Open science is no longer a new undertaking for university libraries. Its forms and conten, however, has changed since the beginning: new international and national policies have seen the light of day and some of the tasks have been standardised and have reached a maturity level which warrants a renewal of the local policies at most higher-education institutions.
At Åbo Akademi University, as is the case at many other higher education institutions, the responsibility for the coordination of open science activities is placed at the library. Therefore the library was in charge of the open science renewal process when the old policy from 2017 had been outdated. Below we share some thoughts about the participatory process we carried out at ÅAU in 2022-2023.
Ideas of participation and transparency are central to open science as an ideal. In our policy renewal process running the process as openly as possible was a self-evident goal: we aimed to involve those who are supposed follow the guidelines, but also those whose task it is to implement them by developing services and providing support. In other words, it involved not only engaging academic co-workers but also the management and those responsible for the administration of the university, those who own, lead, or manage the processes necessary to realise the guidelines.
Wide-reaching coordination
The work was led by a coordination group consisting of individuals from key areas of responsibility and from a variety of units within the university, bringing together different types of expertise, responsibilities and authority. It comprised a blend of experts in open science, those responsible for the most relevant areas of activity in the organisation or representatives nominated by them: the vice-rector for research affairs, the library director, the planning manager, the coordinator for education development, the data protection officer, an information specialist with special expertise in open access-publication, a grant writer, the area manager for research affairs, and the library service manager responsible for open science services. The key driving force was Malin Fredriksson, lead coordinator for open science. The coordination group discussed the process design, the composition of the policy itself, the communication strategy. The coordination group convened eight times during the process.
Another vital component in the process was the Research Strategic Board of ÅAU, an entity appointed by the rector, comprising representatives for researchers at various career levels across faculties, overseen by the vice-rector for research and coordinated by research affairs. This board had the authority to assess the adequacy of the open process and to identify areas of the policy in need of further refinement. Additionally, the plan for the process itself was subject to feedback from the rector’s board.
Workshops with the national evaluation kit as working material
The process was launched with an open event, followed by a series of workshops open for all affiliated researches and other staff. Separate workshops were held on open access publisning, FAIR and open data, open education and open educational resources, citizen science, open science and business collaboration, as well as on transparency in the evaluation and assessment of research and researchers.
Most themes were also addressed in separate workshops in English. The sessions were held on Zoom and led by experts of the specific theme or of the lead coordinator for open science. They began by reviewing the national policies and continued in the form of discussions on what they mean for researchers and the university: a typical workshop began with an expert giving a short overview of the national policy content on the theme and then guided the participants through the draft of the criteria for the the national evaluation scheme within the field (cf a recent critical evaluation of them here by L. Himanen and S. Nykyri). Together, the participants assessed the current state within the organisation and reflected on what needs to, and can, be done. Through this bench-marking exercise we arrived at a view of the situation of our organisation relative to the national-level ideals, and those responsible within the organisation, specifically invited, could see what lies ahead and what their own share of the work for advancing open research practises consists in. Altogether, 167 persons participated in the workshops.
An advantage with this approach was that the administrative staff and researchers from different career stages and fields of research met in the same online space to discuss suggestions and formulations together, which led to new insigths and formulations of perspectives. These discussions served as a reminder that there is no simple one-size-fits-all in open science and that researchers from different disciplines often struggle with different kinds of issues. But also, that national and international policies sometimes remain far removed from a researcher’s every day missions and that what is needed here is labor on both the thinking and the infrastructure to bridge the gap between the two.
Open comment round prior to consultation phase
A draft policy text was formulated based on national policies and the results of the worshops, and was sent for an open round of comments in the shape of an online survey to all academic collaborators, including those affiliated but not employed. This comment round yielded 47 responses with valuable feedback around formulations, word choices and expectations: What does this really mean for a researcher? What is not quite understandable? Particularly valuable were the direct formulations provided by academics in response to the question of why open science is important for researchers and research. While the number of responses was not enormous, considering how challenging it can be to get academics to contribute on this kind of issue, we consider it more than sufficient for our process.
We also prioritized transparency in the process by making the plan for the process available in the form of a timeline covering the phases of the process together with the material underlying the work on the intranet as well as the responses and suggestions received as the work progressed. A Teams platform with material and drafts etc. was open to anyone interested.
The text of the policy was adjusted based on the feedback received through the open commenting round and then prepared for a formal consultation with the units and other bodies: faculties, the Student Union, the Center for Lifelong Learning, the union chapters, the doctoral researcher association. During the consultation phase, feedback was collected via surveys on specific sections of the draft, as well as through general comments. At the end of it we asked how complete and acceptable the respondents found the draft policy. At that stage, mid-June 2023, the draft received the assessment 4,6 out of 5. The Joint Committee (a law-based body for collaboration between the employer and the employees) was given the opportunity to review the final draft of the policy along with a draft action program.
Resource-intensive, but halfway there?
On the one hand, this way of developing new guidelines is resource-intensive while work is done. On the other hand, this kind of inclusive and in-depth preparation provides a good basis for the discussions and further development of the support and services for open science within the organisation, as well as a better chance for open science to be seen as an integrated part of research instead of a set of additional external demands which merely requires extra work. Hopefully, it also means that when the guidelines are adopted as regulations at the university, they are already known to many, which may make the implementation phase easier than it would be after a less inclusive process. At the point when the policy was brought to decision of the rector in December 2023, at least 214 individuals and 12 central functions or associations had already been actively engaged in the process, while many more had been reached.
Malin Fredriksson
Lead coordinator of open science
Åbo Akademi University Library
Yrsa Neuman
Library director
Åbo Akademi University Library
The new policy for open science at Åbo Akademi University is available here: https://www.abo.fi/forska-hos-oss/oppenhet-och-etik/oppen-vetenskap-och-forskning/
Laura Himanen, Susanna Nykyri, Towards a sustainable and responsible model for monitoring open science and research—analysis of the Finnish model for monitoring open science and research, Research Evaluation, 2024;, rvae008, https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvae008
