What does Open Science mean?

The term Open Science bundles strategies and procedures that aim to [...] make all elements of the scientific process openly accessible, transparent and sustainable via the Internet. This provides science, society and industry new opportunities when working with scientific findings.
Translated from the Mission statement of the German-language Open Science working group, 2014.www.ag-openscience.de/mission-statement

The cultural transformation that the term Open Science addresses has many different aspects, including free and unrestricted access to scientific publications (Open Access), the use of open source software, open data or open educational resources as well as open peer review processes.

Open access to scientific publications, research data and scientific software not only enhances the supply of information within science and academia. It also makes research processes more transparent and improves the quality assurance of scientific work. Open Science is thus essential for safeguarding good scientific practice.

The following four basic principles of Open Science boost knowledge transfer into the whole of society:

  • transparency
  • reproducibility
  • reusability
  • open communication

A key challenge for Open Science is ensuring the long-term utilisation of research findings in new and previously unknown contexts.

The six principles of Open Science

Open Access

Provide free and unrestricted access to scientific information.

Open Educational Resources

Create and use free and open educational material.

Open data

Provide free access to collected, generated, calculated and aggregated data.

Open source

Use open source technology (software and hardware) and provide access to your own technologies.

Open peer review

Facilitate quality assurance that is transparent and comprehensible.

Open methodology

Document the methods used and the entire process behind them, if practicable and relevant.

Source: Was ist Open Science? - openscienceasap.org/open-science/

Open Science at the University of Konstanz

At the University of Konstanz, we strongly support Open Science. In 2012, we published our Open Access Policy, declaring Open Access to scientific publications to be the guiding principle for our scientific publication strategy.

In 2018, our university’s Senate passed the Research Data Management Policy, thus confirming the university’s commitment to the “responsible handling of research data to be a foundation for transparent, transparent and efficient research”.

The Open Science team at KIM helps researchers at the University of Konstanz to open up their research processes. Here you can find out more about Open Access publishing and Research Data Management.

University members who are interested in Open Science are welcome to join our mailing list on this topic.