Thought Leadership

The Center for : Promoting openness in the scientific community The Center for Open Science (COS) believes that some of the biggest scientific challenges we face today could be solved if research was progressed more quickly and disseminated more widely. Striving for a culture of openness where methodology and results are shared across disciplines, COS provides support, tools and training for researchers, institutions, funders and publishers. Through their work, they aim to make scientific research and data available for all, accelerating progress in areas such as disease, poverty, education, social justice and the environment.

he Center for Open Science Hi Jeff! Can you briefly tell us about the (COS) celebrated its fourth heritage and background of the Center for anniversary earlier this year. Open Science (COS)? In that time, the organisation and I (co-founders of COS) has established itself as a key had both wanted to create a system like player in the fight for a culture change in the the Open Science Framework (OSF) for a Tscientific community, advocating openness, while. I had wanted to back in 2004, before integrity and reproducibility of research. joining Brian’s lab, but was told it would kill Since its inception, more than 5,000 journals my career – I should focus on publishing have signed the transparency and openness and save this sort of tool development promotion guidelines, and the Open Science for post-tenure. Brian had submitted two Framework now hosts more than 67,000 proposals to the National Institutes for projects. Likewise, hundreds of visitors rely Health in 2006 and 2007 to create a virtual on COS to source collaborations and learn laboratory (https://osf.io/784rn/) and how to implement open science products participant pool (https://osf.io/3v2wy/) and processes. with features that promoted the sharing of research data and materials. However, In this interview with co-founder Jeff neither of these were funded. Spies, Research Features found out a bit more about the story behind the COS’s When I joined Brian’s lab, I started core mission, its current projects and what developing the OSF as a side project and the future might look like if more of the then, after deciding to kill my academic community engaged with open science. career, as part of my dissertation project.

Openness is the key to increasing research efficiency by expanding research quality, reproducibility, replicability, extension, quality, inclusivity and diversity Thought Leadership

Around the same time, we started the Jeffrey Spies, co-founder and : , a Chief Technology Officer of COS; large-scale effort evaluating the rate of on Twitter as @JeffSpies. replicability in psychology, managed on the OSF. Enter the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and COS was born.

