This week, we share the results of the largest survey on open access data. We hear about the role of artificial intelligence in scientific communication and the growing importance of diversity, equity and inclusion within science. Finally, we share a new resource to help create and share information about open access.
To read:
A survey of motivations and challenges in open access data via Digital Science | 1-hour read
Over the past 6 years, Digital Science have collected data from their State of Open Data survey. Overall, they have responses from 21 000 researchers from 192 countries, providing detailed insights into their motivations, challenges, perceptions and behaviours towards open data. Here, they have released a comprehensive report of their findings. Some of the key findings include growing familiarity and compliance with the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) data principles, concerns about sharing and misuse of data, and a discussion of the key roles that repositories, publishers and institutional libraries have in making data openly accessible.
The climate crisis and open access via BMJ | 5-minute read
Open Pharma’s Caitlin Edgell wrote an opinion piece for BMJ Opinion on the importance of open access to climate research. She argues that the same commitment to open access shown by scientific publishers with COVID-19 should be made in combatting climate change.
Diversity, equity and inclusion in scholarly publishing via The Scholarly Kitchen | 8-minute read
Over the past decade, the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SPP) have increased their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in scholarly publishing. At SSP’s most recent 43rd annual meeting, they featured four DEI-focused sessions. Reflections on these sessions have been summarized in a series of four blog posts. Part 2 and Part 3 are also available, with Part 4 coming soon.
Artificial intelligence and scientific communication via The Publication Plan | 8-minute read
In this blog post, Ian Haslam (PhD) argues that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in scientific communication is rapidly growing and could increase the quality of published content. The article examines the use of AI across several functions of scholarly publishing, from literature searching to publication production.
Sciety’s open access commitment via Sciety | 10-minute read
Sciety, a platform developed by a team within eLife, are committed to the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure. In this article, Sciety outline their performance against each principle and what they are doing to work towards full compliance with the principles.
To engage with:
Create and share open access resources via Open Access Australasia
Open Access Australasia have designed several resources that will help you create and share information about open access and advocate it. They have also released a video explaining how to do this.
State of Open Data 2021 via figshare and Springer Nature
On 8 December 2021 (Mark Hahnel (CEO of figshare) will present the key findings from the State of Open Data survey, which was mentioned earlier. He will also be joined by Greg Goodey (Research Analyst at Springer Nature), who will provide a background overview of the survey design and distribution. The session will be hosted on Zoom and will be free.
Patient Engagement Open Forum 2021 via Patient Focused Medicines Development
The Patient Engagement Open Forum is being held virtually this year. The latest series of talks will take place from 7 to 9 December 2021. The forum features a series of online sessions and webinars that focus on facilitating collaboration and co-creation of solutions for patients and with patients.
Have you read our recommendations for plain language summaries of peer-reviewed medical journal publications? Find out more here and join the discussion on social media using the hashtag #PlainLanguageSummaries!
