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Is Open Research 'all or nothing'?

Openness is not 'all or nothing' and beginning by implementing just one open research practice is a great start.

Many researchers have already adopted some open science practices and the pace at which researchers move towards open practices may vary, particularly between disciplines.

Fully open research is a long-term goal, not a switch we should expect overnight. However, there a number of practices that researchers can adopt right now that can advance the overall open science cause while simultaneously benefitting the individual researcher.

What can you start to do today?

Perhaps the best advice is to first consider what it is you would like to do: what is the open research practice you’d like to implement? Then explore which tools/platforms are available, which ones the people in your community use, and why.

Kramer and Bosman (2018) outline examples of open research practices you can incorporate into your workflow.

The following information discusses a number of key open practices:

  • Working on collaborative platforms
  • Pre-registering your study and analysis plan
  • Using open research software and open source
  • Making your research data open
  • Publishing open access
  • Using scholarly identifiers
  • PhD Researchers:  depositing and sharing your thesis

Collaborative Platforms

  • Platforms for co-creating the research process directly with the public

    Online computing and research tools allow the researcher to provide direct public access to the research process. Websites, wikis and blogs, online research environments, and citizen science platforms can all be used variously to document and publish the primary processes and materials of research, and enable direct participation in research activities by wider groups of users.  Many of these tools create the possibility of a new kind of research, which extends beyond the closed group to a wider public, and enables the research process to be co-creative, massively collaborative, and to evolve in response to critical feedback.

  • Platforms connecting researchers

    Online collaborative platforms also connect geographically-dispersed researchers to enable them to cooperate on their research, sharing research objects as well and ideas and experiences. These can range from extensive virtual research environments (VREs) which encompass a host of tools to facilitate sharing and collaboration, including web forums and wikis, collaborative document hosting, and discipline-specific tools such as data analysis or visualisation, right down to single specific tools which enable researchers to work together in real time on specific aspects of research (such as writing or analysis).

An important collaborative platform in the context of Open Science is the Open Science Framework (OSF). Based on open source technologies and created by the not-for-profit Center for Open Science, the OSF brands itself as "a scholarly commons to connect the entire research cycle".

The OSF enables researchers to work on projects privately with a limited number of collaborators and make any part or the whole of their project public.

It connects directly with many other collaborative systems like dropbox, GitHub and Google Docs, and can be used to store and archive research data, protocols, and materials.

Open collaborative research is for all

The basic model of online open collaborative research can be applicable to all research domains, not just the sciences.

There may be more specialised online collaborative tools available for use by experimental scientists, but platforms and collaborative tools can be highly effective in areas of arts and humanities or social sciences research.

Pre-register your study and analysis plan

In some areas of research, notably in the health and psychological sciences but also in social sciences, practices are becoming established for the registration of study hypotheses and protocols in advance of undertaking the research.

In a preregistration researchers specify, in as much detail as they can, their plans for a study (e.g., number and nature of subjects, stimulus materials, procedures, measures, rules for excluding data, plans for data analysis, predictions/hypotheses, etc.) and they post those plans in a time-stamped, locked file in an online repository that can be accessed by editors and reviewers (and, ultimately, by readers). Pregistrations can be embargoed (such that only those invited to view them can do so), although some repositories limit the duration of embargoes.

Why Preregister?

  • Makes your science better by increasing the credibility of your results
  • Allows you to stake your claim to your ideas earlier
  • It's an easy way to plan for better research

Preregistration does not require every detail be specified in advance; researchers can leave some methodological/analytical details to be decided as the project goes along. Also, researchers can deviate from the preregistration plan whenever they judge it appropriate and as long as this is clearly explained and acknowledged in the final publication. For example, if the data turned out to have a non-normal distribution then the researcher might transform the scores before analyzing them. Or if the data revealed an unexpected pattern the researcher might decide to conduct an unplanned statistical test. In such cases the researcher would explain in the manuscript why the unplanned transformation or test was deemed appropriate.

The preregistration for an exploratory study might be brief, but it would nonetheless have value as an explicit record of which if any aspects of the study were specified a priori. A researcher can run hypothesis testing that is pre-registered and then use the same dataset for exploratory data analysis if each step of the analysis is correctly identified and reported.  A thorough preregistration promotes transparency and openness and protects researchers from suspicions of inflation bias, also known as “p-hacking” or “selective reporting. This occurs when researchers try out several statistical analyses and/or data eligibility specifications and then selectively report those that produce significant results.

  • Where and how can I preregister my studies?

    You can preregister your study plans in many ways, all of which are accessible and free.

    Sites like AsPredicted.org make preregistration quick and easy using a Web form that works well for many simple experimental designs.

    The Open Science Framework (OSF) allows for both simple preregistration and complete specification of all aspects of your study — you can upload files, scripts, images, and so on. The OSF site provides a detailed example of how to do a preregistration.

    That example uses a template (OSF provides a number of those), but you don’t have to use one. In fact, you can type your plans in a Word file, upload that to OSF, and preregister it.

    You can use these tools to create a view-only link or a PDF that allows an anonymous reviewer to see your plans.

