What is Open Science?

The term 'Open Science' has not yet a universally accepted definition, but usually refers to one core theme: Increasing knowledge availability as a public good, typically with critical research principles such as credibility, reproducibility, and verifiability included in some combination. Open Science can broadly be viewed as a way of enhancing scientific progress through sharing of knowledge and methods, wider collaboration, and increased rigour and is indirectly already postulated as part of our/researchers' collective core values and Good Scientific Practices. Often, the usage of Open Science seems to be based around three core things: Processes (e.g., collaboration, reproducibility), Products (e.g., Open Data, Open Materials), and Values (e.g., freedom, equity). This seems to form a chain reaction and positive feedback loop, where values drive a particular process, which in turn scopes the products of research.

The values inherent to Open Science have again not yet been rigorously defined or accepted by the global research community. However, there are a number of inherent values that come up time and time again in discussions of openness. These key, value-based goals of the Open Science community include:

• Freely available access to all outputs of the whole research process
• Equity and inclusive participation in research
• Diverse and creative interpretations of scientific results
• Rigorous, transparent, and responsible evaluation of research processes and outcomes
• Collaborative re-use of research outcomes, reducing costs, waste and redundancy
• Comprehensive research practices incentivised through more diverse reward systems
• Accelerated research discovery, innovation and public impact
• Increasing reproducibility of research results, enhancing trustability and integrity

Open Science is often communicated as an alternative to many modern or traditional scientific methods. We argue that Open Science is an enhancement of the traditional process, using new knowledge, skills, and technologies to improve how the process and outputs of research are communicated.