Inclusiveness through Openness
Satellite Conference at Erasmus University
18- 19 August 2023
Abstracts
The constitution, preservation and proliferation of knowledge has significant implications for societal good and harm. On one hand, knowledge can be used as a bridge for common understanding and open collaboration between members of a group or between groups, on the other hand, knowledge can be discriminately acquired and shared in ways to justify the oppression of others and solidify power asymmetries within society. In order to improve equity through the democratizing of open knowledge, this talk will explore several key questions need to be continuously addressed: What constitutes knowledge, what knowledge is worth preserving, how can knowledge be shared and protected, expanded and constrained, in ways that reduce inequality and advance wellbeing among historically marginalized communities. The talk will feature historical anecdotes to current open knowledge movements from privileged western institutions to grassroots movements across the global south.
Research and science are critical to making progress towards solving critical challenges, and open access has long been recognized as an essential contributor to that progress.
Despite the growth in open access over past decades, the playing field is not yet level for researchers, nor for people that need to access research. In some regions, open access has become closely associated with complicated, expensive agreements, and in others, the burden has switched from an inability to afford subscriptions to being unable to afford to publish.
Open access must not become the new digital divide. Open access has done much to democratize access to knowledge, but commercial openness can also be a source of new inequities. This presentation will detail the work of IFLA’s open access working party and the 2022 IFLA statement and call to action.
IFLA’s 2022 statement, released a decade after IFLA’s first statement on open access, called for an inclusive and equitable approach to scholarship that recognizes the need for bibliodiversity through a range of models (without defining the one right way), languages, and means of publishing. The statement calls for action on raising awareness about the rights-based dimensions of open access and how it contributes to intellectual freedom and freedom of expression, advocacy for researcher rights retention and sustainable business models, partnerships to strengthen the library voice in open access advocacy, and for IFLA to lead by example by completing the transition of its own publications. With many paths and models to achieve open access, collaboration and information sharing among libraries and other stakeholders is essential.
Initiatives undertaken by the IFLA open access working party will be presented. These include a vocabulary, progress on models for the IFLA journal, and engagement with other advocacy activities. Examples of issues experienced in different regions represented within the working party will be highlighted. The presentation will conclude with observations on the state of open access and IFLA’s engagement.
Overview: Open science is an effective tool for reducing inequalities. On a wider scale, there is an ongoing effort to spread awareness and understand the development. However, there is an unbalanced discussion about the role of libraries and librarians in open science, open research, and open access. Recognizing that each country is unique and must develop its own model and implementation strategies, providing opportunities to be known and heard in the global community fosters inclusive and equitable participation.
Purpose: The study aims to include in the discussion the development and implementation pathways of open science in selected countries in the regions of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia.
Methodology: The study begins with a desktop review mapping the national, regional, and global documents related to open science policy and infrastructure in Bangladesh, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Myanmar/Burma, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Uzbekistan. The second phase will employ key informant interviews to gather data on the library's role in an open research ecosystem and open access publishing. These are only case studies with one representative higher education institution per country to be able to delve deeper into the practices, opportunities, challenges, and future directions in the areas of open research and open access.
Research limitations/implications: The researcher anticipates that some literature will not be in English; thus, translations or summaries from key informants will be requested. Moreover, due to broad coverage, there is only one representation per country. Inclusivity in this study is viewed in the context of engaging in the conversation in these countries where development in the area of open science, open research, and open access is sporadic and unequal.
Originality/value: The presentation aims to promote inclusive participation in the global discussion of open science and open access.
Investment and resourcing is needed to sustain community-run technologies and initiatives that support science and scholarship worldwide. At Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI), we seek to provide guidance and recommendations as to where best to direct that investment and how to unlock and coordinate new funding sources.
Investment needs and gaps differ across the globe. They are of course influenced by the geopolitical landscape and other power dynamics, which impact the allocation of financial and other resources within communities, nations, and regions. It is therefore important that we are aware of and understand the initiatives, people, and issues involved in scholarly infrastructure in different regions and political contexts.
In this talk, we will share preliminary insights from our recent exploration into open infrastructure needs in Latin America, Africa, and Asia (https://investinopen.org/blog/exploring-open-infrastructure-needs-in-latin-america-africa-and-asia-a-new-research-project/). In this exploratory research project, we interviewed 20+ infrastructure service providers, institutional librarians and research support staff, researchers, funders supporting research, technology and ICT infrastructure, and government actors and policymakers, to find out more about their organizations’ work, strengths and challenges, as well as their opinion on the challenges and risks facing the sector in their regions.
