Towards a culture of open scholarship: the role of pedagogical communities

Abstract

The UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has called for evidence on the roles that different stakeholders play in reproducibility and research integrity. Of central priority are proposals for improving research integrity and quality, as well as guidance and support for researchers. In response to this, we argue that there is one important component of research integrity that is often absent from discussion: the pedagogical consequences of how we teach, mentor, and supervise students through open scholarship. We justify the need to integrate open scholarship principles into research training within higher education and argue that pedagogical communities play a key role in fostering an inclusive culture of open scholarship. We illustrate these benefits by presenting the Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training (FORRT), an international grassroots community whose goal is to provide support, resources, visibility, and advocacy for the adoption of principled, open teaching and mentoring practices, whilst generating conversations about the ethics and social impact of higher-education pedagogy. Representing a diverse group of early-career researchers and students across specialisms, we advocate for greater recognition of and support for pedagogical communities, and encourage all research stakeholders to engage with these communities to enable long-term, sustainable change.

Bridging Neurodiversity and Open Scholarship: How Shared Values Can Guide Best Practices for Research Integrity, Social Justice, and Principled Education

“…Another reform that would benefit all is "slow science". Contrasting from the current system of publish-or-perish culture that actively encourages poor research practice in order to get more publications (see the glossary for p-hacking, salami slicing), slow science emphasises a move towards fewer publications but with a greater focus on higher quality research practice, teamwork, and transparency of the process (Frith, 2020;Parsons et al, 2022). Though slow science would benefit everyone involved in the research process, for neurodiverse individuals the reduction of publication pressure and the implementation of a teamwork-focused research culture would allow the opportunity to maximise the strengths listed above.…”

“…Many OSch policies and practices (e.g., FAIR principles, open code, data, education, materials, etc. ) are rooted in ethical and utilitarian interests (McKiernan et al, 2016;Willinsky, 2006) such as that of accessibility, inclusivity, equity, and integrity in the creation, comprehension, dissemination and evaluation of research (Azevedo et al, 2022;Fecher & Friesike, 2014). However, OSch is largely embedded within academia, which in turn can be viewed as a microcosm of wider society.…”

“…These power relations and inequalities are also clearly observable across academia, with Anthropology (Tallmana & Bird, 2020), Ecology (Tseng et al, 2020), Engineering (Rampler et al, 2022), Ethology (Cooke, 2022;Howard, 2022), and Psychology (Gruber et al, 2021;Ledgerwood et al, 2022) facing issues of representation of minorities and acknowledging their contribution (Reardon, 2022). Furthermore, the hidden curriculum (Parsons et al, 2022) and current academic infrastructure focused on metrics and closed scientific systems perpetuate global inequalities and stereotypes reinforcing hierarchies that silence marginalised voices and reinforce their subordination. This justification is further perpetuated by science being misused as a weapon to socially oppress minoritised voices by clinging to the assumption that scientific practice is rational, impartial, and objective, when in fact it is not (e.g., Eagly et al, 2012).…”

Development of the Brief Open Research Survey (BORS) to measure awareness and uptake of Open Research practices

“…Initiatives exist and have been recommended globally to increase the uptake of Open Research behaviours (G7 Open Science Working Group, 2021; NASA Science, 2022;UNESCO, 2021). Educational initiatives include embedding Open Research training into undergraduate and postgraduate teaching (Azevedo et al, 2022;Egan et al, 2020; Student Initiative for Open Science, 2022) and providing banks of educational resources to facilitate this (Pownall, Azevedo, et al, 2021). Incentive initiatives include journal badges issued to papers with Preregistration, Open Data and Open Materials (Kidwell et al, 2016;Rowhani-Farid & Barnett, 2018), awards for Open Research practice (Merrett et al, 2021), and funder partnerships for Registered Reports Clark et al, 2021).…”

Lab manuals for efficient and high quality science in a happy and safe work environment

“…Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core principles of Open Scholarship and Science (e.g. Azevedo et al, 2022;Elsherif et al, 2022;Ledgerwood et al, 2022;Yeung, 2022), and it is beneficial and important for labs to implement such principles in practice systematically. For all lab members, having a core document that captures the fundamental values (e.g.…”