Open Science

Open science consists of principles and behaviors that promote transparent, credible, reproducible, and accessible science.

• Transparency - being honest about theoretical, methodological, and analytical decisions made throughout the research cycle
• Credibility - the degree of trustworthiness and believability of the research
• Reproducibility - how well records are kept at all phases of the research cycle so that everything can be reproduced when needed
• Accessibility - making all aspects of the research cycle open and available for those who are interested, in a format that is understandable, usable, and easily accessible.

Information from Syed, M. (2019, April 15). The open science movement is for all of us. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/cteyb

While there are many ways to conceptualize open science, it is helpful to connect it to the research process like in this chart. Here, we see that every phase from developing the research question and designing the study to dissemination of findings can find a home in open science: 

Cioffi, M., Goldman, J., & Marchese, S. (2023). Harvard Biomedical Research Data Lifecycle (Version 5). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8076168

As demonstrated in this chart, every phase from developing the research question and designing the study to disseminating findings can find a home in open science. 

Baker, M. (2016). 1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility. Nature, 533(7604), 452-454. https://doi.org/10.1038/533452a  

Crüwell, S., van Doorn, J., Etz, A., Makel, M. C., Moshontz, H., Niebaum, J. C., Orben, A., Parsons, S., & Schulte-Mecklenbeck, M. (2019). Seven easy steps to open science. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 227(4), 237-248. https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000387  

• Brokers - intermediaries who manage requests to provide access to research data, sometimes an anonymized clinical research data warehouse
• Data dictionary / codebook - document describing elements of a dataset
• Data management plan - document that describes how you will manage, describe, analyze, and store research data
• Documentation - written or recorded information to capture study details
• Electronic Lab Notebook - a platform for documenting and organizing research projects
• Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) - a persistent link unique to a research object
• Metadata - information about data
• Reproducible - when another researcher can apply your methods and materials to your data to get the same results
• Reporting - a general term for publicly documenting your study details and results, usually through a publication or report or registration
• Reporting Guideline - a checklist for what information to report
• Repository - sustainable infrastructure which provides long-term storage and access to research data, protocols, reagents, or other materials
• Protocol - documentation of your study methods, also study plan or workflow
• README file - document describing a research project including the context of your project, the materials involved, how they relate to one another, naming conventions, sources
• RRIDs - unique identifiers for your materials and tools