The community blog for all things Open Research.

Open community resources are increasingly used to promote open research practices, and are themselves an open practice. They are a powerful way to create shared ownership of a resource and provide agency to add or change them. However, they also present new struggles around embedding them in institutional practice, which we experienced in our own work.

Cultivating Openness: From Community Resources to Institutional Acceptance

This post expands further on the assertion recently made by Danny Kingsley in her post on “Language co-option in the open space” that “words matter” when trying to have meaningful conversations about open access. Not only do words matter for creating common agreement, but words can also actively create biases, inform decision-making, and even thwart the visions of open publishing and infrastructure advocates most want to champion.

The language of advocacy and risk

Academia is undergoing a rapid transformation characterized by exponential growth of scholarly outputs. This phenomenon, often termed the "firehose problem," presents significant challenges for researchers, publishers, funders, policymakers, and institutions alike.

Drinking from the Firehose?
Write More and Publish Less

Leiden University

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Updated version, July 2024: Added a new role: technology research software.

Defining the roles of research software (Version 2)

The New York Times

ushered in the New Year with a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The paper covered the suit, fittingly, as a major business story.

Large Language Publishing

Recognizing the need for dialogue on best practices around ethical challenges in data publication, the FORCE11 Research Data Publication Ethics Working Group started in early 2021 as a multi-stakeholder community effort involving representatives of data repositories, journals, researchers, institutional research integrity officers and libraries.

Announcing new resources from the FORCE11-COPE Research Data Publishing Ethics Working Group: flowcharts!

Traditionally, journal subject classification was done manually at varying levels of granularity, depending on the use case for the institution. Subject classification is done to help collate resources by subject enabling the user to discover publications based on different levels of subject specificity.

Attempts at automating journal subject classification

Sesame Open Science

Researchers, librarians, policy makers, and practitioners often complain about the scholarly publishing system, but the system also offers exciting opportunities to contribute to innovations in the way academic findings are disseminated and evaluated.

Preprints and open preprint review: a workshop on innovations in scholarly publishing

A journey started with the INArxiv hosted by The Center of Open Science to RINarxiv hosted by BRIN Indonesia.

Preprint as a Way to Universal Open Access

Gimena del Rio Riande is Associate Researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas y Crítica Textual (IIBICRIT-CONICET, Argentina) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8997-5415). Her main academic interests deal with digital humanities, digital scholarly edition and publishing, and Open Research Practices in the Humanities.

Gimena del Rio Riande is Keeping Tabs on Open Research

Cathleen Berger

Chris Hartgerink

In 2021 the UNESCO agreed on their Recommendation on Open Science, a consensus document of 193 countries highlighting values such as equity in open research, alongside principles of sustainability. Improving sustainability is critical from a social, economic, and ecological perspective given the global climate crisis.

The Environmental Impact of Research Infrastructures: Publishers, Open Science, and the Climate Crisis

Curtin University

Cameron Neylon

Inspired by a conversation on Twitter, Upstream is publishing a new blog series. Each month (ish) one person will post their reading wishlists based on the browser tabs they have open. We'll learn the articles they're most keen to read - and why. Somewhat of a reading 'guilt list', each author will conclude by tagging another person to share theirs, helping to curate the must-read content of the moment in our space.

Cameron Neylon is Keeping Tabs on Open Research

Alexis-Michel Mugabushaka

Ludo Waltman

Nees Jan van Eck

Worldwide, governments have started to ease or end the Covid-19 restrictions, signaling the beginning of the end of a pandemic which, according to the WHO, infected over 400 million people and caused 5.8 million deaths, not to speak of the devastating disruptions it caused to public and economic life.

Funding Covid-19 research: Insights from an open data infrastructure

Mohammad Hosseini

Violeta Ilik

Nicole Vasilevsky

Kristi Holmes

The FORCE11 attribution working group held a workshop during the 2021 FORCE conference to explore some ethical aspects of using Contributor Roles (CRs). This workshop provided an overview of various CRs and their practical values in terms of providing a better recognition of the wide range of scholarly contributions.

