Open science should be a pleonasm - Dos Santos Rocha - Anaesthesia - Wiley Online Library

"Disadvantages of open science include increased workload for authors, data misuse and concerns regarding data ownership. Providing repositories with de-identified datasets and including data sharing policy on consent forms, project protocols and institutional board reviews may pose administrative burdens with a lack of perceived benefit for authors or patients [17, 18]. Opponents to open science state that lay readers might misunderstand complex raw data, and non-scientists might unintentionally misinterpret it. Concerns about dual-use knowledge or data misuse have been raised in cases of sensitive data implying that data can serve both civilian and military technologies, terrorism included [19]. As an example, apprehension regarding potential bioterrorism led two scientific journals not to publish full details about the H5N1 influenza virus in 2011 [20]. Loss of data ownership is an issue feared by many researchers when disseminating data [18]; however, authors do not often have exclusive data ownership due to sources of funding, including public funding. For open access publications and public repositories, licences for data reuse exist to protect researcher rights on the data they produce. Creative Commons licenses, for example, constitute a standardised way to grant the authorisation to use public research work under copyright laws. Regardless of the data type, these aspects should be addressed before publication, given that some publishers require journal copyrights. Since data ownership can be complex (e.g. multicentre studies; collaborative partnerships; multiple funding sources), institutional offices dedicated to copyright might need to be consulted on the legal and ethical aspects of research data [21]....

Our aborted project underscores that authors might not be ready to commit to data sharing and contribute to fundamental principles of open science. Because a data sharing statement is insufficient, routine deposit of IPD in repositories will increase transparency and the reliability of the scientific reports. Among the pillars of open science, open access to research data is one of the most difficult to achieve and cannot be attained without a common policy adopted by journals. However, more than a simple statement is required, as demonstrated. It has been recently argued “that in the long term, the adjective Open should not be necessary as science will be open by default” [30], and it would be simply named ‘Science’. We, as researchers, await a world where open science is a pleonasm."