{"id":3082,"date":"2016-02-18T08:32:12","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T16:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mozscienceblog.wpengine.com\/?p=3082"},"modified":"2016-02-18T08:32:12","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T16:32:12","slug":"rr-christie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foundation-archive\/mozilla-science\/rr-christie\/","title":{"rendered":"Research Round-up: Science isn\u2019t accessible to everyone. This is a problem."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"christie_bahlai\"<\/a>This week, we’re continuing a series (started Tuesday<\/a>) of guest blogs from our Mozilla Fellows for Science<\/a>, with Christie Bahlai, you can read more about Christie<\/a> here on the 2015 fellows’ page<\/a>, and read on to learn about her thoughts on open science, and her interaction with its discontents. Reach out to her on twitter @cbahlai<\/a>, or read her blog here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The scientific process, or at least the one we typically use in western academia, goes something like this. A scientist, wondering about some aspect of how the world works, does an experiment or makes observations, producing data. She then does some kind of analysis on the data to see what sort of patterns emerge. She then writes a report or paper where she describes what she did, what she saw, and what she thinks it means in the context of what we already know. Then she sends the paper to a journal, and the journal editor decides if the paper should be published with the help of peer reviewers.1<\/sup> If it is published, it will be made available to other scientists through university libraries that subscribe to that journal.<\/p>\n

Typically, this final paper is what we look at as the main product of research, but a lot of work happened behind the scenes in its production.\u00a0 So you can see, this process can lead to a lot of problems-\u00a0 namely, other scientists don\u2019t have access to the behind-the-scenes products so they can build on the first scientist\u2019s work, and the public, unless they have an in at the university library, can\u2019t access the research paper at all. \u00a0This means the people that need science most- the ones making decisions that affect human health, livelihoods, and the environment,\u00a0 do not have access to the all the information produced by scientists to help solve these problems<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Closed practice is pervasive in academic science. At every level of rank and organization, the infrastructure is built to not particularly value open practice, and sometimes outright deter it. The culture of academic science re-enforces secrecy through fear 2<\/sup> – I remember even as an undergrad, hearing grad students talk about their concerns that their work would be \u2018scooped\u2019 by others.\u00a0 There was an oral tradition where students passed down this message- that science was primarily an adversarial pursuit- you had to hold your cards close, lest your competitors use your data to solve their problems before you. These messages get reinforced as you pass along the pipeline and through the academic ranks. \u00a0High impact factor papers and grant funding are the currency of success in academia- there are few recognitions for inclusivity or reproducibility. \u00a0Because of these incredibly dominant cultural aspects, I believe the key to changing the culture is through gentle shifts in regulation and the reward structure- and then aim for the bulk of the change to occur in early career scientists.<\/p>\n

Open science can improve reproducibility and accessibility issues presented by the current system, but requires training, advocacy, and a reward system. In an \u2018open\u2019 model, scientists use the tools and connectivity available to them through the internet to document and share all steps of the scientific process- posting raw data, the code they used to analyze the data, and the final publication- and invite comment at all stages in the process. Most scientists agree that learning to use technology to improve the reproducibility of their work is a good thing, but there is a lot of pushback against open science in my field for two big reasons.<\/p>\n