Deep dive into ethics of Contributor Roles: report of a FORCE11 workshop

Jennifer Gibson

This post is the last in a four-part series by Jennifer Gibson. The first post, on the shape and impact of research communication is available here. Reactions from readers are very welcome. Please use the commenting function.

A modern take on research communication, Part IV: Commitment and call to action

Our community and tools rely on high-quality DOI metadata for building connections and obtaining efficiencies. However, the current model - where improvements to this metadata are limited to its creators or done within service-level silos - perpetuates a system of large-scale gaps, inefficiency, and disconnection. It doesn’t have to be this way.

High-Quality Metadata: A Collective Responsibility and Opportunity

Data Processing and production: Jamie Diprose


 Cross-posted from the COKI blog.

There is a lot of lip service paid to the idea of diversity in scholarly publishing and often diversity of language is used as an example.

Language Diversity in Scholarly Publishing

I recently attended the FORCE2024 conference at UCLA. I'm a member of the board of directors of FORCE11, the parent organization for the conference, and the co-located FORCE11 Scholarly Communications Institute (FSCI), which I was not able to attend this year but have taught at in the past.

Research Software, Citation, and FAIR at FORCE2024

University of California Office of the President

John Chodacki

Ginny Hendricks

Christine Ferguson

Front Matter

Martin Fenner

Today we are announcing

 Upstream

. And if you’re reading this, you’re already a part of it! Upstream is a community blogging platform designed for Open enthusiasts to discuss… you guessed it: all things Open. It’s a space for the whole community to voice opinions, discuss open approaches to scholarly communication, and showcase research.

Welcome to Upstream: the new space for scholarly community discussion on all things open

This post is second in a four-part series on a modern system for research communication, by Jennifer Gibson. The first post, on the shape and impact of research communication is available here. Reactions from readers are very welcome. Please use the commenting function. ________________ Now, as I wrote a moment ago, I have some strong ideas about how research communication should work, which you might guess based on my work to date.

A modern take on research communication, Part II: Changing perspectives

Bianca Kramer

Bianca Kramer has been scholarly communication/open science librarian at Utrecht University Library for 15 years, and recently moved to an independent consulting/research analyst role as Sesame Open Science, with a focus on open science, open metadata and open infrastructure.

Being encouraged to keep “open tabs”, has been an interesting experience - turning something that’s usually guilt-inducing (“I really should be reading this…!”)

Bianca Kramer is Keeping Tabs on Open Research

Since 2015 I’ve been steeped in the world of open access, academic publishing, and funder policies. This is a blip of time compared to many other experts and advocates in this space. I’ve often sardonically joked that if I had received a dollar for every time I’ve heard that open access will become the norm once the United States changes its policy I could retire early.

Hot memo summer: How OSTP’s recommendations will lead to a large-scale transformation of the research ecosystem

Recently, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it will cap the amount of direct funding support that researchers can spend on paying for article processing charges, or APCs. These fees are increasingly used by publishers for their revenue streams and makes researcher contributed articles available to read for free via "gold" open access.

Capping APCs May Backfire on NIH

The exponential surge in research data, coupled with the advent of cutting-edge computational tools, is ushering in an era of unprecedented opportunities for research performing organisations. However, with many still in the process of adopting basic research data management practices and support mechanisms, the current state of play is concerning.

Navigating data-intensive innovation: The transition from research data management to research data governance

[Author's Note: This is Version 2 of this Editorial Blog Post. Version 1 was openly reviewed through MetaROR and this version reflects changes made as a result of those reviews. The response to reviewers is here.] Academia is undergoing a rapid transformation characterized by exponential growth of scholarly outputs.

Drinking from the firehose? Write more and Publish Less (Version 2)

Worldwide, science is under attack by anti-scientific movements. The new US administration has thrown the entire academy into chaos, threatening global health. This article is a call for the open science community to practice what it preaches and lead by example in defending science.