Can you tell us what projects you are particularly passionate about at COS? Openness is key to increasing research efficiency by enhancing research quality, reproducibility, replicability, extension, quality, inclusivity and diversity. We need Staff hard at work in COS's office in downtown Charlottesville, VA. high quality research to solve some of the big challenges we face, like curing diseases, and we need as many and as diverse a group of people as possible to work on them. We incentivised in most disciplines. A total of How does COS differ from other open hard at making it easy and compelling for also need rapid dissemination of research. 70 journals now offer the registered reports science organisations? others to donate as well (see more at https:// format and 6,700 preprints have been There are certainly others doing great cos.io/donate-to-cos/). Academic researchers make critical uploaded to OSF Preprints or one of our work that we share similarities with. It contributions to these problems, both 15 community-supported preprint servers. seems that our uniqueness comes from our What does the future hold for open science directly and indirectly. But the primary This aggregates with another 2.1 million multi-pronged approach – ideally helping and COS? incentive for academic researchers preprints collected by SHARE, a project to connect the more focused work others The question of whether or not change is publication, and that has created I co-direct with Judy Ruttenberg at the are doing that we would never be able to will occur such that open is the default in inefficiencies, e.g., delayed dissemination, Association of Research Libraries. COS has do. For example, with our technology, we science/scholarship is not a matter of if inaccuracy, lack of reproducibility and 194 Ambassadors helping us scale our work. support community partners who want but when. The future for those working replicability and exclusion. There are to run preprint servers. Those people are to promote openness is working towards many people that could be making a Where in the world has benefitted most from much closer to their communities – they a when that is sooner rather than later. contribution to the research enterprise, but the work at COS? know the people, speak their language and Openness will accelerate solutions to cannot because they or their institutions Over the last year, we have had some use of understand their challenges. It does not problems having to do with health, social cannot afford the access fees or because the OSF in every country in the world. The make sense for us to be in every community, justice and the environment – solutions that of restrictive licensing. More than that, the numbers do seem to align with what might but we can support the people already many people are actively waiting for as their publication is only a sliver of the actual be expected based upon what we know of there. lives or well-being depend on it. research process – we need access to the Publication is only a sliver of the actual ‘output’ across the world, as measured by whole of the research lifecycle. the number of publications or number of What needs to happen to continue to • To find out more information about the research process – we need access to citations of those publications. However, promote and support the open science fantastic work of COS, please visit their Can you tell us about your individual role at our numbers do diverge in some important movement, making research accessible to all website at www.cos.io. the COS and the role of the board? the whole of the research lifecycle ways. For example, usage from Brazil, levels of people worldwide? Over time, roles have shifted – early on, I Indonesia and India is higher than in some of Across the board, we need a change in was involved in just about everything. As the expected top ten locations in the world. incentives so that scholarly values can be the team has expanded and the amount of solve problems – evolutionary computation, disseminating knowledge to enact change, aligned with scholarly practices, and this work we have committed to has increased, behaviour-based robotics, artificial life. Via incentives provide reasons to embrace How does the COS correlate with the open needs to come from and be supported by we have all had to become more focused. these paradigms, I was doing research using change and community is fostering access movement? How can readers get universities, funders, societies and journals. What has not changed in my role is being neural network modelling. That led to work connections and inclusion to propagate involved and support this? Until incentives and culture changes, responsible for technical strategy, product in quantitative psychology while in a joint change. I do think a multi-pronged (i.e., As Peter Suber defines it, open access increased resourcing to support endeavours Contact vision, software architecture, external PhD programme with computer science. cross-strategy, cross-stakeholder, cross- removes both price and permission barriers worldwide would accelerate change. Center for Open Science partner/funder development and the Fairly early on in those studies it became discipline, cross-lifecycle) and open, from literature. At COS, we advocate going 210 Ridge McIntire Road management of research and development clear that there were even broader problems community-focused approach is required. further than open access: open workflow, The Laura and John Arnold Foundation was Suite 500 (now called COS Labs). to solve with regards to the research process i.e. opening text but also materials, data, key to the establishment of COS in 2013 – Charlottesville, VA 22903-5083 itself – and here I am. What impact has COS had since its analyses, software, etc. The OSF, for how else does the COS campaign for more USA As our website states: ‘Our board represents establishment? example, is meant to support an open generous funders and partners to support the research and technology communities COS has a strategic plan which outlines I will be most satisfied when, perhaps after workflow approach rather than focusing on COS in its mission? E: [email protected] and provides COS with valuable advice for its mission to increase openness, integrity a few more years of our work, we (or ideally just one or a few components of the research We are extremely appreciative of the Laura W: https://cos.io/ meeting its mission.’ You can read more and reproducibility of research with five others) can bring forth empirical data to lifecycle. and John Arnold Foundation’s generosity. @OSFramework about it at https://cos.io/about/our-board/. interdependent activities: , answer that question. But I will just cite a Beyond the funders active in the ecosystem, infrastructure, training, incentives and few numbers that I am particularly proud In terms of getting involved, all of our work is our team is pursuing new opportunities and Can you tell us a bit more about open community – can you explain how these of: researchers have created over 67,000 free and open. Our code is on Github http:// grants that come to our attention. Much of science? How did you become interested and relate to fulfilling COS’s mission? projects, 21,000 are public. We have had github.com/centerforopenscience, services that work – pre-proposal or pre-engagement an advocate of open science? Metascience is acquiring evidence to more than 5.1 million downloads on the described at http://cos.io and the OSF is – is done by Melanie Benjamin, our donor Center for I like solving problems. It started off with encourage change, infrastructure is building OSF. We have had over 11,000 registrations freely available at http://osf.io. Readers can and funder relations lead. Her and other OPEN Science an interest in using artificial intelligence to technology to enable change, training is – a paradigm not well understood or get in touch with us at [email protected]. members of the team have been working

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