Open access, open data, open science…what does “openness” mean in the first place? | Somatosphere

"Recently, the research community has been flooded with encouragement to make things 'open,' meaning: freely and easily accessible, in a variety of ways, and to a great variety of audiences ... Such encouragement, commitment, and raw faith in the power of 'open' is—as Sabina Leonelli and I have been exploring for the past year and a half—an articulation of what is broadly known as the 'Open Science' movement.  This movement aims to make not only publications and data, but also research materials and methods open, in an effort to foster equality, widen participation, and increase innovation and productivity.  Indeed, Open Science has been promoted globally as a key component of modern society by organizations such as The Wellcome Trust, Royal Society, National Institutes of Health, Center for Open Science, Open Knowledge Foundation, and many others.  It has become increasingly central to science policy in both the United Kingdom and the United States.  But, as Sabina and I have been documenting, there remains a remarkable lack of clarity as to how the implementation, practice, and enforcement of Open Science—or to rephrase it, 'openness' in science—should occur.  Policies have different terms and requirements, educational institutions have different infrastructures, scholarly communities have different commitments, and individual researchers have different priorities and circumstances[ii]. Consequently, the project has been exploring what exactly 'openness' means in modern society: how, for whom, when, and where does openness occur, and what forms of scientific labor and value does the norm of openness highlight or obscure? ..."