The inequitable burden of open science – Psychonomic Society Featured Content

"In this post, we discuss some of the ways in which the goals of open science and inclusivity come into conflict. In some ways, open science has created unequal burdens for both scientists and research participants from marginalized groups. Below, we talk about some of these burdens and some potential solutions.

One of the central tenets of open science is transparency: we share data, methods, and pre-registration with the goal of making our experimental and theoretical choices clearer. The motivation for these ideas is hard to argue with. Transparency is generally a good thing. However, without understanding the social and cultural contexts in which science takes place, scientists from marginalized backgrounds may be unintentionally harmed by these goals.

Why might a Black or Brown scholar be reluctant to share data? There is a very real risk that historically excluded scholars will be scooped before the data is published or will not be recognized for their work after the data is published. This isn’t paranoia. Historically, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx scholars have not been recognized within scientific communities, and there are structural barriers that have led to negative outcomes for historically excluded scholars. For example, Ginther et al. (2011) found that, despite equal qualifications, Black and Brown scholars are less likely to be funded by NIH than White scholars. Similar funding disparities also exist at the US National Science Foundation. More generally across the health sciences, people of color (and women) receive fewer citations than White men. There is a consistent pattern of overlooking, ignoring, and dismissing work by scientists of color, which disincentivizes data sharing...."