Open Research Week is a joint venture between University of Liverpool, Edge Hill University and Liverpool John Moores University library research support teams. We held eight events over four days covering many aspects of open research including reward and recognition, open educational resources and publishing open books and open journals. We had an opening keynote from Dr Ana Persic from UNESCO talking about the Recommendation on Open Science which was unanimously adopted by the 193 UNESOC member states in November 2021. The week was opened by Professor Keith George, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Enterprise at LJMU.
Below you can find a summary and recordings from each of our sessions.
Monday
Keynote
UNESCO Open Science Recommendation: International Policy Framework for Open Science – Dr Ana Persic, Programme Specialist for Science Policy and Partnerships at the Division of Science Policy and Capacity Building at UNESCO Headquarters, Paris
Ana’s talk outlined the reasoning behind the Recommendation which recognises that open science can be a true game-changer in addressing the pressing planetary and socio-economic challenges. UNESCO led a global dialogue with the aim of developing the first international standard-setting instrument on open science in the form of a UNESCO Recommendation since 2019. The UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science defines shared values and principles for open science and covers the key pillars of open science. It also identifies concrete measures and areas of action in order to aid countries to implement the recommendation.
Ana’s presentation provoked lots of questions and you can watch the full presentation and Q&A here
Assessing, Monitoring, Rewarding
Assessing, monitoring and rewarding open research, and the funder’s role – Aki Macfarlane, Open Research Specialist in Wellcome’s Research Environment team
Aki started her talk by sharing her thoughts on what openness and open research means to her and asked the audience for their views via an online poll. For Aki openness is about being accessible, fair and reproducible but also unconcealed, frank and candid. Openness welcomes scrutiny and critique and is receptive to new ideas. Aki talked about Wellcome’s approach to using the Résumé for Researchers format, as developed by the Royal Society, in their application forms, asking for a narrative around how applicants have contributed to the generation of knowledge, development of others and the wider research community. Wellcome want to see that applicants recognise the value of openness in research and that they have accessed the potential value of the outputs of their research.
You can watch the full presentation and Q&A here
Tuesday
Open Journals: Possibilities in Publishing
This session featured two presentations:
Publish or perish: what contribution can an open journal service offer in the academic publishing market – Cath Dishman, Open Access and Digital Scholarship Librarian, Liverpool John Moores University
Cath talked about setting up and managing the LJMU Open Journals Service. The service uses Open Journals Systems (OJS) and started life as a pilot project. The service now hosts journals with both staff and student editorial boards and is home to several academic research journals. Cath talked about the contribution an open journals service can offer in the academic publishing market, including the challenges with this. Cath highlighted some of the positives of open journals from both her own and Journal Managers’ perspectives, including outreach and engagement, editorial control and offering an alternative publishing option.
The Essex Student Journal – a diamond open access journal run by students, for students – Hannah Pyman, Scholarly Communications Coordinator and Academic and Research Support Librarian, Essex University and Dafni Kalatzi Pantera, Essex Student Journal editor and postgraduate student in government, University of Essex
Hannah is the journal manager for the journal and talked about how the library took it over and relaunched it on an online platform. The journal appoints a student editor every year and this academic year that is Dafni’s role. The journal uses the Janeway platform to manage the publishing process and publish the journal. They post current news stories as well as journal articles on the site. The Essex Student Journal publishes current student work which is peer reviewed by PGR students. Dafni talked about the benefits to students as authors and reviewers as well as the publishing process. There are training materials and resources available for authors and reviewers on the site and the team offer face to face (albeit currently online) training sessions.
You can watch both presentations and the Q&A here
Open Education
Making open education FAIR: principles, practice and the National Teaching Repository – Dr Dawne Irving Bell, Senior Fellow with a Readership in Learning and Teaching, Edge Hill University and Liam Bullingham, Research Support Librarian, Edge Hill University
Dawne introduced the National Teaching Repository (NTR) which is hosted on Edge Hill University’s Figshare and talked about how it came into being. The NTR started life as a blog for colleagues to upload and share good teaching practice and gain recognition for their efforts. It rapidly gained momentum and with the acquisition of Figshare it was given a new home. The NTR gets around 6,000 visits per month from all around the globe. With the help of critical friends and curators the resource is expanding.
Liam then talked about Open Educational Resources (OERs) and how the FAIR principles apply to this space as well as the research data space. Equally relevant are the 5Rs of openness, which are: retain, reuse revise, remix and redistribute. Liam argued that the NTR and FAIR can help OERs overcome some of their traditional challenges.
You can watch the full recording and Q&A here
Wednesday
Open Research and Me
This session included presentations from three researchers, one from each of the organising institutions.
Creating a catalogue of our data: incorporating FAIR and using the Open Science Framework – Dr Alexis Makin, Lecturer in Psychology, University of Liverpool
Alexis talked about how he catalogued data collected over many years using FAIR principles to make it more usable and reproducible. Alexis talked about the reproducibility crisis and the four horsemen of irreproducibility: publication bias, low statistical power, P-hacking and HARKing. All these things contribute to the irreproducibility problem. Alexis wants us to move into a glorious future where all data and analysis is FAIR.
What Can Be The Worst That Can Happen? Open Access and Me – Dr Hilary Bishop, Senior Lecturer Liverpool Business School, Liverpool John Moores University
Hilary shared her website Find a Mass Rock with us and explained why she created it in the first place. Mass rocks are sacred spaces which were used during Penal times but have more recently been used by priests during the pandemic when churches were closed. Some of these mass rocks are hard to reach and on private land so Hilary’s website gives users the opportunity to learn more about them, the oral histories surrounding them and view, download and use her photographs of the sites.
