(22 Jan 2024) Open science is a broad term that refers to the movement of making the entire research life cycle freely available to everyone, from citizens and students to research professionals. This includes sharing research plans, protocols, materials, data and papers through open-access platforms.
The practice of open science is on an upswing. PLOS, a non-profit publisher of open-access journals, found that the rates of data-repository use rose from 22% in 2019 to 28% in 2022 for more than 71,000 papers published in its journals during that time. The rates of preprints associated with published articles also increased, from 15% in 2019 to 24% in 2022. A 2006 study that analysed close to 1,500 published papers found evidence that open-access articles had higher numbers of citations by peers than did non-open-access articles published in the same journal after controlling for factors such as field, the number of authors and journal impact factor.
Although many researchers wholeheartedly embrace open-access publishing, the open sharing of laboratory materials, reagents and protocols has seen a slower adoption, mostly owing to a lack of awareness on how to properly share them and poor incentives.
Nature has the article in full here.