The global scientific community is moving toward a more inclusive and open approach.In Europe, Plan S has transformed European research by mandating immediate open access to publicly funded studies, fostering greater equity and visibility for scientific work. Open Research Europe is expanding, providing a Europe-wide venue for freely accessible research.

Science is Under Siege: The Open Science Community Must Act and Lead by Example

By embracing DataCite and Crossref DOIs, the global scholarly community is empowered, reducing financial barriers and fostering broad creation, dissemination, and recognition of research outputs and resources.

Crossref

DataCite

Persistent Identifiers, or “PIDs”, have become a popular topic for anyone involved in the research communications world. PIDs play a crucial role in the scholarly ecosystem by providing long-lasting references to and between all kinds of digital resources. PIDs usually consist of a unique identifier and a service that resolves resource references over time.

Working for Global Equity through Digital Object Identifiers

In recent years, interoperability has become an important concept in the field of research data management.  Discussions about interoperability have taken place in published articles and numerous presentations [1] [2], and several interoperability standards have been developed [3], [4], [5].  The term has been applied, among other things, to data, metadata and research tools.

The time is now! Vertical interoperability between research tools: an essential enabler for the FAIRification of data

Bibliographic databases should support innovation and experimentation. Here, we offer four criteria for innovation-friendly bibliographic databases. We urge the global research community to use databases that support and do not hinder innovation in scholarly communication and research assessment.

Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition

ASAPbio

Ottawa Heart Institute

F1000

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Federation of Finnish Learned Societies

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

There is much to celebrate when it comes to recent developments in scholarly communication and research assessment. The scholarly communication landscape shows many promising initiatives, including a growing use of preprint services, open access repositories, and open peer review platforms, as well as an increasing interest in more equitable scholarly publishing models such as diamond open access and Subscribe to Open.

Criteria for Bibliographic Databases in a Well-Functioning Scholarly Communication and Research Assessment Ecosystem

Do you think the FAIR principles for Research Software are working? The FAIR Principles for Research Software were published in March 2022 and described in a paper in October 2022.

FAIR principle for Research Software (FAIR4RS) 2-year review

In the rapidly evolving landscape of research, the importance of high-quality metadata and persistent identifiers (PIDs) cannot be overstated. PIDs and metadata are the connective tissue that binds together diverse research outputs, enabling discovery, accessibility, and reuse. Despite their critical role, the current model for metadata creation and enrichment is fraught with inefficiencies.

Advancing Metadata Quality: An Open Call to Collaborate

Coming down from the recent FORCE11 Scholarly Communication Institute (FSCI) and FORCE2024 conference at UCLA has allowed reflection on some of the recurring themes from the two events. One of these was the issue of language appropriation in the open scholarship space. In the process of attempting to write some of these issues up, it became clear that this requires something of a wander down history lane.

Language co-option in the open space

Open data has been a topic widely discussed among researchers and research-supporting organizations over the last decade. Much progress has been made in data sharing, and we now have more datasets openly available than ever before.

Advancing data sharing and reuse: Barriers, solutions, and recommendations from a data workshop

Metadata Game Changers

In a recent Upstream blog post we explored where data connected to papers funded by several U.S. Federal Agencies are published. Different data sharing practices across these agencies led to very different distributions of datasets across various repositories. We used CHORUS reports that combine linked article and dataset metadata as input for that work.

INFORMATE: When Are the Data?

Introduction  A recent blog post described a new partnership between Metadata Game Changers and CHORUS aimed at understanding how CHORUS data can help federal agencies, other funders, and other users access and use information from the global research infrastructure to measure this infrastructure and understand connections between research objects.

INFORMATE: Where Are the Data?

We analyse samples of DataCite metadata from ten repositories that have already created &gt;100k project IDs. The FAIR Island Project will provide working examples that demonstrate how DataCite and other existing infrastructure are being used and can be leveraged to support project-level metadata.

Project identifiers have been used in DataCite for nearly a decade. While this adoption has been inconsistent, the consistent adoption of Project IDs could aid with the tracking of provenance of data and other project assets, ensuring transparency and compliance with data management practices.

