Guest post by Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health, building on his captivating presentation in Session 2 of the UCL Open Science Conference 2024.

Open Science brings risks and opportunities when considering dangers to the public from conducting and publishing science. Opportunities mean detailing societal problems and responses to them, which could galvanise positive action to make society safer. Examples are the effectiveness of anti-bullying techniques, health impacts from various paints, and companies selling cars they knew were dangerous.

Risks emerge if pursuing or publicising research might change or create dangers to the public. Highlighting how pickpockets or street scams operate help the public protect themselves, yet could lead the perpetrators to changing their operations, making them harder to detect. Emphasising casualties from cycling could lead to more driving, increasing the health consequences from air pollution and vehicle crashes.

The latter might be avoided by comparing cycling’s health benefits and risks, including with respect to air pollution and crashes. Meanwhile, understanding pickpocketing awareness and prevention should contribute to reducing this crime over the long-term, if people learn from the science and take action.

In other words, context and presentation matter for risks and opportunities from Open Science regarding dangers to the public. Sometimes, though, the context is that science can be applied nefariously.

Explosives research

Airplane security is a major concern for travellers, with most governments implementing stringent measures at airports and in the air. Legitimate research questions for public safety relate to smuggling firearms through airport security and the bomb resistance of different aircraft.

Fiction frequently speculates, including in movies. A Fish Called Wanda showed a loaded gun getting past airport security screening while Non-Stop portrayed a bomb placed aboard a commercial flight.

Desk analyses could and should discuss these scenes’ dramatism and level of realism, just as the movies are analysed in other ways. Scientists could and should work with governments, security organisations, airport authorities, and airline companies to understand threats to aviation and countering them.

Open Science could compromise the gains from this collaboration. It could reveal the bomb type required to breach an airport’s fuselage or the key ways to get a weapon on board. The satirical news service, The Onion, lampooned the presumption of publicising how to get past airport security.

Endangering activists

The public can endanger themselves by seeking Open Science. I ran a research project examining corporate social responsibility for Arctic petroleum with examples in Norway and Russia. In one Russian site, locals showed our researcher decaying oil and gas infrastructure, including leaks. These local activists were assured of confidentiality and anonymity, which is a moral imperative as well as a legal requirement.

Not all of them supported this lack of identification. They preferred entirely Open Science, hoping that researchers outside of Russia would have the credibility and influence to generate action for making their community and environment safer and healthier. They were well aware of the possible consequences of them being identified (or of publicising enough information to make them identifiable). They were willing to take these risks, hoping for gain.

We were not permitted to accede to their requests. We certainly published on and publicised our work, using as much Open Science as we could without violating our research ethics approval, as both an ethical and legal duty. We remain inspired and concerned that the activists, seeking to save their own lives, could pursue citizen science which, if entirely open as some of them would prefer, could place them in danger.

Caution, care, and balance

Open Science sometimes brings potential dangers to the public. Being aware of and cautious about these problems means being able to prevent them. Then, a balance can be achieved between needing Open Science and not worsening or creating dangers.

Guest post by Ilan Kelman, Professor of Disasters and Health, building on his captivating presentation in Session 2 of the UCL Open Science Conference 2024.

Open Science brings risks and opportunities regarding privacy. Making methods, data, analyses, disagreements, and conclusions entirely publicly available demonstrates the scientific process, including its messiness and uncertainties. Showing how much we do not know and how we aim to fill in gaps excites and encourages people about science and scientific careers. It also holds scientists accountable, since any mistakes can be identified and corrected, which is always an essential part of science.

Given these advantages, Open Science offers so much to researchers and to those outside research. It helps to make science accessible to anyone, notably for application, while supporting exchange with those inspired by the work.

People’s right to privacy, as an ethical and legal mandate, must still be maintained. If a situation might worsen by Open Science not respecting privacy, irrespective of it being legal, then care is required to respect those who would want or might deserve privacy. Anonymity and confidentiality are part of research ethics precisely to achieve a balance. Irrespective, Open Science might inadvertently reveal information sources or it could be feasible to identify research participants who would prefer not to be exposed. Being aware of possible pitfalls assists in preventing them.

Disaster decisions

Some research could be seen as violating privacy. Disaster researchers seek to understand who dies in disasters, how, and why, in order to improve safety for everyone and to save lives. The work can examine death certificates and pictures of dead bodies. Publicising all this material could violate the privacy and dignity of those who perished and could augment the grief of those left behind.

