Inclusion
Scientists for Open Science
13th September 2021
Science is stronger when we work together — across distance, discipline and career stage.
Open Science fosters an environment where more scientific minds can work together toward solutions.
Open Access licensing allows all researchers, practitioners and students to read the latest scientific advances without a subscription, immediately upon publication. Sharing research artifacts like detailed methods, raw data, and code helps to contextualize the work, deepen understanding, and facilitate reproduction and adaptation. Together, expanded access and improved documentation enable more researchers to apply knowledge. Draw inspiration. And contribute their own insight and advances to the scientific record.
Monday 13th September
Charting a new path towards equity, diversity and inclusion
A conversation to help us understand the importance of DEI consideration in Open Science, via learnings and insights from the field of Global Health.
Speakers
Catherine Kyobutungi, Executive Director of the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). Co-Editor-in-Chief, PLOS Global Public Health
Madhukar Pai, Canada Research Chair in Epidemiology & Global Health, McGill University, Montreal, Co-Editor-in-Chief, PLOS Global Public Health
Julia Robinson, Executive Editor, PLOS Global Public Health, PLOS
The need for equity in publishing models
In this live online discussion, panelists discussed the need for better business models for Open Access and Open Science, especially models that are more inclusive of all disciplines and global regions and economies.
Speakers
Sara Rouhi, Director of Strategic Partnerships, PLOS
Emily Farrell, Library Partnerships & Sales Lead, MIT Press
Sharla Lair, Senior Strategist of Open Access & Scholarly Communication Initiatives, LYRASIS
This live audio discussion has ended, but a recording will be uploaded here in the future. Check back soon! In the meantime, please visit this Twitter thread for more information on the models discussed today.
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31 responses to “Inclusion: Monday’s full program”
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Science is an honest process for the benefit of all humanity. Therefore, humanity has the responsibility to pay for the publication of meritorious research output from anywhere in the world and to make it available for all who want to progress out of its outcome. In this regard, open access is highly valuable, but demanding a high amount as APC would act against the promotion of merit from among all. Instead, it would promote the publication of only mediocrity with the ability to pay for it. APC is totally against the concept of inclusiveness and promotion of merit and commitment to truth, which are hallmarks of science!
In my opinion, if APC needs to be continued, there should be sufficient international understanding and agreements among nations (there should be a UN decision on the same) for state payments of the cost of publication of accepted articles in internationally recognized journals!
No individual should be favoured or affected by the APC for publication of their meritorious findings.
When all the findings are freely available through open access, for all, for the common good, individual nations have obligations to bear the cost of the same of citizens from their own nations! It would be the financial contribution of a nation to the welfare of the whole of humanity.
Totally agree
SCIENCE MUST NOT BE OPEN ONLY THOSE WHO HAVE MONEY TO PAY FOR PUBLICATION-PROCESSING etc. There is huge amount of money being asked for the payment and lonely research worker with no support can never pay. All such payments must be supported by the grants to be arranged by the Journals or such agencies which encourage Science by allotting funds.
Science is search for truth and all should be included in this search in one way or other by participating in this effort or appreciating effort for better use to improve societies ,cultures ,and common well being of all from human to animals .
Parabéns aos editores da revista PLOS pela iniciativa. A primeira vez que participo de uma discussão como essa. No Brasil, os pesquisadores têm enfrentado problemas sérios de financiamento de suas pesquisas. Com a desvalorização do real frente a moedas internacionais realmente ficou muito complicado. Mas, como somos pesquisadores pro ativos, continuamos na luta para produzir ciência de qualidade.
Thank you for this webinar. It has really highlighted issues that we as young researchers from developing countries encounter regularly. Science is a public good where we attempt to voice the first hand experiences of our communities through our research so there is any kind of improvement in their circumstances.
I completely agree with the issues regarding the APC and the language barrier, that we (I) are facing. I depend very much on the sponsors/research grant, which is also very high competitive. It is true that the APC of some reputable journals ranges between 1/3 to 1/2 of total research budget.
Is good
I agree 100% with those commenting here on the language issues. How can you build DEI into science if the “best” journals only publish in English? There needs to be a translation service, at the very least, that allows editors from any nation to edit and review papers. Journals need to accept manuscripts in different languages, which can then be translated in-house. It’s not as if only English-speaking scientists know how to do good science!
I’d like to join the group
Thanks in advance
I would like to join the group.
We can only be more productive in science when we become more objective and open minded.
Globally, the biggest deficit in inclusion is that many people live in countries that cannot (or do not) currently invest in all the equipment, facilities, and training needed for much top-notch cutting-edge research; but without these things, it is inordinately difficult for inspired and talented individuals to hone their skills or be recognized.
I would therefore massively expand micropublications (with peer review, albeit less intensive than in most journals) to include all scientific fields, and a variety of languages, to boost ease of access and visibility for the kind of high-quality science that can be done even with limited resources, and if it were possible, provide pressure for micropublications to be the primary metric by which scientists were judged for funding and hiring. (Good searching facilities for these micropublications, and non-citation-based importance metrics like number of unique views, would probably also be important.)
