Adopting the POSI Principles

Inclusive and efficient open research depends on foundational open scholarly infrastructure. It has become increasingly clear that there is a class of shared infrastructure to enable open research that should be open, community-governed, sustainable, and trusted by the research community. However, to date, there has been little clarity about how to assess, or even define, open scholarly infrastructure. As services that the scholarly community relies on and are essential to open research have been closed down or sold, it is imperative to understand and assess what constitutes open scholarly infrastructure.

The "Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure" (POSI) (https://doi.org/10.24343/C34W2H, Bilder, Neylon, Lin, 2015) were conceived to further the understanding and assessment of services and tools that the scholarly research community relies on. The 16 POSI principles and practices were inspired by experiences creating Crossref and ORCID and have been discussed over many years. The principles guide transparency, trustworthiness, openness, sustainability, insurance, and responsive community governance.

This poster—prepared by some of those who have publicly committed to POSI so far—will walk through the principles, highlight the areas where the community may be assured or see a risk, and will call for others to self-assess and make a promise.

POSI provides the framework for self-assessment and a pathway to building trust within the scholarly community. Organizations and services that have adopted POSI so far include Crossref, DataCite, Dryad, ROR, JOSS, and OurResearch. Not everyone who has signed up to POSI meets all 16 principles yet, but these initiatives have committed to working to do so. More services and organizations adopting POSI would help future collaboration between the parties, confirming that their fundamental values align and driving home the need to be responsive to the needs and concerns of overlapping stakeholders.