Open Access and Open Scholarship have revolutionised the way scholarly artefacts are evaluated and published, while the introduction of new technologies and media in scientific workflows has changed “how” and to “whom” science is communicated. The modes of interaction between the public and the scientific community are also changing due to the internet and social media. The OpenUP project studied key aspects and challenges of the currently transforming science landscape to provide a cohesive framework for the review-disseminate-assess phases of the research lifecycle that is fit to support and promote Open Science. OpenUP synthesised and validated key project results and derived five recommendations to foster the take-up of novel practices in scholarly peer review, research dissemination and assessment while considering existing gaps in evidence and disciplinary differences.
Who is it for?
OpenUP policy recommendations are directed to the stakeholders of the research lifecycle, including EU, national and institutional policy makers, funders, librarians, infrastructure providers, publishers and researchers themselves.
Recommendations
Recommendation
Run pilots that implement OPR practices to generate evidence
Actions
Implement projects that test OPR in different venues, collect data and provide evidence on results and impact of adoption of OPR in different disciplines.
Provide funding to service providers to enable OPR-friendly infrastructural changes.
Increase incentives for OPR participation (acknowledgement of peer review contributions, awareness raising and trainings).
Responsible stakeholders
EU and national policy makers
Research funders
Publishers
Institutional administration
Recommendation
Create incentives for and strengthen monitoring of innovative research dissemination
Actions
Provide support and training to increase innovative dissemination skills among researchers.
Ensure monitoring and recognition of dissemination activities taking disciplinary differences into consideration.
Align usage of alternative metrics in assessment activities to gauge use of new dissemination channels.
Responsible stakeholders
EU and national policy makers
Research funders
Institutional decision makers
Libraries
Alternative metrics providers
Recommendation
Increase awareness of and train researchers on alternative metrics
Actions
Train researchers and institutional decision makers on alternative metrics.
Ensure monitoring and recognition of different kinds of research outputs and activities (e.g. research data, blogs, social media).
Promote good practices of alternative metrics use.
Fully support open application programming interfaces for improving accessibility and remove constraints in construction and usage of alternative metrics.
Responsible stakeholders
EU and national policy makers
Research funders
Institutional decision makers
Libraries
Recommendation
Exploit ongoing policy developments at EU and national levels and integrate OPR, innovative dissemination and alternatives metrics practices
Actions
Support institutions in implementing and complying to new policies by providing practical guidelines and criteria (e.g. online compliance or recommendation checklists).
Provide incentives, financial support and training for the development of open data infrastructure.
Align policies with community based practical tools which enable institutions monitor and evaluate their output in a way that the data are owned by the communities themselves.
To ensure reproducibility and re-usability of evaluation metrics, align and support open sources of alternative metrics information.
Responsible stakeholders
EU and national policy makers
Research funders
Institutional decision makers
Libraries
Community based initiatives
Alternative metrics providers
Recommendation
Fund further research on the impact of Open Science practices for solving gender and diversity issues
Actions
Implement research activities to collect data and analyse impact of Open Science practices on gender and diversity issues in research and academia.
Train researchers and research institutions to raise awareness on gender and diversity issues in scientific publishing, research dissemination and assessment. Trainings provided should enable researchers and institutional decision makers implement actions fostering equality.
