Research Symposium, 14.-15. November 2019, Frankfurt a. M.
Scope
Open Science refers to a research process that allows for the interaction with stakeholders from industry, the general public, and politics. This requires that the processes are accessible, transparent, and encourage exchange, communication, and collaboration. Thus, Open Science directly contributes to the acquisition of knowledge on all levels of the society and, furthermore, allows for the open validation of this acquired knowledge. Open questions remain for researchers about the implementation of Open Science in practice, which are specific to the culture and discipline; furthermore, differences in personality affect researchers’ willingness to share data (Kim & Nah, 2018; Linek, Fecher, Friesike, & Hebing, 2017).
Open research practices are beneficial not only for research, but also for tertiary education. For example, Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Tools can be used independently of constraints associated with location or time (Blessinger, & Bliss, 2016). At the same time, they allow students to directly participate in the creation of OER, and for the follow-up use of these tools. As well, the communication of the importance of Open Science takes an increasingly central role, as was recently exemplified by the mitigation of the replication crisis. Making study design processes and data open contributes to comprehensive and reproducible research to validate significant results. In relation to tertiary education, little is known about the internal and external factors, and the extent to which they play a role in the teaching and use of open practices (Bossu, & Stagg, 2018).
Higher education institutions provide an optimal setting to examine the interactions between open practices in research and teaching because the agents simultaneously conduct research and incorporate it in their teaching. The goal of the current symposium is to obtain a better understanding of this context, as well as understanding the relationship of various factors that influence practices and the tension between data safety, protection of data privacy, and openness (Cronin, 2017).