Sometimes, research hones in on problematic actions for improving without blaming, whereas society more widely might seek to judge. A handful of studies has examined the blood alcohol level of drivers who died while driving through floodwater, which should never be attempted even when sober (Figure 1). In many cases, the driver was above the legal limit for blood alcohol level. Rather than embarrassing the deceased by naming-and-shaming, it would help everyone to use the data as an impetus to tackle simultaneously the separate and unacceptable decisions to drive drunk, to drive drugged, and to drive through floodwater.

Yet storytelling can be a powerful communication technique to encourage positive behavioural change. If identifying details are used, then it must involve the individuals’ or their kin’s full and informed consent. Even with this consent, it might not be necessary to provide the full details, as a more generic narrative can remain emotional and effective. Opportunities for improving disaster decisions emerge in consensual sharing, so that it avoids violating privacy—while also being careful regarding the real need to publish the specifics of any particular story.

Figure 1: Researching the dangerous behaviour of people driving through floodwater, with the number plate blurred to protect privacy (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Small sample populations

Maintaining confidentiality and anonymity for interviewees can be a struggle where interviewees have comparatively unique experiences or positions and so are easily identifiable. Governments in jurisdictions with smaller populations might employ only a handful of people in the entire country who know about a certain topic. Stating that an interviewee is “A national government worker in Eswatini specialising in international environmental treaties” or “A megacity mayor” could narrow it down to a few people or to one person.

A similar situation arises with groups comprising a small number of people from whom to select interviewees, such as “vehicle business owners in Kiruna, Sweden”, “International NGO CEOs”, or specific elites. Even with thousands of possible interviewees, for instance “university chiefs” or “Olympic athletes”, quotations from the interview or locational details might make it easy to narrow down and single out a specific interviewee.

Interviewee identification can become even simpler when basic data on interviewees, such as sex and age range, are provided, as is standard in research papers. Providing interview data in a public repository is sometimes expected, with the possibility of full transcripts, so that others can examine and use those data. The way someone expresses themselves might make them straightforward to pinpoint within a small group of potential interviewees.

Again, risks and opportunities regarding privacy focus on consent and on necessity of listing details. Everyone including any public figure has some level of a right to privacy (Figure 2). Where consent is not given to waive confidentiality or anonymity, then the research process—including reviewing and publishing academic papers—needs to accept that not all interviewee details or data can or should be shared. With consent, care is still required to ensure that identifying individuals or permitting them to be discovered really adds to the positive impacts from the research.

Figure 2: Ralph Nader, an American politician and activist, still has a right to privacy when not speaking in public (photo by Ilan Kelman).

Caution, care, and balance

With caution and care, always seeking a balance with respect to privacy, any difficulties emerging from Open Science can be prevented. Of especial importance is not sacrificing many of the immense and much-needed gains from Open Science.

As we continue celebrating International Open Access Week, it’s inspiring to see how open access is shaping research and collaboration across UCL! Earlier this week, we explored the balance between collaboration and commercialisation, and highlighted the important work of Citizen Science initiatives.

Midway through the week, Dhara Snowden, Textbook Programme Manager at UCL Press, shares her insights below on the growing significance of open access textbooks and their role in the broader landscape of open access publishing.

---

UCL Press is the UK’s first, and largest, fully open access university press. We have been publishing books and journals for almost ten years, covering a wide range of subjects and formats. In 2021, the press launched a new programme focusing on open access (OA) textbooks. I joined at that time, and over the past three years, I’ve been responsible for managing our progress in this area. As part of this year’s International Open Access Week, I wanted to share some of our thinking and planning around this activity and offer some musings about OA textbook publishing in general and what the future holds.

What are Open Access Textbooks?

Firstly, it’s useful to clarify what we mean by “textbooks.” Through conversations with academics across faculties, I’ve realised this term can mean different things depending on the context and level of study. In the broadest sense, a textbook is a resource that supports the delivery of a course or module. Textbooks can provide a wide-view survey of a field or subject, to be “adopted” as the main guide for study, or they can be part of a reading list that includes chapters from various sources, like journal articles.

Although textbooks were traditionally published in print, there has been increasing demand for digital versions of commercial textbooks, which can be purchased by individuals and licenced to institutions for use for multiple users.

Open access publishing, meanwhile, involves making scholarly content freely available online, removing subscription or purchase barriers. In the context of textbooks, this means students and educators can access high-quality educational resources without significant costs. OA textbooks are typically published under a Creative Commons (CC) licence, which allows for redistribution, adaptation, and modification, promoting a collaborative and inclusive educational environment.

The creation and uptake of OA textbooks has seen a sharp increase in recent years, particularly in the US and UK, with non-profit-funded publishers like OpenStax, collaboratively funded projects like CORE Econ, and platforms like Pressbooks. The Open Textbook Library, supported by Open Education Network, currently indexes 1,542 published open textbooks.

