Open Science and Open Access

Open Science

According to the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (published 23 November 2021), Open Science:

  • increases scientific collaborations and sharing of information for the bene­fits of science and society;
  • makes multilingual scientifi­c knowledge openly available, accessible and reusable for everyone;
  • opens the processes of scientifi­c knowledge creation, evaluation and communication to societal actors beyond the traditional scientifi­c community.

The main components of open science are:

1

open access to publications;

2

open research data;

3

open scientific communication;

4

open source software, open hardware;

5

open science infrastructure;

6

open evaluation;

7

open educational resources;

8

open public engagement in science;

9

openness to diversity of knowledge and its sources.

The activities of the open science initiatives are aimed at:

  • promoting a common understanding of open science;
  • developing a policy in favour of open science;
  • investing in open science infrastructure and building capacity for open science;
  • changing the scientific culture and creating incentives for open science;
  • promoting innovatory approach to open science at every stage of the research process;
  • promoting international cooperation on open science.

Gruenpeter, Natalia. „Kamień milowy w rekomendacjach UNESCO dot. otwartej nauki” [Dostęp 05.09.2023]

Open Access 

The idea of open access is to grant free and open online access to academic publications and research data. Open access publications are free of charge and any legal or technical barriers, so anyone can read, copy, download, print, distribute or print them for education purposes or in any other way within the legal regulations. 

In the early years, the idea of Open Access mainly applied to academic journal articles. Today, the term Open Access refers to sharing of all forms of published research results including articles, conference proceedings, monographs, chapters in books, as well as software and multimedia.

Features of open access publications 

  • the content of the publication are widely and freely available on the Internet;
  • the author or copyright holder grants to all users, for an unlimited period of time, the right to use, copy or distribute the publication, provided that information about the author and source is included;
  • publications are deposited in its entirety and in an appropriate electronic form in at least one open access repository.

Why Open Access?

The reasons behind the ongoing development of the Open Access are the advancement of science and the numerous benefits for researchers, users and societies.

Opening access to publications for everybody gives the researchers possibility to expand the range of materials available. It can also respond to the problem of constraints on access to knowledge resulting from social inequalities.

Open Access:

  • facilitates and accelerates research;
  • stimulates further discovery and innovation;
  • allows the creation of new analyses and interpretations;
  • affects the verifiability and reliability of information
  • can contribute to an increase in the number of citations of publications.

Open Access extends the reach of content beyond academia, and thus popularizes knowledge, which can be accessed by scientists, researchers, as well as journalists, civil servants or citizens interested in the subject.

Open access to research is important to the public, because most research is funded by taxpayers, through grants of public money.

Therefore, increasingly, universities and agencies that fund research projects expect open access to the results of the research they subsidize. The result of these expectations are so-called Open Access Mandates, which are legal obligations for researchers to publish the results of their work in open access.

As part of this policy, an increasing number of universities are providing institutional repositories where researchers can deposit, store and share their research output, and the scientific community increasingly recognizes the need to raise awareness and promote open access.