Registered Reports: The gold standard of open research is also the most challenging to do right – Dr Reshanne Reeder, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology, Edge Hill University
Reshanne talked about her experience of putting together a registered report and the difference between them and preregistration. Reshanne argued that whilst it takes time to write the registered report at stage 1 of your research process, stage 2 review and publication is then more streamlined. The hardest part is having to stick to your stated method but this makes your science better and less likely to fall prey to some of the issues that Alexis mentioned earlier in the session.
You can watch all 3 presentations and the Q&A here
Open Access Books – making it work – roundtable discussion chaired by Open Access Books Network
Tom Mosterd, Community Manager at the Directory of Open Access Books and one of the three coordinators for the Open Access Books Network
Tom introduced the speakers and managed the panel discussion section.
Charles Watkinson, Associate University Librarian for Publishing and Director of University of Michigan Press
Charles talked about University of Michigan’s approach to changing their approach to making University of Michigan Press books accessible. The unintended experiment that was covid-19 made them realise the potential reach of their books beyond the United States. They decided to adopt a subscribe to open model where libraries subscribe to access their restricted backlist which then helps to fund making the front list open. This is just part of the funding stream but is a move away from the reader pays to read model (or the author pays to make the work open access). Library subscriptions are not the only income stream, there are other sources that support the model. Charles also argued that the form of the book is changing and it is no longer a static object so they are looking at publishing different types of outputs.
Demmy Verbeke, Head of Artes, KU Leuven Libraries and Associate Professor of Open Scholarship at the Faculty of Arts, KU Leuven
Demmy talked about how KU Leuven set apart part of their budget to support non-profit approaches to open scholarship. It covers other areas but in terms of open books there is provision for grants for individual open access books published by Leuven University Press and support for collective funding programs focusing on open access books. This can then trigger additional support for collective funding programs financed through acquisition budgets of branch libraries. Demmy argued that having a clear budget, with expertise helps to be able to fund these deals, rather than competing for more “traditional” library funds.
Lucy Barnes, Editor and Outreach Co-ordinator at Open Book Publishers and COPIM
Lucy talked about the COPIM project which stands for community-led open publication infrastructures for monographs and is attempting to address the key technological and infrastructure issues that stand in the way of open access books. They want to create open alternatives that enable greater participation and are co-operative rather than competitive. More details of the different work packages can be found on the COPIM website. They are aiming to build an infrastructure that can be scaled small to remove/lower barriers to entry to open access book publishing for small presses.
The presentations were followed by a panel discussion chaired by Tom. You can watch the presentations and panel discussion here
Open Research and Reproducibility
Professor Emily Farran, UK Reproducibility Network Institutional Lead, University of Surrey and Andy Jones, UK Reproducibility Network Local Network Lead, University of Liverpool
Emily talked about some of the things that COVID-19 has taught us including that preprints are critical, global collaboration has increased and open data plays a key role. Transparency is important but it needs time so the reproducibility is possible which helps with public trust. Emily argued that we need to be confident of the findings of published research and this is where reproducibility comes in. Emily outlined some of the questionable research practices which Alexis had highlighted earlier in the week and argued that there needs to be a shift in the culture to make every stage of research more transparent. The resource Open Research: example of good practice, and resources across disciplines could be a useful tool for those wanting to engage in open research but aren’t sure where to start in their discipline. Emily then talked about UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN), what it aims are, some of the resources that are available through them and how researchers can get involved. The talk was followed by a Q&A session chaired by Andy Jones.
You can watch the full presentation and Q&A here
Thursday
Open Research Winners
Professor George Talbot, Pro Vice Chancellor (Research) and Dean of Arts & Sciences, Edge Hill University officially closed Open Research Week and introduced our final session. We heard from the three winners of Open Research prizes at their respective institutions.
Dr Ailsa Naismith, Research Associate School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol
Ailsa joined us from her mobile phone from Guatemala and the first thing she shared with us was the view behind her which was the volcano that is a focus of her research. Aisla is working to understand factors which effect whether people living in volcanic regions choose to evacuate or not. Ailsa conducted a series of interviews which resulted in a paper but wanted to extend the reach of this paper. It was published open access, with an open peer review process with the methods shared as well. Ailsa also shared the outcomes in different ways in both English and Spanish including blog posts and a podcast. Entering the competition has inspired further work using open research methods, including ensuring sharing the research at a much earlier stage and making sure those being researched are involved along the journey.
Dr Alanna Skuse, Lecturer of English, University of Reading
Alanna had quite a bit of experience of open access publishing prior to entering the competition because of funder requirements but also feels that the open access conversation doesn’t always consider publishing in the humanities. Alanna argues that there are benefits to publishing open access personally but also from a moral perspective feels that people you are researching should be able to access the research about them. In her entry for the prize Alanna explored the challenges of open access for humanities researchers, where there may be a limited range of suitable venues as well as highlighting some of the positives in terms of increased readership and engagement.
Dr Marton Ribary, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, School of Law
Marton talked about his different approach to research practice in the very traditional field of Roman legal scholarship. Marton’s “pyramid of openness” strategy was to publish both a data paper and a research paper based on an open workflow which included an open project repository of resource files and code. Marton had to reflect on who this research reached as his approach was not the traditional way to do this kind of research and discovered that there is a lack of understanding about the costs associated with open access in his discipline.
You can watch all 3 presentations and the Q&A here
The Open Research Week team would like to thank all our presenters for sharing their time and expertise with us. Thank you to the Wellcome Trust who generously awarded the Institutional Strategic Support Fund to the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Liverpool which helped to support this week.
Finally thank you to all the attendees who joined us over the four days. Thank you for your great questions and for joining in the conversation about open research. We hope to see you again next year and if you have any suggestions for things you’d like to be included please get in touch
Researcher Engagement 
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