Why do we create them?

The UCL Press textbook programme was set up in direct response to issues around pricing for institutional access to essential e-textbooks, which were exacerbated during the Covid-19 pandemic. The current ecosystem presents an unstable and unsustainable financial model for institutional libraries, as well documented by the eBooks SOS campaign, which calls attention to the lack of regulation in pricing by commercial publishers.

An article published by Insights in 2022, ‘Perspectives on e-books and digital textbooks and the way ahead’, claims that ‘combined spending on book across nationally negotiated library purchasing frameworks increased from £55M in 2019/20 to £73M in 202/21, with e-textbook provision increasing by 281% to £25.1M during that time’.

In addition to concerns about affordability and sustained access, the Insights article outlines that post-pandemic, “shifts in teaching practice are accelerating demand for features that enhance blended learning”, with more flexibility and adaptability in resources being required, which isn’t being delivered by traditional academic publishing.

UCL Press’s aims to disrupt the current academic publishing ecosystem, offering authors and readers an alternative to the commercial model. This connects the theme for OA Week 2024, which calls for community over commercialisation. Bringing publishing back to the hands of academy, we can provide sustainable and high-quality textbooks to facilitate hybrid teaching and remove barriers to access for our content thereby reaching the widest possible audience and increasing chances to impact in scholarly communities.

How do we create them?

The UCL Press textbook programme commissions and publishes textbooks for undergraduate and postgraduate students across a wide range of subjects and topics. Every new proposal (and final manuscript) undergoes a rigorous peer-review process to ensure high-quality and relevant content.

Our approach is to collaborate with lecturers to create resources that provide high-quality guidance for students. Taking a personal and flexible approach to each project, we avoid rigid templates or a one-size-fits-all mentality, tailoring our textbooks to the needs of students and subject matter.

To date, we’ve published two textbooks. The first, An Introduction to Waste Management and Circular Economy, came out in December 2023. This textbook supports a module taught at UCL but also has global relevance for courses in environmental engineering, resource efficiency, bioenergy, and waste-to-energy technologies.

More recently, we published  Methods and Methodologies in Heritage Studies, an edited collection exploring the disciplinary debates, intellectual legacies, and practical innovations that shape contemporary understandings of heritage value.

 

 

Together, these two titles have been downloaded over 12,000 times in 152 countries and territories. Our forthcoming titles include, A Guide to Performing Systematic Reviews of Health and Disease and Fundamentals of Dark Matter, both due to publish early next year.

What are the benefits of writing or using OA textbooks? Where’s the value?

There are many benefits to writing and using OA textbooks and the European Network of Open Education Librarians have created a toolkit to encourage use of OA materials and Open Educational Resources (OER). Some key points are listed below.

• Reaching a Global Audience: downloads and views from readers across the globe, particularly the Global South.
• Cost-Effectiveness: One of the most significant advantages of OA textbooks is their cost-saving potential for both library and student. OA resources can alleviate this burden, allow to redistribution of saved funds and make education more accessible for all.
• Adaptability: open licences enable reuse, modification and adaptation, enabling educators to make the content work best for teaching.
• Showcase Teaching Excellence: OA textbooks can help platform new approaches or area of study, and celebrate examples of teaching excellence.
• Encourage lifelong learning: Provide students with resources they can use and reference after their studies and into their careers.
• Accessibility and Inclusivity: Open access textbooks are available to anyone with an internet connection, supporting diverse learners, including those in remote or under-resourced areas, and those outside academic institutions(e. professionals and policy makers)
• Up-to-Date Content: Traditional textbooks can quickly become outdated. OA textbooks can be updated and revised more readily, ensuring that students have access to the most current information.
• Enhanced Collaboration: Open resources encourage collaboration among educators, fostering a community of shared knowledge and innovation.

To measure impact, we use both qualitative and quantitative measures. Our Statistics dashboard shows the readership and reach of our books, including a map of access. In addition, we are collecting testimonials and feedback from academics and students and engaging with the societal impact of our books (as discussed in a recent article in The Scholarly Kitchen). We interrogate our user analytics to understand which communities are interacting with our content and how they are using it in their own work.

Value in this context is calculated not only in terms of cost-saving on commercial provision, but also in the added value student experience. This includes showcasing teaching excellence to encourage enrolment in a particular course or providing a teaching and learning resources for a module that are underrepresented in commercial provision (i.e. those with smaller cohorts/interdisciplinary topics/less mainstream perspectives).

What does the future hold?