Building a Community of Practice: Observations of the Current Use of DataCite DOIs as Project IDs

Since its release towards the end of 2022, ChatGPT has been dominating the majority of AI-related conversations on social media. One could almost say it has made AI more mainstream and accessible than ever. AI is quickly revolutionizing the modern-day research landscape. According to a CSIRO report, nearly 98% of scientific fields use AI in some way.

Setting the Scene: How Artificial Intelligence is reshaping how we consume and deliver research

Explore limitations, concerns, and proposed solutions in this thought-provoking piece based on a global survey. Join the discussion with Enago Academy on sustainable and equitable access to knowledge.

The open access (OA) movement has undoubtedly revolutionized the accessibility of scholarly research, aiming to make knowledge freely available to all. While many countries have embraced OA publishing with supportive policies, a persistent obstacle remains—article processing charges (APCs). These charges/fees have led to a debate within the academic community, questioning whether they align with the best interests of open science.

A Fairer Future for Open Science: Choosing community over commercialization with equitable article processing charges

Patricio Pantaleo guides us through their open browser tabs. Recommends readings on Open Journal Systems, Open Access and Creative Commons licenses.

Patricio Pantaleo is a freelance open science advisor and web developer in Latin America with expertise in Open Journal Systems, Open Monograph Press, and Crossref.

Patricio Pantaleo is Keeping Tabs on Open Research

Research software is a key part of most research today.

The Research Software Alliance (ReSA)

Although advances in artificial intelligence (AI)

 1

have been unfolding for over decades, the progress in the last six months has come faster than anyone expected. The public release of ChatGPT in November 2022, in particular, has opened up new possibilities and heightened awareness of AI's potential role in various aspects of our work and life.

An Initial Scholarly AI Taxonomy

In October, the journal eLife announced that it will change how it handles peer review starting January 2023: To better understand what this change means for authors and reviewers, Upstream editor Martin Fenner asked Fiona Hutton, eLife's Head of Publishing, a few questions.

eLife Reviewed Preprints: Interview with Fiona Hutton

Research data and software rely heavily on the technical and social infrastructure to disseminate, cultivate, and coordinate projects, priorities, and activities. The groups that have stepped forward to support these activities are often segmented by aspects of their identity - facets like discipline, for-profit versus academic orientation, and others.

Interoperable infrastructure for software and data publishing

Bruce Caron guides us through their  open browser tabs. What are some of the must-reads at the moment?

Like the rest of you, I’ve been deluged with opinions and advice about recent advances in AI. So, I hopped into the AI mosh-pit. Last fall, I grabbed an account on DALL-E and spun up intricate artwork in my spare time. I jumped on Chat GPT 3.5 when it arrived, and this week, on GPT-4.   I have an open tab that takes me to my account with Openai.

Bruce Caron is Keeping Tabs on AI

In November of 2022, the Research Software Alliance (ReSA) and the Netherlands eScience Center organized a two-day international workshop titled “The Future of Research Software.” In the workshop, funding organizations joined forces to explore how they could effectively contribute to making research software sustainable. The workshop had many participants from all continents and was a huge success.

Defining the roles of research software

How comprehensive are bibliographic databases when it comes to preprints? Ludo Waltman and Nees Jan van Eck provide six recommendations for improvement.

Scholarly publishing is going through an exciting transition. Researchers are increasingly publishing their work on preprint servers before submitting it to journals. Some researchers have even decided not to submit to journals at all. On top of this, new forms of peer review are emerging, organized around preprints and operating independently from traditional journal peer review.

The preprint revolution - Implications for bibliographic databases

Infrastructure: what’s at stake   Infrastructure often is perceived as a “given”, as something that was always there, as “natural”. In the digital age, infrastructure seems more “natural” than ever (it's hard to imagine there was a time without internet connectivity in our mobile phones or even a time when phone lines were a luxury item) and the social and economic dimension of infrastructure tend to be invisibilized and are left out of

Scholarly Infrastructure: a Latin American perspective

Take a look at the picture below. What do you see? Think for a moment and write down your observations or say them out loud. Did you see tracks in the snow and the shadow of trees in the background? Maybe you were more specific, noting there are different kinds of tracks going in different directions, and at least two trees casting shadows.

