Openness in Higher Education — how far should Openness go?

For me, the Open Knowledge in Higher Education unit certainly stimulated internal debate. My own, local view, is, I think, fairly typical for a UK academic. Openness is good; openness is fair; I want my students and co-workers to access my work (and me theirs), without barrier — but complete openness? That’s where the questions lies — how far does openness go? I was particularly taken by two of the OHKE1 reports: “Open Access and the Early Career Researcher: Weaving Open Access into the research process” and “The academic publishing industry: Reflections from an OKHE course participant” which contrasted the views of an early career academic (working on creative skills, on-line knowledge and social media) with those of a more “seasoned” (sorry, John!) Teaching and Learning Librarian. In the limited case of science (ie that which concerns me personally, rather than humanities and the like) full open access, at a basic level, would allow free, immediate accessibility to all published scientific papers to all practicing scientists (more of which later) and the data bases from which these publications were derived. At a level beyond this, the same accessibility could be made to non-scientists, indeed to all. But, in its current form(s), could it?

Open Access for Scientists

I run a laboratory, in which I conduct experiments in neuroscience. My proposed research is governed by a number of factors: the UK government, in the form of the regulatory authorities acting to oversee the use of animals in research, and funding for such research; the University, my employer, who also ethically reviews my work and provides space (and time!) for the work to be done. In turn my work is published in peer-reviewed journals to be shared (but not freely), which becomes one of the measures by which the University values my worth. This current model requires a means to publish the work, traditionally utilising well recognised specialist publishing houses, who organise (but don’t fund or undertake) the peer-review process and subsequently publish for sale the collected works. So far, so good. Scientists, through their University library can then access the material and hopefully use it to guide their own research. There are at least a couple of points of interest in this traditional, so far very successful model. Access to the publish work is controlled by the publisher, not the scientist, and the publisher sells that access for profit. Indeed the publisher also charges the scientist authors a fee to accept/publish the work (win/win for the publisher!). For these sums, the publisher, however, organises a review process, which attempts to guarantee the quality of the science, its presentation and advertises the product to the marketplace. In a capitalist society this is considered by many as normal and even desirable — the best (ie most read) publishers will survive — purveyors of poor product will fail. Open access, defined as free of cost to writer and reader, necessarily breaks this model. However, the arrival of the Internet and fast computers basically circumvents much of the role of the publisher as the “printing process” devolves more and more to electronic copy. As the publishing process becomes more automated and paper-free, such computer based costs should fall and be passed on to the consumer as lower prices. Strangely (!), this has not happened — the larger entrenched publishers have established a closed-shop on their “product” and seen their profits rise extensively. “Open access” is currently standardised by an odd system of half-measures, wherein the Gold Standard means that the publishers repository of papers is made freely available from a repository owned and maintained by the publisher , but the publishing scientists (or their Institutions or funding bodies) must pay to be published; while the Green Standard (to which UK Universities largely now aspire) allows an Institutional repository of published works, at no cost to the reader, but within which individual publishers may place an embargo period such that the latest work is not freely available for a certain period. This system is cumbersome and costly but represents a compromise between full open access and the previous closed-shop model. So, can we hope to move to full open access? In the first instance, the current metric of published work is the prestige of the journal itself — not just in overall science (journals such as Science and Nature), but within more specialised subjects (journals such as Journal of Neuroscience (sfn.org) and Journal of Neurophysiology (the-aps.org)) and this has becomes “quantised” by their Impact Factor, a “simple” numerical metric indicating the extent of the readership of the content (but which is itself extremely controversial!). Within this system, new open access journals have been introduced which make all content free of charge to the readership but which still have page charges (journals such as Frontiers in Neuroscience and PLOS ONE/Biology) amounting to ~£2500/article. These may be included in the financial support for the work or by the Institution, but may devolve to the individual researcher (a major issue in the blog referred to above “Open Access and the Early Career Researcher”! So, are we open to scientists yet? Not yet, but recent moves to encourage true openness by virtue of the reinventing of University Presses seems to offer hope. While not yet addressing sciences, most University Presses could offer an alternative model — but the remaining obstacles are still finance (who pays?) and, critically for science, who decides what gets in…. and so the current model continues, but is beginning to show some (severe) cracks — availability of normally pay-per-view articles “pirated” and made available free online (a major, ongoing issue raised in the earlier blog “The academic publishing industry”) and, despite legal action from major publishers, still (apparently) remain active. This growing sign of desperation from the less financially able Universities and individual scientists suggests that the current model must evolve, at a minimum to serve the scientific community fully.