The future of open access textbook publishing in the UK looks promising, with increasing institutional support and growing awareness among educators. As the demand for affordable and accessible educational resources continues to rise, the potential for OA textbooks to reshape higher education is significant.

Open access textbook publishing represents a vital shift in the academic landscape, providing a sustainable, equitable, and collaborative approach to education. As more institutions and publishers embrace this model, we hope to create a future where quality educational resources are accessible to all, empowering students and educators alike.

Significant sea change in the status quo requires a long-term outlook, and significant investment and commitment. If educators, students, and policymakers continue to discover and advocate for the adoption of open access resources within institutions, there is potential to foster an educational environment that fully supports and values accessibility, collaboration, and innovation.

UCL Press will continue to develop its programme of OA textbooks and to keep up to date with our publications, please do sign up to our mailing list or take a look at our website.

Last month, we hosted our 4th UCL Open Science Conference! This year, we focused inward to showcase the innovative and collaborative work of our UCL researchers in our first UCL community-centered conference. We were excited to present a strong lineup of speakers, projects, and posters dedicated to advancing open science and scholarship. The conference was a great success, with nearly 80 registrants and an engaged online audience.

If you missed any sessions or want to revisit the presentations, you can find highlights, recordings, and posters from the event below.

Session 1 – Celebrating Our Open Researchers

The conference began with a celebration of the inaugural winners of the Open Science & Scholarship Awards, recognizing researchers who have significantly contributed to open science. This session also opened nominations for next year’s awards.

Access the full recording of the session 1 on MediaCentral.

Session 2: Policies and Practice

Katherine Welch introduced an innovative approach to policy development through collaborative mosaic-making. Ilan Kelman discussed the ethical limits of open science. He reminded us of the challenges and considerations when opening up research and data to the public. David Perez Suarez introduced the concept of an Open Source Programme Office (OSPO) at UCL and, with Sam Ahern, showcased the Centre of Advanced Research Computing’s unique approach to creating and sharing open educational resources.

Access the full recording of the session 2 on MediaCentral.

Session 3: Enabling Open Science and Scholarship at UCL

This session introduced new and updated services and systems at UCL designed to support open science and scholarship. Highlights included UCL Profiles, Open Science Case Studies, the UCL Press Open Textbooks Project, UCL Citizen Science Academy, and the Open@UCL Newsletter.

Access the full recording of the session 3 on MediaCentral.

Session 4: Research Projects and Collaborations

This session featured presentations on cutting-edge research projects and collaborations transforming scholarly communication and advancing scientific integrity. Klaus Abels discussed the journey of flipping a subscription journal to diamond open-access. Banaz Jalil and Michael Heinrich presented the ConPhyMP guidelines for chemical analysis of medicinal plant extracts, improving healthcare research. Francisco Duran explored social and cultural barriers to data sharing and the role of identity and epistemic virtues in creating transparent and equitable research environments.

Access the full recording of the session 4 on Media Central.

Posters and Networking:

We also hosted a Poster Session and Networking event where attendees explored a variety of posters showcasing ongoing research across UCL’s disciplines, accompanied by drinks and snacks. This interactive session provided a platform for researchers to present their work, exchange ideas, and foster collaborations within and beyond the UCL community.

Participants engaged directly with presenters, learning about research findings and discussing potential synergies for future projects. Themes covered by the posters included innovative approaches to public engagement by UCL’s Institute of Global Prosperity and Citizen Science Academy, as well as discussions on the balance between open access and data security in the digital age.

Explore all the posters presented at the UCL Open Science Conference 2024 on the UCL Research Data Repository. This collection is under construction and will continue to grow.

Reminder for Attendees – Feedback

For those who attended, please take a minute to complete our feedback form. Your input is very important to improve future conferences. We would appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.

A Huge Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the UCL Open Science Conference 2024. Your participation and enthusiasm made this event a great success. We appreciate your commitment to advancing open science and scholarship across UCL and beyond, and we look forward to seeing the impact of your work in the years to come.

Please watch the sessions and share your feedback with us. Your insights are invaluable in shaping future events and supporting the open science community.

We look forward to seeing you at next year’s conference!

With less than a week until this year’s UCL Open Science Conference, anticipation is building! We are thrilled to announce that the programme for the UCL Open Science & Scholarship Conference 2024 is now ready. Scheduled for Thursday, June 20, 2024, from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm BST, both onsite at UCL and online, this year’s conference promises to be an exciting opportunity to explore how the UCL community is leading Open Science and Scholarship initiatives across the university and beyond.

Programme Outline:

1:00-1:05 pm
Welcome and Introductions
Join us as we kick off the conference with a warm welcome and set the stage for the afternoon.