    Preregistration is new to many researchers and the Center for Open Science provides a range of helpful resources on the topic including FAQs.

Open Research Software and Open Source

Open research software, or open-source research software, refers to the use and development of software for analysis, simulation, visualization, etc. where the full source code is available. In addition, according to the Open Source Definition, open-source software must be distributed in source and/or compiled form (with the source code available in the latter case), and must be shared under a licence that allows modification, derivation, and redistribution.

Open up your source code

There are many compelling reasons to open up your source code, irrespective of whether you are a Postgraduate Researchers or the PI of a large grant.

  • If you are the PI of a large grant, you are probably handling tax payers’ money anyway, so returning value to them is a moral obligation which makes being open and honest with your results an ethical necessity of sorts.
  • Once your paper is accepted, it faces competition from hundreds of thousands of papers that are published around the same time in the same field. To make it stand out, you have to pay attention to the ecosystem around your research. Part of it is the ease of building on your results.
  • The easier it is for someone else to build on your results, the more impact the paper will have.

GitHub is a popular tool that allows version control: management and overall tracking of changes in a particular piece of software.  Services such as GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and others provide an interface to the tool as well as remote storage services that can be used to maintain, share, and collaborate on research software.  Publicly shared software is not actually open source unless accompanied by a suitable licence, because by default software (along with any other creative work) falls under exclusive copyright to the creators, meaning no one else can use, copy, distribute, or modify your work.  For more information read the discussion on Licenses and Copyright.

Make your research data open

Research data are often the most valuable output of many research projects; they are used as primary sources that underpin scientific research and enable derivation of theoretical or applied findings.

Benefits to sharing data

There are many benefits to sharing data as a researcher, such as getting credit for your valuable data findings, making research findings more reproducible and replicable, and supporting the preservation of data long-term.

Best Practice Recommendation for Research Data

The best practice recommendation for research data is to be as open and FAIR as possible, while accounting for ethical, commercial and privacy constraints with sensitive data or proprietary data. FAIR Data Principles represent a community-developed set of guidelines and best practices to ensure that data or any digital object are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable.

There are a number of things that you can do to ensure that your research data is as open and FAIR as possible. The best way to start is to:

  • Make sure your data is Findable

    Depositing your data into a publicly accessible repository is the easiest way to make your data more discoverable. PURE is the data repository for research undertaken at Ulster University.

    However, there may be circumstances where deposit to an external repository is a more appropriate option; the University's requirement for external deposit is that a corresponding dataset record must be created in PURE which references and links to the external repository.

    Advice and a step-by-step guide on data deposit can be found on Ulster’s RDM Data Storage and Security webpages.

    Persistent identifiers (PIDs) are important to making your data findable because they unambiguously identify your data and facilitate data citation. An example of a PID is a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). When depositing your data in a repository, make sure you select a repository that assigns a persistent identifier.  DOIs can be created in PURE, see ‘DOIs are not just for papers’ for more information.

    Data Access Statement

    Another important way to make your data findable is to create a Data Access Statement.

    Data access statements are used in publications to describe where supporting data can be found and under what conditions they can be accessed. Sometimes they are called Data Availability Statements.

    Data access statements are required for all publications arising from publicly-funded research.

    They are mandated by many funders' data policies and are a requirement of the RCUK Policy on Open Access.

    Some funders have indicated that they now check for the inclusion of data access statements in publications that acknowledge their support.

    Researchers should no longer use 'please contact the author' to share research data. This is because when contact details change, access to data often becomes impossible.

    Further discussion on Data Access Statements including Sample Data Access Statements can also be found on Ulster’s RDM Data Deposit & Sharing webpages.

  • Make sure your data is Accessible

    Not all data can be made openly available and FAIR does not mean that data need to be fully open. As a rule of thumb data should be ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’.  ‘How can I adopt an open research approach if my research is sensitive and/or personal?’ discusses reasons why access must be restricted and outlines possibilities for opening access to such research data.

    If your data cannot be made openly available, access conditions should be made clear to researchers wishing to re-use your data, e.g. only available for research purposes. Metadata should be accessible, even if the data are not.

  • Make sure your data is Interoperable

    Data and metadata should conform to widely used file formats and disciplinary standards for data collection should be used where possible to allow your data to be combined and re-used with other data.

    Think carefully about how you format and name your files.

  • Make sure your data is Reusable

    Funder Requirements for Research Data

    Most research funders (research councils, charities and foundations) have introduced policies on research data management. The general expectation is that data from publicly funded research projects should be made openly available with as few restrictions as possible.

    Ulster's Research Data Management (RDM) website provides information and links to the data policies of some of Ulster's key funders. Ulster's RDM Policy requires Ulster University researchers, as a minimum to:

    archive, where possible, research data in line with funders’ guidelines by creating, in PURE, a dataset record (metadata) describing your research and either upload the dataset or point to where it is located, if it is stored elsewhere.

Funder Requirements for Research Data

Most research funders (research councils, charities and foundations) have introduced policies on research data management.