Science Reading: Cognitive narrative helps us understand science better

The Collaborative Metadata Enrichment Taskforce (COMET) has released a Community Call to Action, inviting organizations and individuals to contribute resources (funding, expertise, metadata, and infrastructure) to support the first phase of a community-driven infrastructure for making persistent identifier (PID) metadata better and more complete.

The Collaborative Metadata Enrichment Taskforce (COMET) releases their Community Call to Action

The increasingly hostile attitude of the new U.S. government towards science and academia leaves many of us deeply concerned— if not outright alarmed. In an effort to better understand the unfolding situation and navigate its potential impacts, we provide an overview of five types of threats, each supported by links to documented sources.

The resilience of open science in times of crisis

How do we make sense of the implications of current geopolitical, financial and technological volatility? What impact will all of this have on the relationship between libraries and publishers, and libraries and their users? This blog post is an attempt to address these questions.

This blog post is an accompaniment for two recent presentations: “


 Not playing at the edges, welcoming disruptive change


 ” and “


 A Scholarly Communication landscape scan and update


 ” for which


 the slides are available


 .

How do we make sense of the implications of current geopolitical, financial, and technological volatility?

Implications, there are a few. Trying to make sense of all of this

PIDs in scholarly communications and research infrastructure have garnered government attention lately. By aligning with frameworks such as FAIR and POSI and incorporating insights from global initiatives, we present some desirable characteristics of PID infrastructures to guide them.

Considerations in the context of open scholarship and open infrastructure

Persistent identifiers (PIDs) in scholarly communications and research infrastructure have garnered growing attention over the last several years, especially from governments who are recognizing the vital role PIDs play in creating a more efficient and trustworthy research ecosystem.

Desirable Characteristics of Persistent Identifiers

A few months back, Upstream editor Martin Fenner suggested that I submit my Upstream blog post titled,

 Drinking from the Firehose? Write More and Publish Less

, for peer-review as a sort of experiment for Upstream through MetaROR. MetaROR, a relative newcomer to the scholarly communication community, provides the review and curate steps in the "publish-review-curate" model for meta-research.

Peer-Review for a Blog Post? My Experience with MetaROR

Adam Hyde

Scholarly publishing at times seems to want to hold on to some outdated processes. At the top of my list is the dreaded RFP (Request for Proposals) process. In the scholarly comms world, consultants send these out on behalf of publishers that are seeking solutions or services. My career involves designing and building publishing technology and so I have been on the receiving end of many RFPs for developing new platforms.

Can we do away with RFPs?

In order to deliver on the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), all sectors must urgently intensify fair and equitable transformations to sustainability. Scientific publishing must reform if it is to play its part.

The


 International Science Council


 is a non-government organization that brings together 45 international scientific Unions and Associations, over 140 national and regional scientific organizations, including Academies and Research Councils, 60 international Federations and Societies, and Young Academies and Associations.


 The ISC is charting a path toward the mission to advance human development within sustainable

The Imperative of Reforming Scientific Publishing

This post is the third in a four-part series by Jennifer Gibson. The first post, on the shape and impact of research communication is available here. Reactions from readers are very welcome. Please use the commenting function. Before I dive into this part of the discussion, I’d like to credit Damian Pattinson and Stuart King at eLife, with whom I worked to develop the three first tenets below in 2020 and 2021, as eLife's core values.

A modern take on research communication, Part III: Tenets of a modern system

Ginny Barbour

If anyone thought that 2022 was going to be a time of peace and harmony in open access, some of the last salvos of 2021 will surely have put that to rest.

Words matter

Adopters of the POSI principles have met several times over the last few years to discuss the challenges and the improvements they’ve made in the transparency and longevity of their operations and governance. Hear from those involved in introducing the latest version - v1.1.