1:05-1:45 pm
Session 1: Celebrating our Open Researchers
Learn about the outstanding contributions of our Open Science champions and their work recognised at the UCL Open Science & Scholarship Awards last year.

1:45-2:45 pm
Session 2: Policies and Practice
Explore discussions on policy development and ethical considerations in Open Science, including talks on collaborative policy-making and the role of Open Source Programme Offices (OSPOs).

2:45-3:15 pm
Coffee Break
Network and engage with our fellow attendees over coffee, tea, and biscuits.

3:15-4:00 pm
Session 3: Enabling Open Science and Scholarship at UCL
Check out services and initiatives that empower UCL researchers to embrace Open Science, including updates on UCL Profiles, UCL Citizen Science Academy, and Open Science Case Studies.

4:00-4:45 pm
Session 4: Research Projects and Collaborations
Discover cutting-edge research projects and collaborations across UCL, including case studies involving the transition to Open Access publishing, reproducible research using medicinal plants, and social and cultural barriers to data sharing.

4:45-5:00 pm
Summary and Close of Main Conference
Reflect on key insights from the day’s discussions and wrap up the main conference.

5:00-6:30 pm
Evening Session: Poster Viewing and Networking Event
Engage with our presenters and attendees over drinks and nibbles, while exploring posters showcasing research and discussions in Open Science and Scholarship through diverse perspectives.

For the complete programme details, please access the full document uploaded on the UCL Research Data Repository, or access the QR code.

Join us – Tickets are still available!
Whether you’re attending in person or joining us virtually, we invite you to participate in discussions that shape the future of Open Science and Scholarship at UCL. Sales will close on Monday. Secure your spot now! Register here.

Thank you!
Thank you once more to everyone who submitted their ideas to the Call for Papers and Posters. We received brilliant contributions and are grateful for our packed programme of insightful discussions and projects from our community.

We look forward to welcoming you to the UCL Open Science & Scholarship Conference 2024!

Get involved!

The UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship invites you to contribute to the open science and scholarship movement. Stay connected for updates, events, and opportunities. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, LinkedIn, and join our mailing list to be part of the conversation!

 

Announcement from Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice Provost, UCL Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science

How can Open Science/Open Research support career progression and development? How does the adoption of Open Science/Open Research approaches benefit individuals in the course of their career?

The UCL Open Science Office, in conjunction with colleagues across UCL, has produced a series of Case Studies showing how UCL academics can use Open Science/Open Research approaches in their plans for career development, in applications for promotion and in appraisal documents.

In this way, Open Science/Open Research practice can become part of the Research Culture that UCL is developing.

The series of Case Studies covers each of the 8 pillars of Open Science/Open Research. They can be found on a new webpage: Open Science Case Studies 4 UCL.

It is only fair that academics should be rewarded for developing their skills and adopting best practice in research and in its equitable dissemination. The Case Studies show how this can be done, and each Case Study identifies a Key Message which UCL academics can use to shape their activities.

Examples of good practice are:

• Publishing outputs as Open Access outputs
• Sharing research data which is used as the building block of academic books and papers
• Creating open source software which is then available for others to re-use and develop
• Adopting practices allied to Reproducibility and Research Integrity
• The responsible use of Bibliometrics
• Public Engagement: Citizen Science and Co-Production as mechanisms to deliver results

Contact the UCL Open Science Office for further information at openscience@ucl.ac.uk.

Guest post by Michelle Harricharan, Senior Research Data Steward, in celebration of International Love Data Week 2024.

ARC Data Stewards have completed the first phase of work on the third-party datasets project, aiming to help researchers better access and manage data provided to UCL by external organisations.

The problem:

Modern research often requires access to large volumes of data generated outside of universities. These datasets, provided to UCL by third parties, are typically generated during routine service delivery or other activities and are used in research to identify patterns and make predictions. UCL research and teaching increasingly rely on access to these datasets to achieve their objectives, ranging from NHS data to large-scale commercial datasets such as those provided by ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter).

Currently, there is no centrally supported process for research groups seeking to access third-party datasets. Researchers sometimes use departmental procedures to acquire personal or university-wide licenses for third-party datasets. They then transfer, store, document, extract, and undertake actions to minimize information risk before using the data for various analyses. The process to obtain third-party data involves significant overhead, including contracts, compliance (IG), and finance. Delays in acquiring access to data can be a significant barrier to research. Some UCL research teams also provide additional support services such as sharing, managing access to, licensing, and redistributing specialist third-party datasets for other research teams. These teams increasingly take on governance and training responsibilities for these specialist datasets. Concurrently, the e-resources team in the library negotiates access to third-party datasets for UCL staff and students following established library procedures.

