How Can Open Science Practices Increase Trust In Research?

The open science movement is changing the way research is published, providing new methods of dissemination and evaluation like preprints and open review that are accelerating the pace and transparency of science. At the same time, these new, more open methods of communicating science threaten to expose the publication process to bad actors keen on weaponizing science for political purposes, spreading misinformation, or publishing junk research to advance their careers. This panel brings together representatives from each stage of open science, from active researchers to open publishing platform developers and journalists for a frank discussion of how each part of the publishing process must adapt to make sure open science advances not just science itself, but society’s understanding of, trust in, and willingness to invest in research.

Panelists will share:

• New trends in open science and how they will change the way policymakers, journalists, and the public encounter, make sense of, and ultimately trust science.
• Potential risks posed by the adoption of open science and how researchers and publishers can work with journalists and policymakers to mitigate them.
• Why researchers are adopting open science, and what it means for the future of access to scientific knowledge.
• Lessons learned from the news media’s history with free online publishing, and what the academic publishing community can take and adapt from them.

Panelists:

Richard Sever is Chief Science and Strategy Officer (CSSO) at openRxiv, the non-profit

organization that runs the preprint servers bioRxiv and medRxiv.

Needhi Bhalla is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In her lab, she studies how cells ensure that the correct number of chromosomes is maintained with every cell division. In addition to the work in her lab, she is deeply committed to improving the culture of science, with an emphasis on improving equity in research assessment, at the level of both trainees and faculty.

Rachel Zamzow is an award-winning science journalist and editor. She’s the managing editor of The Open Notebook (TON), a nonprofit organization that supports the global community of journalists who cover science. As an independent journalist, she reports stories about neuroscience and ethics in science for several publications, including Science, Science News, and The Transmitter.

Moderator:

Gabriel Stein is a technologist, developer, and writer who has been interested in the intersection of culture and technology since he taught himself to code in middle school to build an online roleplaying game. He is the Head of Platform at Knowledge Futures, a non-profit that builds public digital infrastructure to make information useful.