We will also outline some recent efforts in incorporating what we have learnt into the tools and guidance we are building, including the Catalog of Open Infrastructure Services (COIs, https://investinopen.org/catalog), and the next steps for this exploration.
Open access to research is a vital aspect of promoting human development and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as recognised by UNESCO. The SDGs implicitly and explicitly recognise that open research ultimately contributes to societal progress.
The Chief Scientist of Australia, Dr Cathy Foley, commenced her current term by announcing she would champion open access to research as one of the four critical foundational issues to be addressed. This announcement immediately gave a boost to the open access movement in Australia, adding weight and impetus for a national open access strategy.
This presentation will highlight some initiatives in open access in Australia over the last 20 years against the background of developments worldwide. We have come a long way since the Budapest Open Access Initiative in trying to realise the goal of making research openly accessible with examples of open practices in all aspects of academic life across the world: in open access publishing, and open data accompanied by open access mandates, open repositories and open access journals.
Whilst Plan S has been leading the way in Europe, Australia is starting to make strides towards open access research, supported by the work of the Council of Australian University Librarians and Open Access Australasia. As Dr Foley has emphasised, “The work of Australian scientists is, after all, paid for by Australian taxpayers ... it makes no sense for the outcomes of that work to be secreted away behind a paywalls”.
This presentation will investigate the opportunities and challenges that are identified. It will also showcase and further explore open access initiatives with our near neighbours in the Pacific Islands. Open access publishing and open practices ensure equality of access to all, the haves and the have-nots, and over time advance the principles of social justice.
Currently, paradigm shift, development of ways and strategies to transit and implement open science and its processes are in focus of global attention and are part of agendas of Governments and Institutions with purpose of foster implement principles, factors and collaborative processes to equitably expand access, reproducibility and management of data and research outputs publicly funded.
In this regard, to open science collaboration of various actors is relevant, therefore it is raised that libraries and opening of science are linked by common objectives, due to libraries are actors that develop many ways to access information; and open science is an action that promotes free circulation of processes, data and results derived from scientific activity; then it can be assumed that in said relationship both the actor and the action contribute to satisfy information needs.
Based on all before mentioned, aim of this work is to study relationship between open science and academic and research libraries in Latin America, based on analyzing factors, actions and library functions of region to foster openness.
Methodology for this study is carried out with a mixed investigation, in which inclusiveness factors of open science are analyzed and to verify assumptions made an exploratory study is carried out with defined variables on actions of opening science and research data management that academic libraries in Latin America based on consulting Web portals of library entities and specialized data sources. Findings obtained about raised link between open science and research data management with academic libraries are proved with a proposal model about how functions libraries, such as management and planning, collection development, information organization, and information services, are compatible and useful so that data and research outputs be FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) in order to further inclusiveness so that societies using openly such resources.
A general conclusion of this study is that academic libraries in Latin America are actors and laboratories with methodological and pragmatic elements so that contribute to reproducibility, transparency, management, organization and open access to data and research outputs, to support the trend toward of paradigm shift that scholarly communication system requires.
Structure of this study is of three parts: first, analysis of open science and its inclusiveness factors is presented; second, methodology and exploratory study on open science actions and research data management in Latin America are exposed; and third, a model of implementation on how main functions academic libraries support of openness of science and research data management is raised.
The emergence of open educational resources (OER) promotes open access with the purpose of widening information access. This causes many higher education institutions to rely on shadow information technology for information access and service delivery. Eventually, shadow information technology principles contradict open education principles. In the event of adoption and development of OER, academics, developers, and students opt for different software or system software based on the system's usability and preferences. Higher education institutions like the University of South Africa are still conscious of IT policy in regard to the appropriation of prescribed ICT. However, this institution advocates for the adoption and development of OER. This study opted for a qualitative approach. The innovation diffusion theory was used to investigate the opportunities and challenges encountered by academics in the utilisation of shadow information technology in the advent of OER. The data source was the academics responsible for tuition and research. For data triangulation purposes, documents such as information and communication technology (ICT) policy, tuition policy, and Comprehensive Open Distance e-learning (CODEL) policy were considered. The study found that the advent of OER has the opportunity to dismantle the shadow information technology prescriptions. This was elicited during the adoption and development as they used different systems and software to create OER suitable for their tuition. This is an indication that academic stakeholders continue to break the shadow IT roles unaware by being innovative and at the same time complying with the institutional mandate of open access in education. Therefore, the revision of institutional ICT and tuition policies needs to broaden its scope by taking cognisance of both OER and shadow IT concurrently. For future research, the study proposes a broader study that looks at shadow IT for open access in public sectors of South Africa.
The positive and global impact of open access to research literature for readers has been documented consistently over the years. However, as a negative side-effect some authors have experienced reduced access to be published open access. This is often due to author-pay business models that require the author or the author’s institution to pay a fee to be published.
In this session the focus will be on academic books (monographs, edited collections etc.). The proliferation of the BPC (Book Processing Charge) model for books challenges researchers in the arts and humanities, where book publishing is most common but funding opportunities generally lower than in other disciplines. BPCs also have a negative impact on authors from less-resourced institutions, particularly in the Global South.
Authors from those regions have to find other ways of publishing and disseminating their works. Local or regional based institutional and/or library publishing is one answer to this challenge. However, such publishing initiatives often need support and capacity to tackle the key functions of scholarly communication: registration, certification, dissemination, preservation, and evaluation.
The open infrastructure services for peer-reviewed books, OAPEN and the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) have for more than ten years supported book publishers in the area of these key functions. OAPEN and DOAB connect thousands of peer-reviewed open access books from hundreds of publishers with academic libraries and readers around the world using a variety of channels and open metadata formats.
This session will highlight how OAPEN and DOAB are already working together with libraries and publishers to bring more equity into scholarly book publishing, for instance by supporting institutional publishing across disciplines, language areas, and geographies. This aligns well with OAPEN’s and DOAB’s mission to support bibliodiversity using their open infrastructures to make diversity, equity, and inclusion work in practice. The session will also share insights into concrete initiatives that are exploring how books from the African continent can become just as discoverable in Harare as at Harvard.
[DOAB and DOAJ collaborate closely. DOAJ has also submitted a proposal. We would be open to delivering our two sessions together, or combining them into a longer presentation to explore issues surrounding both books and journals].
The widespread move to open access is breaking down barriers to access information. So far the focus of the journal open access transition has been on opening up access to information between researchers in the global north, and ensuring that those outside the global north are also able to access this information. However, evidence indicates that the current focus on author-pays models for journal articles is replacing one form of inequity with another: the inability to access research with the inability to publish research.
The recent PKP (Public Knowledge Project) study to analyse the global Open Journal Systems landscape revealed the true diversity of this ecosystem: over 25,000 journals, with nearly 80% from outside the global north and 84% following the Diamond OA model (charging neither authors nor readers). As well as playing a societal role by being embedded in local culture and context, local publications also promote the visibility of unique local and national research with wider relevance. However, many of these journals are challenged in terms of resources, standards and tools. They are also invisible to researchers across the world, not being indexed as part of the major global north commercial systems.
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is committed to increasing the visibility and impact of all quality, peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language. This session will highlight how DOAJ is supporting Diamond and institutional journals across the world: enhancing the discovery and visibility of local research, and improving awareness of open access and journal standards through its ambassador programme, projects and initiatives. It will also explore ways libraries are already working with DOAJ to facilitate knowledge creation and dissemination within local communities: supporting, nurturing, and hosting local journals, and ensuring that research from the full diversity of the scholarly communications system is available to their users.
[DOAJ and DOAB collaborate closely. DOAB has also submitted a proposal. We would be open to delivering our two sessions together, or combining them into a longer presentation to explore issues surrounding both books and journals]
Open knowledge has the potential to expand inclusive and equitable access to lifelong learning while supporting social inclusion. It is a common knowledge that Higher education in Nigeria has actively joined the open knowledge movement in the last decade by implementing policies supporting the adoption, creation and use of Open Educational Resources (OERs). With the involvement of some universities in the open knowledge movement, Nigeria as a developing country on the periphery of the global hub is becoming an active player in the creation of Open Educational Resources (OERs) as most universities now offer open access to their learning modules, course materials, research articles, and other educational useful materials through their websites and open source software-based repositories. However, there is low public awareness on issues around inclusiveness, especially for students with visual disabilities who were unable to use the medium of the sighted owning to the consequences of their disabilities.
