Open Source Research

What is 'open source research'?

There are a number of different things that people mean when they say that research must be 'open', 'free', and 'publicly available'. At the very least, it points to a movement that rejects placing public research behind paywalls. The mainstream academic publishing industry (including the 'big five': Elsevier, Springer, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor and Francis, Sage) have --reluctantly-- accepted 'open access' publishing since the 90's. Open access directly confronts the major problem with the 'serials crisis' as purely an economic issue; either for readers, authors, or both.

'Alternative academic publishing' consists of an increasing number and type of dissenting models to traditional academic publishing.

Perhaps a better definition can come from the "open source software" movement. Much of the ideas and infrastructure which made open source software possible has been a direct influence on the ideas of "open source research" presented here.

I'm sure there are more suitable and accurate definitions out there for "open source research", which better captures the scholarly process of researchers, scholars, teachers, and students, but the simplest is an unabashed copying of the above:-

  • The freedom to view/use the research/writing for any reason
  • The freedom to copy and share the original research/writing
  • The freedom to inspect and modify the research/writing
  • The freedom to copy and share the modified research/writing

    • The argument for this is extremely simple:-

  • Most universities are publicly funded bodies; many are also designated as 'charities'. Researchers, lecturers, professors, research assistants, PhD students, or anyone else engaged in research is partly or wholly funded out of the public purse. The research they produce is therefore a public good.
  • Research produced from universities, colleges and other institutes of higher learning constitutes new knowledge; an absolute good for mankind. The more accessible this knowledge is, the better off we will all be.
  • Due to the current, limited format of produced research, the audience for that research is almost entirely just other scholars and students in that sub-sub-field. The more acessible research is, the easier it will be to take that research outside of its field, and apply it to another area of life.

    • The crumbling of the old model?

    So what's wrong with what we have? We can just use open source publishing software like ... This means that scholars can continue to publish, and scholars and the public can gain access to that research for free!

    Accessibility

    Research must be open, free, and readable

    Searchability

    Research must be fully machine-readable

    Reproducibility

    Research must be reproducible