Great, well-funded labs can write great micropublications if they choose. But so too can greatly inspired but poorly-funded scientists who tackle critical issues with skill using techniques within their means. What is most lacking is not rigor, thoughtfulness, or statistical soundness (all these things can be developed in almost any setting), but the ability to draw together a wide variety of experiments to tell one compelling, important story. Masterful evidence-backed stories are important, but they shouldn’t drown out the important singular contributions.
I would hope that this would make an outsized and relatively rapid impact for a modest investment.
At the beginning of the covid crisis, I saw several articles on covid and vascular problems, publications and press articles on Facebook. I forwarded them to our health journal, I had the feeling that there should be much more science communication even between official doctors and scientists.
A second issue is environmental, things like mass bird deaths or increase lightning happen in many places, and it would be great to have a tool to report them, communication, etc
I think that to improve inclusion of the sciences as a goal we need to improve participation of the collective studies also we need to improve translation efforts and more participation from those students and scientists how work in the practical fields to publish and participate there studies in the journals of related fields .
Thanks a lot for the open discussion on this topic. I really enjoyed all the bits and at some points as if the discussants were speaking my mind.
Thank you for letting us know, Aliyu!
I enjoy the discovery of equity in publication in International journals. It is such a priviledge to share what is in developing world and attract collaborations . I am the victim in Africa, young researchers halted to grow into research if marginalized through high fees, regional and race standards.
with open access , it built trust of information after sharing with the author ,e.g of the raw data or any of doubts and similarities.
PLOS has made a huge alarm with this webnair
Publication fees in most indexed journals are horrendously high for those of us, without funding for publication and hailing in LMIC countries. I do believe, if scientific knowledge needs to be shared globally, then fees would have to be made commensurate to capability of the authors to pay! I do hope this will be considered please
This is an interesting topic. Inclusion has to be done in at regional, national and international level.
There is a diversity in journal submission and it is not easy for African graduate to get easily scientific writing skills to be able to international impacted journal.
Another main limiting factor for francophone countries is the langage barrier. Can you imagine that it is very hard to find journal rpublishing in French?
It is difficult for us from Africa to afford publication cost of high impacted journal. Unless you have a project that take care of that cost. Sometime, one is obliged to sell his paper in a low cost journal.
O endorse your comment. Although we know about APCs, researchers from a lot of countries cannot pay for most of APCs in any of the international journals. We say that science should be based only on merit but if the actual system for OA will be the future, just rich developed countries will be on science, developing and underdeveloped countries will not be supported because they simply cannot pay those fees. I think the publishers should understand more in depth the reality of each country and the APCs should be based accordingly! So, this will be fare enough and be inclusive! For example, how can I pay for a US $1500 APC if this is 1/3 of the amount of my funded projects in Brazil!
Maryann, and others who have commented here: thank you for your comments! We agree, and this is our hope with the new models we are developing that move beyond article publication fees. Like this one: https://plos.org/resources/global-equity-model/
I agree with your argument, as other colleagues have already done. Publication fees and current criteria (eg LMIC countries) used to promote discounts to authors need review.
Brazil, which is currently off the LMIC list, is going through one of the worst phases of science funding. Thus, few laboratories are able to pay these fees. Most laboratories and/or researchers cannot afford this expense.
I have interested to join this group……
Editors should not be bias, arrogant and should show scientific objectivity on the judgment of a manuscript rather than where the authors come from. True and learned editors are humble enough to ask reviewers on the right field/subject for a particular manuscript rather than they trash a manuscript based on their lack of in-depth understanding of the subject arrogantly.
If I would be in the leadership team of open science promotion, I would make a different project. I would build a collaborative project with the journals and collect the manuscripts from them the articles those are being rejected due to the poor communication only. Then I would further communicate with the authors of those manuscripts separately and try to understand if the those research was done for a impactful aim and using a good methodology. I finally would collaborate them to improve the communication with the help of some good science communicator. I think that we are missing a bulk of evidences those are being filtered out only for not communicating properly in a specified language (e.g., English and other European languages).
I would consider the manuscripts those are being rejected due to poor communication of the research to further communicate with the authors of those manuscripts separately. This may help us to include many important works in open science era those may not be included due to poor communication.
I think tropical science would be much more publicized if we researchers had more opportunities to support us to improve our communication in English. I really need peer support to improve my English. I always study, I always strive, but I didn’t have the opportunity to immerse myself in an English-speaking country. This greatly limits my greater interaction with researchers from other countries.
Dear,
I think tropical science would be much more publicized if we researchers had more opportunities to support us to improve our communication in English. I really need peer support to improve my English. I always study, I always strive, but I didn’t have the opportunity to immerse myself in an English-speaking country. This greatly limits my greater interaction with researchers from other countries.
Including the community we serve to share our knowledge with them.
I’d like to join the group.