Writing an Open Science plan in four (high-level) steps
I am happy to announce the release of ITC’s Strategic Plan for Open Science 2021 - 2025 – Towards an Open Future. ITC is the Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and is composed of six departments. The plan outlines the ideas and activities to establish and push Open Science (OS) at ITC. The process from the first draft to the final version included several iterations, each requiring conversations, compromises, and eventually decisions.
In this blog post, I will provide some insights into the writing process of the plan and its evolution. The following might be helpful for everyone planning to write a similar plan for the own faculty or university. Note: This text is just about the process, not the content of the plan. Scientifically speaking, this blog post is the methodology section underlying the OS plan.
Before we enter the writing process, I would like to briefly explain the organisational structure of the OS facility at ITC. We have a core team composed of ITC’s OS initiator Raúl Zurita Milla, research support coordinator Marga Koelen, and OS Officer Markus Konkol (me). To ensure we efficiently communicate with ITC’s researchers, each department and the library have sent a representative to the so-called user committee. These representatives forward OS-related news and updates to their departments and, in turn, send the needs and requests of their colleagues back to the OS core team. Moreover, the committee creates a communication channel for the management staff. For more details and names, please check our website.
So, let’s start with the OS plan. First of all, why do we think such a plan is needed? When speaking about OS, we often refer to a ‘transition to OS’. This term is somewhat vague, and many scholars do not know which changes to expect with this transition. Consequently, such a transition requires some form of objectives and structure to connect some already ongoing as well as new OS efforts. Also, we need to clarify what is part of this transition since OS is not just limited to Open Access and Open Data (see UNESCO’s Recommendation on OS). The implementation of each OS practice, whether it is Open Data, Open Reproducible Research, or Open Educational Resources, requires a set of (more or less) concrete steps. This sounds like we need a plan, right?
Setting up a plan is not that difficult. You simply list your key objectives and the tasks needed to reach them. Okay, maybe it’s not that easy, but the actual challenge is not writing down the plan but getting people involved and reaching a consensus. The ultimate goal was not to develop the plan in a top-down manner and impose it on ITC’s academic staff but to initiate a discussion about OS and get all heads in the same direction. The best OS plan will not be successful if it is supported only by the core team. How did it go?
The first draft
First, I did some research on similar OS plans and ended up using TU Delft’s OS programme to get an idea how such a plan could look like. I also used UNESCO’s OS definition to have a complete set of practices an OS plan should cover. I like their definition since it focuses not only on the most common OS practices such as Open Access and Open Data but also, for example, on Open Infrastructure and Open Educational Resources. Moreover, their definition considers societal aspects, such as science communication and the engagement of different societal actors. Based on these considerations, I created the first draft.
With version 1.0 at hand, I organised a one-hour online meeting with the core team and the committee to gain feedback. After a presentation of 30 minutes, I gave the audience the floor to comment, ask questions, and raise concerns. Unfortunately, the discussion was not as insightful as I had hoped. Only a few participants commented, and it was not a fluent conversation. Reasons for that include the nature of online meetings and the number of people (~13). However, I assume a more significant issue was the plan and presentation format. It requires time to think about the suggested plan and what it means for the individual departments. Also, since it was the first draft, many aspects were not entirely clear to everyone. In addition, since OS and its terms (reproducibility, replicability, etc.) are still new to many, such a presentation can be overwhelming, particularly if the participants do not deal with this topic daily. However, the presentation was not a mistake or poorly done. It was a good start but not more.
For these reasons, we decided to organise one-on-one meetings (one hour) with each committee member. The idea was to give them time to read the plan carefully and room to express their thoughts, questions, and concerns. Thus, each member could comment on the plan considering their department and area of research. Of course, the participants’ work does not represent their entire department, but it provides the first level of depth. The feedback I got from these meetings was much more detailed and covered many different aspects. Hence, a combination of a presentation and one-on-one meetings is recommended. Nevertheless, it might make more sense to start with one-on-one meetings before carrying out a larger meeting to ensure everyone is familiar with the content.
Step 2
I created a second version of the document based on the comments I received during the presentation and the one-on-one meetings. I sent this version back to the committee members and asked them to check whether I incorporated their feedback adequately. In addition, I asked them to plan one-on-one chats with their department heads. As mentioned earlier, the goal was to get all heads in the same direction, and the department leaders play a crucial role in guiding their department members. I found it essential to let the committee members speak to the department heads as they know their department best. They were all free to discuss whatever came to their mind. To structure the discussion a bit, I asked them to discuss the following questions:
· Which aspects in this document are the most important ones for your department?
· Where do you see difficulties regarding the realisation of the plan?
· Are there any important aspects missing?
· How can your department contribute to the realisation of the plan?
Step 3
Based on their feedback, I created the third version of the plan. I sent this version back to the committee members and the department heads and asked whether I addressed their comments sufficiently. I also sent this version to ITC’s management staff and organised individual meetings with the dean and the portfolio holders for research, education, operational management, and capacity development. Similar to the one-on-one meetings with the committee members and the department heads, I asked for their general feedback and used the guiding questions listed above. Finally, I also asked everyone whether they wanted to be named under the statement of support at the beginning of the document. Such a statement of support creates some informal accountability, although nobody can be held accountable in a legal sense. However, all department heads and management staff are listed by name.
Again, I received very constructive comments and valuable suggestions during the meetings. This is also why steps 2 and 3 were the most time-consuming and challenging in the entire process. The meetings themselves do not take much time, and I could incorporate many comments quickly. However, since everyone has a long list of obligations, the meetings can range over a relatively long period. Hence, there are phases without much progress. A further issue was the diversity of opinions and stances on OS. The spectrum ranged from OS enthusiasts who fully endorse all OS practices and want to foster collaboration to somewhat sceptical ones who prefer closed research and are rather competition-driven. It is up for discussion on how to deal with these differences. I tried to find a compromise as long as it was in line with the OS principles. For example, restricting openness because of competition goes against the idea of OS and was not included in the plan.
Furthermore, parallel developments in the context of OS have affected the plan as well. For example, since Utrecht University abandoned the Journal Impact Factor, we had an excellent argument to follow the same direction in the plan. Nevertheless, not everyone favours qualitative evaluation metrics but prefers the traditional metrics (see our last Open Science Kitchen event on Rewards and Recognition in the context of OS). At some point, I had to make a cut when I could not see the opportunity for a compromise. Thus, I need to admit that not everyone fully supports every aspect of the plan.
Step 4
These considerations finally led to the fourth version of the document. I presented the plan to the faculty board composed of department heads, portfolio holders, and management staff, where it was formally approved.
I thank everyone involved in this process for the time and feedback, particularly the committee members who invested a substantial amount of time. I was pleased to see that ITC’s management was keen to push OS and endorsed the plan.