In this article, the authors present three challenges to the emerging Open Science (OS) movement: the challenge of communication, collaboration and cultivation of scientific research. We argue that to address these challenges OS needs to include other forms of data than what can be captured in a text and extend into a fully-fledged Open Media movement engaging with new media and non-traditional formats of science communication. We discuss two cases where experiments with open media have driven new collaborations between scientists and documentarists. We use the cases to illustrate different advantages of using open media to face the challenges of OS.
Get the article in: Journal of Science Communication 15(06)(2016)A02 1:
The journal editor writes about the paper:
"Martiny, Pedersen and Birkegaard [2016] argue that there are three challenges that researchers using an open science model face: communication, collaboration and culture. The communication challenge is one of recognition; scientists are generally recognised for their contributions to peer-reviewed academic journals, but these are not generally available to the public, nor written to be accessible to a broad audience. They ask: If the public communication that could be embedded in an open science programme is not rewarded, what is the motivation to undertake it? From a collaboration perspective, Martiny, Pedersen and Birkegaard [2016] suggest that open science means learning new ways of collaborating and the use of new tools (e.g. online tools) that scientists are not trained to use (and incidentally are constantly changing). These together lead to the third challenge, that of culture change: to really take advantage of open science, they argue, science culture needs to change. In their paper, they explore the potential role of documentary filmmakers both in the research and communication process associated with open science, exploring particularly the ways in which documentary filmmaking might facilitate collaboration and communication. Two case studies are used to highlight ways in which documentary films might facilitate open science. They highlight a number of benefits, but also point to challenges for scientist. For example, as regards collaboration in open science projects, Martiny, Pedersen and Birkegaard [2016] suggest that ‘collaborative skills need to be added to the repertoire of scientific skills so as to avoid ‘openwashing’ the knowledge process.’ (p. 11) They also note that their approach requires a shift in the way we think about data, with scientists needing to become familiar with first person (rather than ‘objective’) data, a perspective that would be familiar to many science and technology studies scholars.”
Authors:
Kristian Martiny, David Budtz Pedersen, Alfred Birkegaard