Open Access for the Public

Extending the open access (to science) beyond scientists to the general public seems at first glance an obvious goal — why shouldn’t everyone have access — it’s science, produced for the benefit of mankind. The devil is in the detail (no pun intended!). By their very nature, scientific articles are written in a style designed to communicate the information with the least possible chance of misunderstanding — the scholarly “style”, beaten into us from our undergraduate days, eschews the adverb, shuns the verbose, discards the adjective (but so did Twain, a damn fine writer (humour intended, but borrowed!)). Furthermore scientific nomenclature is obscure, both arcane and in places archaic. To some this would be like reading a foreign language (as I might find a maths paper!) and therefore not worth the likely benefit (consider: we are the science producing, science writing contributors but rarely have time to keep up with our own field, never mind “enjoying” novel unrelated fields of science!).

But let’s play a mind experiment: suppose there exists member of the non-scientifically trained public sufficiently able and free to read a specific scientific paper* (I considered one of mine, but ego goes only so far!): “RBM3 mediates structural plasticity and protective effects of cooling in neurodegeneration” — roughly translates as “a substance called RBM3 does something to how things change when nerve cells degenerate; and potentially prevents damage from cooling”. The paper beautifully writes about the effects of RBM3 very precisely and concludes modestly that using cooled animals the change in brain function looked much like both hibernation (recoverable) and the early stages of Alzheimers disease (non-recoverable) — but application of a substance found in hibernating animals to the cooled animals appeared to reverse this change.

Now, I have taken time and space to write this out and explain as best I can in a (very) short space — but the BBC does better, saying: “Hibernating hints at dementia therapy” with the lesser headline “Neurodegenerative diseases have been halted by harnessing the regenerative power of hibernation, scientists say”. I will make two simple points from this — the BBC made it very understandable, easy for the reading public; and the BBC exaggerated the conclusions of the paper vastly (including the very cute picture of (brown?) bears in the snow). Consequences? Some would be educated, some might even explore further — and the majority add it to the “sound bites” of science; a curiosity to be chatted about over the next tea-break perhaps? Has Openness in Science served the scientist and the public well? I fear that journalistic interpretation of science in search of good copy (even the BBC) can exaggerate the claims made by scientists and by so doing both distort the message and discredit the work in the eyes of the public. Ok, that’s a black picture in a black-and-white word-view (my choice of spelling!). There is a middle way! To begin with, the paper was also briefly reviewed in another journal (albeit from the same publisher!) and this review included more even-handed coverage of the scope of the paper and explanation of the content in a simpler fashion. But, will the public access this (better?) review? Surely, with open science, access to both paper and review would both be guaranteed? True; but the ability to link these, (the resources to track the trail of papers, reviews and explanatory pieces) needs also to be available and the instructions (training?) on how to do this easily accessible. Suddenly, all the freely available information becomes much like gold in the 1890’s Klondike — everyone knows it’s there somewhere — but you have to know exactly where (journal search engine?) and how best to get at it (sensible interpretation).For the public, then, the situation boils down to filtering available information; selecting what is interesting; and comprehending (and where appropriate using) it — a logical “copy” of the actions carried out by the scientists themselves, but from a radically different perspective. Can we expect the public to do this? Is it fair to assume that simply by making access open, we fully engage in openness? Public Openness, in Science, perhaps more so than in other disciplines, adds a duty above and beyond simply permitting of access to the copy — we are required to help in its comprehension — to make it understandable. However, surely this process has to some extent been ongoing for many years — are there not outstanding scientist/author/promoters publishing the “coffee-table” science books — with enormous choice of topic and level? In thinking around this topic, there was a particular example I wished to quote (available now for only 12.87), so definitely not “free”. In the example I wished to use, Carl Sagan, a master of scientific explanation, was describing a conversation with a non-scientist (taxi driver) who wanted to discuss science, but extensively muddled science with non-science (Atlantis, crystals and astrology!). This exemplifies the current problem in the availability of, and education in, science for the general public — the need for guidance. Making information freely available does not bring with it the tools to make it useable — there is a major gap here, currently lacking appropriate guidance and to some extent replaced by non-science, presented in a “plausible” way. In fact, as I look though the Sky TV channel offerings I can see on the “History” channel a “documentary” on the extra-terrestrials who made China their home, and on “Discovery History” a fascinating (!?) hour long discourse the US (who else?) development of telepathic soldiers. There are no channels given over to real science. On the web and the blogosphere science is definitely “out there” — but still in very disorganised quasi-random fashion, with levels of quality likely to match. Perhaps this is an area where University presses and the like to make a difference — providing “digested” versions of current science, written by in-house scientists? But hold on –I have referred to the limited time I, as an individual scientist, have available; to my specific training in writing scientifically (ie generally obscure and obtuse for the public) — so I am neither trained (nor paid) for this task. It’s true we have already begun to take on some (in a very limited way) of these processes. In writing a grant application, or an application to work scientifically with animals we have to produce “lay” versions, suitable for an educated public to read and immediately understand — to explain what we propose to do, why we propose to do it, why it’s the best way — and what might follow from the work (success or otherwise; although such definitions are not truly scientifically meaningful!). So, the work has begun… but are we, the practicing scientists, the people to carry it through?

