Research and resources for open science and publishing integrity

Kelly Cobey (left) is a scientist at the University of Ottawa (Canada) Heart Institute and an Associate Professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health, where she is involved in the Meta Research and Open Science Program. This program conducts research on research and examines the implementation of open science, which involves Kelly exploring science policies or open science practices and auditing their performance to determine if they are successful and being used optimally.

Here, Kelly details the resources and educational tools she and her team have created to address the issues discovered in her work, the challenges of championing open research, and how her dedication to this field has led to her recent award from Sense About Science, the John Maddox Early Career Prize.

What resources have you produced to encourage the uptake of open science?

We’ve done a lot! There’s a large network of local, national and international colleagues I’ve worked with to raise awareness of open science. As open science is really an umbrella term for a suite of practices, we’ve narrowed in on aspects like data management and open data or open access publishing, and we’ve run a lot of workshops and sessions to educate people on the ins and outs of these fields.

We’ve also created very explicit tools. For instance, in the context of data, we’ve created a large range of research data management plans and templates that researchers can use to support them. This is to address a shortfall in the current system in Canada, but that also affects many other regions, which is that when science policy mandates are released, they lack accompanying tools and support to actually implement them. Our tools support researchers in the discipline-specific considerations that they need for their field.

You’ve worked a lot in identifying predatory journals and alerting the community to this issue. What’s next in this aspect of your work?

Now there is awareness of this issue, what we’re looking to do is create a tool to help researchers identify good quality journals that are trustworthy. We’re shaping that in the form of a ‘journal authenticator tool’. This tool provides the end user with automated transparency indicators about a journal, for instance, highlighting whether peer review is reported or open.

There’s a suite of metrics that will go into this tool, and we’re trying to automatize them. Those metrics were informed input from patients in the public, researchers and clinicians after we queried what indicators would be helpful for them when looking at a journal.

What challenges have you faced as a champion of open science?

A lot of people are now aware of open science. But to effectively implement it we’re asking people to enact a big behavior change and there aren’t currently many incentives for them to do that. Although a lot of funders and journals are saying they want various open science policies, not so many are actually monitoring them, and if you don’t monitor it, it doesn’t get done a lot of the time.

For instance, we’re being asked to make research data management plans and share data openly, but you don’t get tenure promotion or get hired with greater ease based on these behaviors. This makes it an additional burden for researchers with little reward. I think the need for science to be transparent is so critical, and open science is a big component of that, so we need to re-shift incentives to encourage people to embrace this change.

Talking Techniques | Open neuroscience and the meaning of FAIR

This episode, our second recorded at Neuroscience 2022 (13-19th April 2022; San Diego, CA, USA), delves into the importance of open data in neuroscience and the FAIR guidelines, which encourage researchers to make their data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.

What could people do to support your work?

There’s a very active global movement around open science and your contribution will depend on your role in the ecosystem. For those in positions like funding agencies or research institutions, it’s looking at mission-driven goals. And if open science and transparency are things you value, then making sure that your incentives and schemes align with their uptake is essential.

If you’re a researcher, I would suggest looking to continue the evolution of open science. A lot of open science practices may already be being performed in your lab, but what particular practice can you pick to tick off next that you’re not doing? By thinking like this year-by-year, month-by-month, as you’re able to within your resources and setting, you can make your work more open and transparent over time. In particular, if you’re a professor in a training role, you have the opportunity to embed these practices in the next generation from inception.

What advice would you have for someone trying to instill open science in their institution?

If you’re just starting out in the space, I would try to tap into the global community of folks that are already in this space. There are tons of great advocacy resources much beyond the work that our team has done, you can leverage those to support yourself, be more efficient and avoid duplicating effort.

A big part of it is advocacy. You’re going to be ruffling feathers, and you need to know that you may be speaking to people in senior leadership roles who made their careers without open science as a central tenet of what they do. you’ll be up against a lack of knowledge and awareness in some cases, so know that it may take time!

What does winning this award mean to you?

It’s hugely humbling and a great honor. There are so many people doing amazing work to improve science and science communication. I’m one of many people, but I think it’s a bit of a symbol for all of us in this space that, you know, the work that we do has value. To know there’s an external community beyond myself that believes this is worth fighting for is a real encouragement to keep going.

What’s next for your research?

We’re doing a lot right now around research data management: lining up research data collection so that as much of it can be shared as possible, to be innovated on and reproduced. Then, at the Heart Institute in Ottawa, I’m running a program specifically around the implementation of open science within the cardiovascular space. This involves looking at that community’s needs and preferences, barriers and facilitators, so to speak, and trying to provoke a movement within that space.