
Encouraging Innovation in Open Scholarship While Fostering Trust
Encouraging Innovation in Open Scholarship While Fostering Trust https://opusproject.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/open-umbrella-1024x576.png 1024 576 Open and Universal Science (OPUS) Project Open and Universal Science (OPUS) Project https://opusproject.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/open-umbrella-1024x576.pngBY ZEN FAULKES AND HALEY HAZLETT, DECLARATION ON RESEARCH ASSESSMENT (DORA)
“Responsible research assessment & open scholarship are interconnected.”
— Zen Faulkes & Haley Hazlett, DORA
In recent years, the landscape of research assessment has been evolving to better recognize and reward open scholarship and preprints. This shift is driven by funding organizations and academic institutions aiming to enhance transparency, accessibility, and equity in research.
In this piece, Zen Faulkes, Program Director at The Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), and Haley Hazlett, Program Manager at DORA, explore how emerging policies are reshaping research evaluation, the challenges of moving away from traditional metrics, and the vital role of fostering trust in the open scholarship ecosystem.
Emerging Policies to Recognize Preprints and Open Scholarship
Research funding organizations and academic institutions are crucial in setting the tone for research assessment. Increasingly, they are embedding open scholarship into their policies and practices. Examples include Wellcome, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment of Aotearoa New Zealand, the University of Zurich, and the Open University.
Policies recognizing preprints as evidence of research activity are also becoming more common (e.g., NIH, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Wellcome, EMBO, and some UKRI Councils). Some funders, such as EMBO and many cOAlition S funders, now equate peer-reviewed preprints with journal articles. Preprints, scholarly manuscripts posted on public servers before journal acceptance, are freely accessible and often posted within days, enabling immediate dissemination and feedback. By decoupling research quality from journal prestige, preprints can support responsible assessment and reduce publication costs.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s upcoming Open Access Policy in 2025 exemplifies significant policy change. This policy mandates grantees to share preprints of their research and ends the payment of article processing charges (APCs). These changes, aimed at providing journal-agnostic avenues for research assessment and reducing costs, were informed by ten years of data and community dialogue. As the wealthiest major research funder to mandate preprints, the Gates Foundation’s policy emphasizes preprints and shifts away from APCs, spotlighting trust in preprints.
Overcoming the Status Quo and Addressing New Challenges
Moving away from traditional research assessment metrics involves overcoming status quo bias and addressing new challenges. Concerns include how assessors will treat preprints and how preprints will affect traditional peer review processes. Preprints are lightly checked before public posting, after which community feedback can highlight issues early. Expert consensus recently defined preprint “review” criteria, enhancing trust in preprint feedback.
Services like VeriXiv, Peer Community In, and Review Commons provide journal-independent assessments of preprints, promoting transparency and accountability. However, concerns about transparency-related retaliation, especially for early career researchers, require further study.
Organizations like the Research on Research Institute and ASAPbio are actively addressing these challenges, studying the effects of policy changes and supporting rigorous and transparent preprint review processes. Fear of unintended consequences should not hinder efforts to improve research incentives and culture.
Responsible Research Assessment and Open Scholarship: Interconnected Concepts
Responsible research assessment aims to reward high-quality research and support diverse and inclusive research cultures. Open scholarship, defined by UNESCO, seeks to make scientific knowledge accessible and reusable for everyone, fostering collaboration and societal engagement. These concepts are intertwined with equity and inclusion, as biases and assumptions about research quality affect assessments.
DORA is a global initiative advocating for responsible research assessment, reducing emphasis on flawed proxy measures like the Impact Factor or h-index, and broadening the recognition of diverse scholarly outputs. Many academic institutions are incorporating open scholarship into their assessment practices, as documented in DORA’s Reformscape database.
Building Trust through Open Scholarship
Trust in research is built through transparency and expert opinion. Open scholarship emphasizes making all research stages visible, complementing traditional peer-reviewed journals. Studies suggest minimal differences between peer-reviewed articles and preprints, which are gaining acceptance among researchers and reporters.
Understanding trustworthy scholarly communication is complex for both experts and non-experts. Increased media literacy could benefit the latter, as it is currently taught to less than half of US high school students.
Call to Action
Reforming research assessment requires embracing diverse scholarly outputs, reducing the emphasis on journal prestige, and evaluating research based on its intrinsic value. Recognizing transparency, rigor, and high-quality review in preprints can foster trust. Efforts to index and link reviews to preprints and develop consistent trust signals are underway, alongside educating the public about open scholarship practices.
DORA advocates iteratively fine-tuning policies using data and community input. As more research funders and institutions reward open scholarship, it is crucial to review, refine, and openly discuss these policies’ impacts on research culture.
Original article at Templeton
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