The Upstream platform was created in order to discuss all things open. Open scholarly infrastructure and the need for the community to assess such infrastructures are surely at the heart of enabling the open research movement.

Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure (POSI) version 1.1: Reflections from adopters

Lars Bjørnshauge is the visionary founder of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). His transformation of a simple idea into a globally trusted directory revolutionized the accessibility and credibility of open access publishing. Under his leadership, DOAJ became a critical resource, supporting the dissemination of scholarly work worldwide and setting high standards for transparency in publishing.

Open Publishing Fest Lifetime Achievement Award: Interview with Lars Bjørnshauge

In my last blog post for Upstream, I noted that there were some potential issues with, and good alternatives to, the NIH plan to cap grant spending on article processing charges. One of my suggestions was that the NIH put its plan out for public comment so they could draw from community input in their final policy. Thankfully, the NIH did just that and the public can submit comments on the plan until 15 September 2025.

My Response to the NIH Request for Information on Proposed APC Caps

Iratxe Puebla

Researchers spend a lot of time doing peer review, and by a lot we are talking about over 100 million hours per year (estimate for 2020 by Aczel et al.). It is a complex and time consuming process that is often presented as a pillar to science dissemination, because of its function to scrutinize research papers to check whether they contain any flaws, oversights, or they meet certain criteria for novelty or advance, before the article appears in

Let's make our reviews open, starting now

US federal policies are transforming research accessibility. Learn how the Holdren and Nelson memos are shaping open access and the NSF's implementation.

Access to cutting-edge research can spark innovation, drive progress, and shape our future. But what to do if the discoveries and scholarly work funded by our tax dollars are locked behind paywalls, accessible only to a privileged few? The U.S. government has been grappling with this question, and recent policy shifts aim to improve access to federally funded research.

Overview: US Policy on Open Access and Open Data

Coming from the Global South, I have frequently experienced the cucaracha (cockroach) syndrome, where I feel like what I do is not interesting. This is the phrase that I give to the feeling of my research and perspective being routinely undervalued and underappreciated due to my local context and language abilities.

Experiences of scholarly marginalization

As we witness the ever-evolving landscape of technology, we realize that artificial intelligence (AI) is not just a buzzword anymore; it's a reality that is already leading to transformation in how scholarly research is published and disseminated.

Need for Consistent and Uniform Guidelines Regarding the Use and Disclosure of AI-generated Scholarly Content

I help Canadian neuroscience research institutes create and adopt an institute-level approach to open science. Inevitably, I end up talking to researchers, administrators, academic commercialization offices, and businesses about open science, intellectual property (IP), and technology transfer.

Opening New Paths to Technology Transfer: Open Science, Intellectual Property, and Technology Transfer

Digital object identifiers (DOIs) and relevant metadata have been used for 20 years to help preserve the scholarly record by maintaining stable links to scholarly publications and other important scholarly resources, combined with long-term archiving by publishers and libraries. Lots and tools and services have been built around this infrastructure to make it easier for scholars to consume and contribute to this scholarly record.

The Rogue Scholar: An Archive for Scholarly blogs

Gisela Govaart

Simon M. Hofmannn

The climate crisis is affecting us all, and it seems like there is a role for open research to play.

The sustainability argument for open science? In conversation with the authors.

Aaron Tay

Several weeks ago, Cameron Neylon kicked off a good idea to list a few articles he was keen to read and tell us why.


 Based on 'open tabs' in their browser, approximately every month one person will share their reading wishlists so we can curate some of the 'must-read' posts of the moment.


 Each author concludes by tagging the next;

Aaron Tay is Keeping Tabs on Open Research

Bruce Caron

In the Open Scientist Handbook, I argue that open science supports anti-rivalrous science collaborations where most metrics are of little, or of negative value. I would like to share some of these arguments here.

An open science argument against closed metrics

What if we could start all over again? Knowing what we know now, about the needs for research and the opportunities to improve the human condition, about the power of the Internet, and about the importance of the global village, what would we want publishing to look like? How would we use instant online sharing? How would we tap into experts in other corners of the globe?