It has long been recognized that UCL’s processes for acquiring and managing third-party data are uncoordinated and inefficient, leading to inadvertent duplication, unnecessary expense, and underutilisation of datasets that could support transformative research across multiple projects or research groups. This was recognised in the “Data First, 2019 UCL Research Data Strategy”.

What we did:

Last year, the ARC Data Stewards team reached out to UCL professional services staff and researchers to understand the processes and challenges they faced regarding accessing and using third-party research datasets. We hoped that insights from these conversations could be used to develop more streamlined support and services for researchers and make it easier for them to find and use data already provided to UCL by third parties (where this is within licensing conditions).

During this phase of work, we spoke with 14 members of staff:

• 7 research teams that manage third-party datasets
• 7 members of professional services that support or may support the process, including contracts, data protection, legal, Information Services Division (databases), information security, research ethics and integrity, and the library.

What we’ve learned:

An important aspect of this work involved capturing the existing processes researchers use when accessing, managing, storing, sharing, and deleting third-party research data at UCL. This enabled us to understand the range of processes involved in handling this type of data and identify the various stakeholders involved—or who potentially need to be involved. In practice, we found that researchers follow similar processes to access and manage third-party research data, depending on the security of the dataset. However, as there is no central, agreed procedure to support the management of third-party datasets in the organization, different parts of the process may be implemented differently by different teams using the methods and resources available to them. We turned the challenges researchers identified in accessing and managing this type of data into requirements for a suite of services to support the delivery and management of third-party datasets at UCL.

Next steps:

 We have been working on addressing some of the common challenges researchers identified. Researchers noted that getting contracts agreed and signed off takes too long, so we reached out to the RIS Contract Services Team, who are actively working to build additional capacity into the service as part of a wider transformation programme.

Also, information about accessing and managing third-party datasets is fragmented, and researchers often don’t know where to go for help, particularly for governance and technical advice. To counter this, we are bringing relevant professional services together to agree on a process for supporting access to third-party datasets.

Finally, respondents noted that there is too much duplication of data. The costs for data are high, and it’s not easy to know what’s already available internally to reuse. In response, we are building a searchable catalogue of third-party datasets already licensed to UCL researchers and available for others to request access to reuse.

Our progress will be reported to the Research Data Working Group, which acts as a central point of contact and a forum for discussion on aspects of research data support at UCL. The group advocates for continual improvement of research data governance.

If you would like to know more about any of these strands of work, please do not hesitate to reach out (email: researchdata-support@ucl.ac.uk). We are keen to work with researchers and other professional services to solve these shared challenges and accelerate research and collaboration using third-party datasets.

Get involved!

The UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship invites you to contribute to the open science and scholarship movement. Stay connected for updates, events, and opportunities. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, and join our mailing list to be part of the conversation!

Guest post by Louise Mc Grath-Lone, Research Fellow (UCL Institute of Health Informatics), Rachel Pearson, Research Assistant (UCL Institute of Child Health) and Ania Zylbersztejn, Research Fellow (UCL Institute of Child Health)

In July 2021, we held a session on code sharing as part of the UCL Festival of Code and were thrilled to have almost 90 attendees from 9 out of UCL’s 11 faculties – highlighting that researchers from across a wide range of disciplines are interested in sharing their code.

The aims of the session were to highlight the benefits of code sharing, to explore some of the barriers to code sharing that Early Carly Researchers may experience, and to offer some practical advice about establishing, maintaining and contributing to a code repository.

In this blog, we summarise the benefits and barriers to code sharing we discussed in the session taking into account the views that participants shared.

What is code sharing and what are the benefits?

Code sharing covers a range of activities, including sharing code privately (e.g., with your colleagues as part of internal code review) or publicly (e.g., as part of a journal article submission).

For Early Career Researchers in academia, there are many benefits to sharing code including:

Reducing duplication of effort: For activities such as data cleaning and preparation, code sharing is an important method of reducing duplication of effort among the research community.

Capturing the work you put into data management: The processes of managing large datasets are time-consuming, but this effort is often not apparent in traditional research outputs (such as journal articles). Sharing code is one way of demonstrating the work that goes into data management activities.

Improving the transparency and reproducibility of your work: Code sharing allows others to understand, validate and extend what you did in your research.

Enabling the continuity of your work: Many researchers spend the early years of their career on fixed-term contracts. Code sharing is a way to enable the continuity of your work after you’ve moved on by allowing others to build on it. This increases the chances of it reaching the publication stage and your efforts and inputs being recognised in the form of a journal article.