The exclusion may not be un-connected with issues such as: inability to access OERs from websites and Learning Management Systems (LMS); inability to read learning materials (especially materials with graphical images and video clips); lack of web-based library resources (for example- open access e-books, e-journals and Online Public Access Catalogue); inflexible time limits built into online learning and examinations; inadequate institutional and human capacities required for libraries to convert learning resources to alternative formats and lack of needed assistive technologies. This paper discusses various attempt on integration of inclusive institutional culture in Nigerian university system. Using a mixed method approach, purposive sampling technique was used to select participants from four public universities admitting students with visual disabilities in Nigeria. Research instruments used include semi- structured interviews with university librarians in participating universities while focus group discussion was used to gather data from students living with visual disabilities. Data from interviews was designed towards achieving qualitative analyses and results was descriptively logical and futuristic in dimension. Data generated from focus group discussion was analysed thematically. The study provides insightful thoughts and direction on re-imagining the future of open knowledge movement in Nigeria and the rest of Africa.
As open research practices continue to become more common across the globe, it is important to consider how the resulting open data and scholarship can be made truly and equitably open to all users. A key, but unfortunately still often overlooked, aspect of this work is ensuring that the scholarship that is shared is disseminated in an accessible format. With approximately 15% of the world's population experiencing some form of disability and more than one billion people world wide using one or more assistive devices, it is imperative that the needs of these users are considered in the quest to make open research more inclusive. As long as these needs are overlooked or under-resourced, the world of research, data, and publication can never be fully open to all.
This presentation will highlight common existing accessibility issues in the practice of open research and best practices for integrating accessibility into the early stages of the open research and publishing lifecycle. The presentation will particularly focus on the mechanics of making open data, visualizations, and documents accessible to individuals using assistive devices. This will include best practices on formatting data sets for accessibility, the steps to creating accessible documents, with a particular focus on PDFs, and an overview of approaches to creating data visualizations that are accessible with assistive devices. The presentation will make the case that participants at all points in the scholarly communication lifecycle must develop a basic understanding of accessibility best practices and an inclusive mindset to strengthen open research practices and achieve the full potential of open scholarship. Attendees will leave with an understanding of what is needed to ensure that the open research community is inclusive of disabled individuals and ready to take the first steps towards this goal at their own institutions and in their own work.
Since at least with the advent of requirements for more openness in scholarship it has become clear that a research assessment system relying solely on counting output and impact will no longer work. Many steps in opening up the research cycle need more diligence and require additional rounds of documentation and checking, therefore doing open scholarship is somewhat contradictory to concepts like increasing output and impact.
Furthermore, the data sources and indicators research assessment is currently relying on lack transparency, do not cover the work of all scientific communities in terms of e.g. language, region or publication types, and are also prone to manipulation. Therefore the need for more transparency and open metrics is also expressed in this context in order to put research assessment on a new basis.
Several stakeholders such as the European Commission [1] and European University Alliance (EUA) [2] or initiatives like the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) [3] or the Initiative for Science in Europe [4] – just to name a few – suggest a reform of the current research assessment system and also give a framework how the changes should look like. Initiatives like the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) [5] or the Leiden Manifesto [6] have suggested already several years ago to refrain from relying on journal based metrics alone, consider alternative metrics in order to widen the picture, and to strive for more transparency when calculating indicators.
The presentation will give an overview on the various position papers and initiatives that deal with these issues: What do they suggest with regard to reforming the research assessment system? How can research assessment become more responsible, inclusive and transparent in order to truly serve open scholarship?
[1] Towards a reform of the research assessment system: https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/707440
[2] Reimagining Academic Career Assessment: Stories of innovation and change: https://eua.eu/downloads/publications/eua-dora-sparc_case%20study%20report.pdf
[3] The Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment: https://coara.eu/agreement/the-agreement-full-text/
[4] Centrality of researchers in reforming research assessment: https://initiative-se.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2022-03-16_ise_report_online_final.pdf
[5] DORA: https://sfdora.org/
[6] Leiden Manifesto: https://doi.org/10.1038/520429a