„Scientific writing in an open platform“

Christian Heise

christianhei.se• political scientist in cultural studies interested in „openness“ (biased?)

• worked in (media) publishing industry (DIE ZEIT/German Press Agency)

• changed to Leuphana University (Centre for Digital Cultures / Hybrid Publishing Lab) researching new forms of scholarly communication in the digital age, Lecturer in the Digital Media Bachelor’s program

• opening up networks at Förderverein Freie Netzwerke e.V. (freifunk.net)

• opening up knowledge at Open Knowledge Foundation Germany e.V. (okfn.de)

My doctoral thesis• rough focus: research on the status of openness in scientific

communication & actually do open science as part of the needed negotiation process on the criteria of the future of science

• amongst other things, inspired by my work on the translation of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI 10) Recomondations

• handed in an Exposé in November 2012 and opened it immediately ;)

• asked PhD commission in 2013 if it’s possible to write the whole PhD „as open as possible“

Thesis: From Open Access to Open Science

Structure of the Thesis (live.offene-doktorarbeit.de):

1. Basics on Open Access/Open Science and more about the history of openness in science

2. Evaluate on debates on openness in literature, identifying challenges regarding openness in scientific communication

3. Conducting a survey: comparative study asking more than 1.112 (german-speaking) scientists on various issues of openness in scientific communications

4. Ethnographic research: documenting the process of writing a PhD as open as possible

5. Discussion and Conclusion

„Publish everything of the PhD research process as soon as possible, as comprehensive as possible under an open license (see opendefinition.org),

online available at all time for everyone.“ — http://offene-doktorarbeit.de/ueber/

What does „open as possible“ mean? (including a promise)

What does „open as possible“ mean?

• planning and development of the scientific research question (Exposé) live in a Blog

• documented research process (writing, survey, presentations in colloquium…) live in a blog and on a writing platform (Authorea) as soon as the PhD commission allowed to do that

• research analysis and evaluation procedure was done open —> interim results and raw data were published immediately on the Blog and via data wrapper

• communication of the results was also done immediately and in open formats (.csv)

(main) Obstacles• organizational: Permission by the University took nearly a year December

2013

• social: fear orthography, fear of make a fool of oneself :), fear of idea theft…

• technical: technical issues (Authorea could not handle the length), Platforms for Scientific writing were very rare in 2013 and did not fulfill the requirements

(part of the) Solution• organizational: don’t stop arguing and wait ;)

• social: get used to it…

• technical: connected Authorea to GitHub; build own Software to show .tex from GitHub (authorea-github-tex-reader@GitHub) see: http://live.offene-doktorarbeit.de

Tips• check if openness is „allowed“ if not: try to get the permission

• gather technical know-how on the process of digital publishing/research methods

• make a good decision on the software you want to use

• schedule some extra time for the open process

• don’t expect to much and be careful with feedback

• document your work well

• use an open license

• What happens on the Internet stays on the Internet

• use your social networks and make the project public

• always make clear that your work ist work in progress

Q: How to overcome the „fear“ of opening up science? A: Just do it, it does not hurt!

Q: What are good reasons to open up science? A: By doing it, you can help to shape the criteria for the

future of science (in a digital world)!

Q: What is in it for me? A: Help to save the principles of academic autonomy and

freedom!

Conclusion

What else?

Let's keep in touch

http://christianhei.sehttp://offene-doktorarbeit.de

@christianheise