Building your reputation and networks: Code sharing is a way to build your reputation and grow your networks which can lead to opportunities for collaboration.

Providing opportunities for teaching and learning: By sharing code and by looking at code that others have shared, Early Career Researchers have opportunities to both teach and learn.

Demonstrating a commitment to Open Science principles: Code sharing is increasingly valued by research funders (e.g. the Wellcome Trust) and is a tangible way to show your commitment to Open Science principles which are part of UCL’s Academic Framework and important for career progression.

Despite the clear benefits to code sharing, at the start of our session just 1 in 4 participants (26%) said that they often or always share code. However, by the end of the session, almost all participants (90%) said that they definitely or probably will share their code in the future.

What are the barriers to code sharing as an Early Career Researcher and how we can overcome them?

We asked participants what has put them off sharing their code in the past. The most common responses were:

The time and effort required: Ideally, you would write perfectly formatted and commented code on the first go – however, in reality, it often does not work out like this. As you update code and encounter bugs, code can often become messy and considerable time/effort needed to get it to point it can be understood by someone outside the research project. We discussed the importance shifting your perception of ‘shareable’ code. Sharing any code, even if messy, is far more helpful than sharing nothing at all.

Lack of confidence and concerns about criticism: Many researchers who write code as part of their work have very little (or no!) formal training. This means that sharing code can be daunting. For example, researchers may be worried about others finding errors in their code; however, sharing code can help to catch bugs in code early on and can bolster your confidence and reassure you that your code is correct. In the session, we also discussed how getting involved with online coding communities that emphasize inclusivity and support (e.g., R Ladies, Tidy Tuesday or one of the UCL Coding Clubs) can help grow confidence and provide a kinder environment in which to share code publicly.

Not knowing how to share or who to share with: A lack of formal training means that many researchers are unsure about where or how to share code, including not knowing which license to use to enable appropriate reuse of code. We discussed the need for more training opportunities, encouraged setting up your own code review groups (like a journal club, but for sharing and discussing code).

Worry that code will be reused without permission: Some participants were worried about plagiarism and their hard work being re-used without their knowledge or permission. However, hosting your code in a repository like GitHub allows you to choose suitable licence for re-use of your code to prevent undesired use while still supporting open science! You can also see how many people have accessed your code.

How can Early Career Researchers get started with code sharing?

Preparing code to share can take time and, as they work to secure their future within academia, many Early Career Researchers may already feel overloaded and pulled in different directions (e.g., teaching, institutional citizenship, engagement work, producing publications, attending conferences, research management, etc.). However, code sharing is hugely beneficial for a career in academia and so we would encourage all Early Career Researchers to try to find the time to share code by viewing it as an opportunity to invest in your future self. For example, you could:

• Adopt a coding style guide to help produce clear and uniform code with good comments from the outset. This will reduce effort end when you come to share code (and help your future self when you look at your code many years later and have inevitably forgotten what it all does!
• Join a UCL Coding Clubs or online community to learn tips from others about coding and sharing code.
• Learn to use a code repository like GitHub. As part of our session, we delivered an introductory tutorial on how to use GitHub with links to other useful resources (available here).

How can UCL support Early Career Researchers to share code?

We ended the session by asking the participants how UCL could better support them to share their code. Some of the ideas suggested by Early Career Researchers were:

More training on writing and sharing code: For example, one suggestion was that UCL could create a Moodle training course for code sharing. Training about best practice in coding (across several languages) to help Early Career Researchers to write code right the first time would also be helpful.

Simple, accessible guidance about code sharing: This might include checklists or 1-to-1 advice sessions, in particular, to help Early Career Researchers to select the right licenses.

Embed code sharing as best practice at all levels: Encouraging and supporting senior researchers to share code so that it becomes embedded as good practice at all levels would provide a good example for and encourage more junior members of staff. It would also help to ensure that the time and training required to prepare code for sharing is built into grant applications.

Knowledge sharing opportunities: More events and opportunities to discuss how research groups share code to share best practice across faculties throughout UCL.

 

We would like to thank everyone who attended our session – “Code sharing for Early Career Researchers: the good the bad and the ugly!” – at the UCL Festival of Code for their time and contributions to the lively discussions. All the materials from the session are available here, including an introductory tutorial to getting started with code sharing using GitHub. We would also like to thank the organisers of the UCL Festival of Code for their help and support.

The Research Software Development Group hosted the first ReproHack at UCL as part of the Open Access Week events run this year by the Office for Open Science and Scholarship. This was not only the first event of this type at UCL, but the first time a reprohack ran for a full week.

