Sample Blog Article
August 13, 2024
In the research publishing landscape, where the scholarly record and research integrity are continually facing new challenges, open research practices are more important than ever. In this piece, we’re exploring what open research practices are.
What is open research?
Open research, often used interchangeably with “open science”, covers a range of practices designed to improve the accessibility, reproducibility, and integrity of research outcomes. At its heart, open research encourages transparency and collaboration by using digital tools that facilitate information sharing to enable robust and practical responses to real-world challenges.
While both traditional publishing and open research contribute to the advancement of knowledge, open research effectively facilitates progress by breaking down barriers and fostering a more inclusive research ecosystem. This is done through publishing open access and adopting open research practices, such as open data, transparent peer review, and more. Learn more about these below.
A quick guide to open research practices
Data Sharing
Data sharing is the sharing of data underlying research by including data availability statements and data citations in every article. Through openly sharing research data, the transparency and reproducibility of findings is increased.
Ideally, the data shared should follow the FAIR Principles and be:
- Findable: With a unique and persistent identifier (DOI)
- Accessible: Retrievable by that identifier
- Interoperable: Formatted so diverse datasets can be combined in meaningful ways
- Reusable: Peer review is done on data submitted alongside journal articles.
Collaboration between researchers, funders, institutions, policymakers, infrastructure providers (including repositories), and publishers is vital to make FAIR data a reality.
Pre-registration and registered reports
Preregistration involves outlining the study rationale and research methodology, and publicly registering this in a repository before carrying out the study. Peer review is conducted before the research occurs, and before any data is collected. The peer review focuses on the importance of the research question and the quality of the proposed methodology.
Using registered reports and pre-registering study protocols enhances transparency around research processes, which deters questionable research practices, reduces publication bias, improves study design, and prevents p-hacking.
Preprints
Preprints are complete drafts of manuscripts that are shared quickly under open access licenses, prior to or alongside peer review, by uploading them to public repositories (known as preprint servers). This makes the manuscript available to the global research community, which helps accelerate research dissemination and foster collaboration.
Persistent identifiers (PIDs)
Persistent identifiers (PIDs) such as DOI, ORCID, and ROR are community-based infrastructures that increase transparency, equity, and fairness to better serve the interests of the academic community and the public.
PIDs are unique references that help identify researchers, research institutions, and digital objects like software and datasets. The ‘persistent’ in PIDs means that even if the object they identify is moved or changed the PID will continue to point to that object.
- A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is a unique and never-changing string assigned to articles, preprints, and other publications. They provide a way for humans and machines to keep track of outputs, and they ensure that a link to a specific piece of research can be found, even if the infrastructure around that digital object changes. They uphold the discoverability, accessibility, and persistent citations of research.
- An ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a unique identifier for researchers. It helps distinguish researchers with the same name and creates a living record of professional activities. As a researcher, you can use your ORCID to build your professional reputation and improve discoverability.
- A ROR (Research Organization Registry) ID uniquely identifies research organizations (universities, institutions, and hospitals). It standardizes affiliations, ensuring accurate tracking and monitoring of researcher affiliations, helping institutions measure their research outputs more accurately.
DOI, ORCID, and ROR are made and managed by collaborative initiatives within an open research infrastructure framework. This framework ensures that the metadata associated with these PIDs remains accessible to the scientific community even if the organizations administering the PIDs no longer exist.
Transparent peer review
Transparent peer review initiatives provide visibility into an article’s entire peer review process, from the initial reviews to the author's revisions and the editor’s decision(s). Each element of the peer review process is assigned its own DOI, so readers can easily reference and cite the relevant peer review content.
Less of the review process happens behind closed doors, which means new levels of accountability and insights for you. This also brings greater accountability to the peer review process and recognition for the work of peer reviewers and editors.
Which journals use open research practices?
To find more information about the open research policies used across our journals, see how we are increasing transparency across the publishing process. You can find information about the open research and data sharing policies for specific journals by using the comparison feature on our Journal Finder.
Look out for more blogs soon, diving further into each aspect of open research and how they can improve research integrity.
