Open Science/Week 10: Open Science Infrastructures

Learning Outcomes

 * Explain the role of infrastructure in making open science possible
 * Describe gaps in the current infrastructure of open science
 * Describe challenges in making open science infrastructure, inclusive, collaborative, and sustainable.

Readings
“[https://elpub.episciences.org/4619 Whose Infrastructure? Towards Inclusive and Collaborative Knowledge Infrastructures in Open Science]” by Angela Okune, Rebecca Hillyer, Denisse Albornoz, Alejandro Posada, Leslie Chan in ELPUB, Toronto, Canada; 2018, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. 20 pages.

“Open is Not Forever: A Study of Vanished Open Access Journals” by Laakso, M., Matthias, L., & Jahn, N in Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2021. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. 14 pages.

Discussion Question
Identify an example of infrastructure relevant to your research context. Describe one strength and one weakness of this infrastructure. Focus on the extent to which your example is inclusive, collaborative, and/ or sustainable. Conclude your post with a question for others in the class.

Alternative discussion question: If you (as discussion leader) can identify one or two examples of open infrastructure familiar to your class and relevant to their research context, have the class apply concepts from the reading to evaluate the specific example(s) on dimensions of inclusivity, collaboration, and sustainability.

This week also offers the opportunity for an open data activity using this dataset on open access journals: Vanished Open Access Journals (Version 3) by Laakso, M., Matthias, L., & Jahn, N. available on Zenodo, Meyrin, Switzerland: CERN, 2020.

Self-check Questions


{What is the main point of the Cape Town, South Africa, example, from the introduction to “Whose Infrastructure?” by Okune and colleagues? -Infrastructure is threatened by climate change. -The private sector should play a larger role in providing infrastructure. -Infrastructure is owned by no one but needed by everyone. +Infrastructure may appear neutral, but it reflects politics, power, and privilege.
 * type=""}
 * Try again. This is a true statement, but is not the main point of the Cape Town example in this article’s introduction.
 * Try again. This is a statement of opinion, and it is not the main point of the Cape Town example in this article’s introduction.
 * Try again. This may be true in some contexts, but it is not the main point of the Cape Town example in this article’s introduction.
 * Correct! See paragraph 4. The water supply in Cape Town, and its failure during a drought, affected communities differently across dimensions of politics, power, and privilege.

{Which of the following are examples of open science infrastructure discussed in "Whose Infrastructure?" by Okune and colleagues? +co-creation of a shared vocabulary. +co-development of a framework for governance of research and data +co-design of a research contract -construction of public libraries Try again. This was not presented as an example. The examples focus on infrastructures in the context of “modern technology and networked collaboration” rather than physical infrastructure.
 * type="[]"}
 * Correct! The authors present an example of co-creation of a shared vocabulary for natural disaster response in the Caribbean.
 * Correct! The authors present an example of co-development of a framework for governance of research and data for a virtual herbarium in Brazil.
 * Correct! The authors present an example of co-design of a research contract with indigenous communities in South Africa.

{In “Whose Infrastructure?” Okune and colleagues advocate for open science infrastructure that does which of the following things? Choose the best answer. -recognizes complex identities and diverse forms of expression -is deliberately and constructively inclusive -takes into account the diversity of human experiences and forms of knowing. +all of the above
 * type=""}
 * Try again. This is a correct answer, but it is not the only correct answer or the best answer. See the Concluding Thoughts section of the article.
 * Try again. This is a correct answer, but it is not the only correct answer or the best answer. See the Concluding Thoughts section of the article.
 * Try again. This is a correct answer, but it is not the only correct answer or the best answer. See the Concluding Thoughts section of the article.
 * Correct! See the Concluding Thoughts section of the article.

{Which of the following were the main findings of the study by Laakso, Matthias, and Jahn, “Open is not Forever”? +Open access journals that eventually vanished had typically been active for about 6 years. -The problem of vanishing journals only affects open access journals, not subscription journals. +Open access journals that eventually vanished typically remained accessible for about 2 years after they became inactive. +Humanities and social science open access journals were relatively more likely to vanish.
 * type="[]"}
 * Correct! This was one of their main findings (see Discussion).
 * Try again. While open access journals may be more likely to vanish, because they lack the ongoing revenue from subscriptions, subscription journals may also vanish.
 * Correct! This was one of their main findings (see Discussion).
 * Correct! This was one of their main findings (see Discussion).

{What is meant by the phrase “triggered content” in the article “Open is not Forever” by Laakso, Matthias, and Jahn? -content marked to indicate some readers may find it traumatizing. -content that is frequently censored by governments -content that is behind a paywall +content made available by a preservation service after an event, such as a publisher no longer making the content available
 * type=""}
 * Try again. See Table 1 and the section “Preservation services: Many options, slow uptake”
 * Try again. See Table 1 and the section “Preservation services: Many options, slow uptake”
 * Try again. See Table 1 and the section “Preservation services: Many options, slow uptake”
 * Correct! See, for example, Table 1, to learn how various preservation services make content available after “trigger events.”