Open Science is a global movement that seeks to make scientific research, data, methods, and dissemination accessible to all levels of society—whether academic, professional, or amateur. It aims to foster transparency, collaboration, and equitable access to knowledge.
The Open Science movement builds on decades of advocacy for open access and scientific transparency. Key milestones include:
Open annotation enables collaborative engagement with digital content, including texts, images, datasets, or videos. Using tools like Hypothes.is, researchers and readers can publicly or privately comment and contribute to scholarly discussions in real time.
Preprints are research manuscripts shared publicly before peer review. Platforms such as arXiv, bioRxiv, and OSF Preprints support early dissemination, enabling feedback and rapid scientific progress.
Open access journals provide unrestricted, free access to peer-reviewed articles. They are supported through models like Article Processing Charges (APCs), institutional subsidies, or diamond open access (no charges for authors or readers). Examples include PLOS ONE and eLife.
Open peer review increases transparency by disclosing reviewer and author identities or making reviews publicly available. It aims to improve review quality and accountability. See practices at F1000Research and Open Research Europe.
Researchers are encouraged to maintain open, interoperable online profiles (e.g., ORCID) that link their publications, datasets, preprints, and peer reviews. These profiles support attribution, reuse, and collaboration.
Open source software, with licenses such as MIT, GPL, and Apache, ensures that code is freely available for reuse and improvement. Platforms like GitHub and GitLab support collaborative development.
Open data refers to research data shared in a manner that allows free use and reuse, ideally under licenses like CC0. Repositories such as Zenodo, Dataverse, and DataCite promote FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles.
Open citations are openly available references to scholarly works, often in machine-readable formats. Initiatives like OpenCitations promote transparency in citation networks and foster metrics beyond journal impact factors.
Photographs, videos, 3D models, and other non-textual artifacts are increasingly recognized as legitimate research outputs.
Citizen science involves public participation in scientific research. Volunteers may collect, classify, or analyze data—enhancing public engagement and expanding research capacity. Projects like Zooniverse exemplify this practice.
OERs are freely accessible, openly licensed educational materials that support teaching and learning. They are essential for equitable education and capacity-building in scientific literacy.
Persistent identifiers (PIDs) ensure that digital research objects—articles, data, software—can be reliably found and cited over time. Common PIDs include: