

The policy for open scholarship applies in particular to the organisation’s activities to support the freedom of researchers. The policy does not aim to influence what is being studied or how. The responsibility for the implementation of open scholarship lies both with individual researchers and research organisations, but the research organisations are responsible for providing services and incentives to support the implementation.

Policy for open scholarship

Definitions

Incentive: Incentives refer directly to the motivation through appreciation, such as evaluation criteria, awards or honours.

Citizen science: Citizen science is scientific research conducted partly or entirely by amateur scientists. Citizen science can also serve official information. Citizen scientists can participate in research in many ways. For example, they can collect, classify or analyse data needed for a study. In responsible citizen science, it is important that the people are not the subjects of the research but the authors of it. There is no need to be a trained scientist to participate in research. Citizen science can also be referred to as community science, crowd-sourced science or volunteer monitoring. Citizen science requirements:

Citizen scientists are involved at least at one stage of the research.
Citizen scientists are not the subjects of the research but the authors of it.
Research must usually be led by a trained researcher.

Metadata: Metadata or descriptive information refers to the context, content and structure, management and/or processing of research data and information describing and summarising its compilation.

Service: In this policy, services are understood as activities that an organisation uses to promote and make the culture of open scholarship possible.

RDI activities: RDI activities refer to research, development and innovation activities.

Culture: In this policy, culture of open scholarship refers to the working environment and methods of science and research.

Research data: Research data is material collected, detected, measured or created to confirm hypotheses and verify research results. Research data can usually be in digital format but also in analogue or physical format (e.g., laboratory journals).

Business collaboration: Business collaboration refers to collaboration between research organisations and companies for consideration or free of charge, which may vary from informal interaction to organised collaboration. Forms of collaboration include contract research, commissioned research, training and consulting. The collaboration can be funded by a public or private sector organisation.

Strategic principles

Principle 1: Responsibility

Responsibility, i.e. reliability, ethics, repeatability and transparency, is a precondition for openness.

Principle 2: Reciprocity

The openness of the culture requires reciprocity, which is manifested in interaction that benefits both internal and external activities of the organisation.

Principle 3: Requirements

The realisation of a culture of open scholarship requires transparency, services and incentives.

Objectives & actions

Objective 1: Culture of open scholarship

The organisation has entrusted and scheduled the coordination, implementation and monitoring of open science services and sufficient support for the interaction of researchers with different actors in society.