Recently a researcher asked for our advice on the best way to disseminate her preliminary findings from a cross-disciplinary research project on COVID-19. She wanted to ensure policy makers in East Africa had immediate access to the findings so that they could make informed decisions. The researcher was aware that traditional models of publishing were not appropriate, not simply because of the length of time it generally takes for an article to be peer-reviewed and published, but because the findings would, most likely, be inaccessible to her intended audience in a subscription-based journal.

The Research Support and Open Access team advised the researcher to take a two-pronged approach which would require her to: (1) upload the working paper with the preliminary findings in a subject-specific open-access preprint service; and (2) to publicise the research findings in an online platform that is both credible and open access. We suggested she use SocArXiv and publish a summary of her findings in The Conversation Africa, which has a special section on COVID-19. The Conversation has several country-specific editions for Australia, Canada English, Canada French, France, Global Perspectives, Indonesia, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States, and is a useful vehicle to get academic research read by decision makers and the members of the public. We also suggested that the researcher publicise the research on the IOE London Blog.

What are ‘working papers’ & ‘preprint services’?

UCL’s Institute of Education has a long-standing tradition of publishing working papers to signal work-in-progress, share initial findings, and elicit feedback from other researchers working in the same area. The preprint service used thus far at the IOE is RePEc (Research Papers in Economics), which includes papers in education and the related social sciences). RePEc is indexed by the database publisher EBSCO (in EconLit) and by Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search. Commercial platforms such as ResearchGate also trawl through RePEc and index content. Until it was purchased by Elsevier in May 2016, the Social Science Research Network or SSRN was the other popular preprint repository used by IOE researchers although its content is indexed mainly for its conference proceedings. The sale of SSRN to Elsevier resulted in a fallout between authors and the publisher, and this resulted in SocArXiv entering the scene. SocArXiv is an open access, open source preprint server for the social sciences which accepts text files, data and code. It is the brainchild of the non-profit Centre for Open Science (COS) whose mission is to increase openness, integrity and reproducibility of research – values that are shared by UCL and are promoted on this blog and by the newly formed Office of Open Science and Scholarship (for more information see also the Pillars of Open Science). In the spirit of openness, most papers on SocArXiv use the creative commons license CC-By Attribution-NonCommercial-NonDerivatives 4.0 International, which safeguards the rights of the author. As papers on SocArXiv are automatically assigned Digital Object Identifiers (DOI), they discoverable on the web, particularly as Scholar indexes SocArXiv content.

What are the benefits of using preprint servers?

Whilst research repositories such as UCL Discovery are curtailed by publisher policies on what research can be made open access, this is not always the case for papers submitted on preprint subject repositories. Without wanting to repeat what my colleague Patrycja Barczymska has already written in her post on preprints I can confirm that in addition to signalling the research findings and eliciting feedback, other benefits to depositing in preprint servers include the enhanced discoverability as most will automatically generate DOIs at the time a paper is uploaded, the possibility of obtaining early citations and the alternative metrics that indicate interest (e.g. the number of downloads, mentions, etc.)  that services such as SocArXiv provide. Researchers can also list open-access working papers in funding applications.

Does uploading a working paper in a pre-print server hinder the publication of the final paper?

Researchers are concerned, and rightly so, that publishers may not publish their final research output if preliminary findings are deposited in preprint servers as working papers. However, more often than not, working papers are exactly that – work in progress. They are not the final article that gets submitted for publication.  It is also likely that the preliminary findings and conclusions in the working paper will be somewhat different from the final version of the paper. It is worth knowing that some of the key social sciences publishers, such as Sage, Springer, and Taylor and Francis / Routledge and Wiley, explicitly state that they will accept content that has been deposited on a preprint server, as long as it is a non-commercial preprint service. In other words, researchers must not upload the working papers on platforms such as academia.edu and ResearchGate.

These ‘preprint-friendly’ publishers simply ask that the author informs them of the existence of a preprint and provides the DOI of the working paper at the time of submitting their article. Some ask that authors update the preprint to include the bibliographic details, including the new DOI, when their article is published, and that authors add a statement requesting readers to cite the published article rather than the preprint publication. Although a definitive list of individual journal policies does not exist, submission guidelines generally clarify issues related to preprints. Researchers may want to use the Sherpa Romeo service (and Sherpa Juliet for key funder policies) to obtain additional information.

More than a success story

The above case demonstrates how preliminary research findings can be shared expeditiously and in an open environment to aid the decision-making process.  It also demonstrates that open-access subject-specific preprint services can be beneficial to promoting both the research and the researcher, and that there is now wider acceptance among publishers that the traditional models of publishing are not always viable. This is especially true where cutting-edge research is required as in the case of research on COVID-19.