Right now, distribution of science to the public is best served in the realm of the World-Wide Web; the internet — with additional aid (?) from journalists and writers in the “press”. However, I have argued we who carry out the actual science may not be best placed, nor best able, to disseminate the information to the public (though there are notable exceptions — Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins and Jared Diamond spring to mind — perhaps even our own Brian Cox (physicist and presenter, not (excellent) Scottish actor!)).

But we have a relatively large, relatively untapped resource — our post-doctoral staff — educated in science beyond doctoral level, many will not, in our current climate, be able to run their own lab in the future (and many really do not aspire to) — but could find a niche role in science communication — which surely must be the “new big thing” if we wish Openness in Science to reach the general population effectively. Indeed, some 23.4% of post-docs are listed as becoming “Education Professionals” in one September 2015 report. Just as over the past decade, Universities have evolved a large Research Management element (from a similar pool of post-docs) whose job is to assist the “business” of science, from inception through funding to publication and beyond, I can envisage another family of staff whose job it is to assist the disseminate science to the public, taking a broader, less parochial view than a “My University First” view to a more holistic description of our science in context — to publish, openly; to blog, to advise (University and perhaps (local) government?) — perhaps even to offset some of the more “inflated views” of less well prepared journalists and TV presenters! If data mining, in its broadest sense, was combined with appropriate levels of extraction and integration, a regular series of science “digests” (blogs; web pages; whatever format works best) would provide a role for a significant number of scientist “information technicians” working with university Libraries and Presses (with the proposed output being cross-checked by a form of peer-review, of course).

An alternative (or additional) location for such (teams of) individuals might also be the learned Societies (who publish some of the major journals and are trying to engage openness) — once again, however, this suggestion, these people and their role all depend on finance and, I’m afraid, it’s down to the public, through Government, to seek out, to push for, better accountability of science through better understanding. The open access report of 2016 cites the success of the UK to date, while really dealing only with Open Access amongst Scholars (albeit on a true international stage). For true openness to all we need to add a new layer to our education system — the open education of the public, balancing science against non-science, explaining the difficult concepts, updating the new (better) hypotheses in an understandable, non-patronizing way — available to all, free at the point of contact (does this remind you of anything?) — as educating people can only improve lives.

*This is an example I use in my teaching — I am always amazed how many students gasp a sigh of relief when I reveal the BBC headline….