The general expectation is that data from publicly funded research projects should be made openly available with as few restrictions as possible.

Ulster's Research Data Management (RDM) website provides information and links to the data policies of some of Ulster's key funders.

Ulster's RDM Policy requires Ulster University researchers, as a minimum to:

Archive research data

Archive research data in line with funders’ guidelines by creating, in PURE, a dataset record (metadata) describing your research and either upload the dataset or point to where it is located, if it is stored elsewhere.

Advice and a step-by-step guide on data deposit in PURE can be found on Ulster’s RDM Data Storage and Security webpages.

Open Licenses and Sharing your Research Data

Licenses are essential to enable data reuse. You need a licence to clearly state what others can do with your work, whether they must cite it, and how they can share derivative work.

We have developed a section specifically focused on what you need to know about licensing and copyright for open research.  This section includes guides for choosing an Open Data Licence and applying an Open Licence to your research data.

Publish Open Access

Open Access is the principle that published research findings should be freely accessible and re-usable. Since the 1990s growing numbers of academics, research organisations, funders and some publishers have been campaigning for, and promoting access to, research through Open Access journals and publications repositories. Research Councils UK adopted an Open Access policy for its funded researchers in 2013.

Open Access is now a major paradigm for the dissemination of academic research, and has considerably challenged the pay-to-view subscription journal model.

The University requires its staff to deposit (copyright permissions allowing) a copy of all forms of published research in PURE so as to support Open Access and meet the requirements of research funders in the UK (and internationally) who now encourage or mandate OA.

Ulster’s Open Access support information site explains the issues around OA, REF and your research in more detail and the Research & Impact team at Ulster have developed a series of resources, in this website, to help you through the process of making your research OA.

The website summarizes UKRI’s new Open Access policy. It outlines actions that researchers publishing UKRI-funded research must take to make sure research outputs comply with the new policy.

You don’t have to sacrifice quality or academic freedom

You don’t have to sacrifice quality or academic freedom to publish openly.

There are many high-quality open access journals and there are many publishers who are committed to advancing open access publishing e.g. Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA).

It is important to remember that open publishing is not restricted to these journals.

You can publish in almost any journal you like and make a version of your manuscript available (self-archive) on your personal website or in an open repository following publishers embargo periods.

Look up your publisher’s embargo using the JISC Open Policy finder and use the same tools to check the version of your manuscript that you can upload to PURE.

Use Scholarly Identifiers:  ORCID, DOI

  • Get an ORCID and use it!

    Get an ORCID and use it and your research output will benefit from improved discoverability.

    ORCID is indexed by Google Scholar and you can also link it to the author systems used in key databases like Web of Science and Scopus.

    By attaching your unique identity to articles, datasets, patents, etc., you ensure that all of your work is found when other scholars search for your research output.

    There are other benefits of having an ORCID: read 10 Top reasons to get and use your own ORCID. We have developed a brief introduction to ORCID and your research which overviews how you can use your ORCID.

  • DOIs are not just for papers

    While most researchers have heard of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), some may not know why and when they should be used.

    The single most important characteristic of DOIs is that they can be attached to just about any digital, online research output. If something has a URL, or a specific location on the web, it can be assigned a DOI.

    The versatility of DOIs means they can be tied to journal articles, datasets, supplemental material and addendum; to video, audio, streaming media, and 3D objects; to theses, dissertations, technical reports, and visualizations. More recently, DOIs are being assigned to pre-prints of articles, acknowledging the pre-print’s role in some disciplines to be as valuable as the published version.

    Like web addresses (URLs), DOIs enable research output to be discoverable and accessible. Online publishing and digital archiving have made them almost a necessity for scholarship, and they have become the de facto standard for identifying research output. Metadata and information about individual works are increasingly tied to DOIs.

    DOIs and PURE

    When a data file or data files are uploaded to PURE, a member of the PURE support team will validate your dataset record and mint a DOI for the data file(s).  A data file can be in many different format e.g. word files, excel spreadsheets, pdf documents, image files. It is important to note that once a DOI is minted the editing rights to the dataset record is limited for staff members, particularly around uploading or amending documents.  While you are working on your dataset record in PURE you should save your record as ‘Entry in Progress’.  Once your dataset record is ready to be published, change the status of your record to ‘For Validation’.

    DOIs created by publishers for research papers and other published outputs should be uploaded to Pure by researchers.

    For further support and guidance on how to upload a data file to PURE see Using PURE for datasets.

Depositing and Sharing your thesis

Depositing your doctoral thesis in an online repository is an excellent opportunity to share your research to the world.

When you submit the final corrected electronic version of your thesis to the Doctoral College upon completion of your award, it will be uploaded into Ulster University’s PURE repository and made available to the public.

This requirement will meet your funder’s mandate for open access research outputs, ensure that your research reaches a wide audience, and establish your presence in the academic world.

The information is also harvested by the British Library’s EThOS service, the UK’s national thesis service, and it also appears in Ulster University’s Library Catalogue.

Remember, if you have an associated dataset with your thesis, you can deposit that into PURE too.

Read more about submitting your thesis.