How did we get here?

So, currently…

I’m the Community Manager of the Digital Research Academy.

The Digital Research Academy is a grassroots trainer network. We offer training with the goal of improving the quality of research.

What is Open Research?

Why do we do research?

A Knowledge Generation B Knowledge Dissemination A->B B->A

Ego

Capitalism

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1285574

Open Colour Research - how open are we?

The different colours of Open Access…

OpenAlex docs:

There are many ways to define OA. OpenAlex uses a broad definition: having a URL where you can read the fulltext of this work without needing to pay money or log in.

…

  • diamond: Published in a fully OA journal-one that is indexed by the DOAJ or that we have determined to be OA-with no article processing charges (i.e., free for both readers and authors).
  • gold: Published in a fully OA journal.
  • green: Toll-access on the publisher landing page, but there is a free copy in an OA repository.
  • hybrid: Free under an open license in a toll-access journal.
  • bronze: Free to read on the publisher landing page, but without any identifiable license.
  • closed: All other articles.

Availability via sci-hub / Anna’s Archive?

Open Data

Open Code

Open Hardware

  • …

UK Reproducibility Network: “Open Research Across Disciplines”

ukrn.org/disciplines/

Outstanding barriers

  • What do we actually need?
    • Normally we focus on things like “more money”, “more tools”, “guidelines/rules”.
    • I argue that we actually (also) need norms and psychological safety.

Imagine a new social construct where the awarding of a PhD became a coming-of-age ritual for a researcher: you now have the honor and the responsibility to work publicly.

You have a badge/tick on your profile, and your profile becomes a public log of everything that you do. Importantly, you are now grown up enough, and qualified enough, to make your mistakes publicly and use them to fuel learning. PhD programs would need new training courses in how to recognise mistakes gracefully and without existential crisis, and the “public” would see researchers as human.

“Envisioning the Future of Research: 10 changes for Open Research”, Garside et. al, 2025, doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15399868

Open Lab Manifesto (Danny’s Lab of the Future (?))

  • We are transparent by default - everything we do is public (at the time we do it).
  • We exclusively use open source tools, and contribute to the development and maintenance of those tools.
  • We explore models of flexible membership/contributorship.
  • We put the collective progress of science above personal prestige. We don’t publish in traditional journals.
  • We endeavour to recognise individuals as full humans rather than as “workers”.

Thank you!

Slides (rendered):

Slides (code):

Runnable code:

TODO List

  • Data analysis
    • What happened in 2010?
    • What does Bronze open-access really mean?
    • Sci-hub analysis (“black open-access”?)
    • How well does openalex get green open-access? (Does it scrape personal websites etc.?)
    • Does Openalex have non-“paper” objects? (like datasets, presentations, etc.)
    • Which journals are the diamond/closed ones?
    • Currently just using OpenAlex topic t11666 (“Color Science and Applications”) - how to make this closer to something like “Colour Visual Neuroscience”?
  • Slides
    • DOING Get live code analysis working!
    • How to archive slides (with versioning), how to get a DOI (and link with Orcid?)
    • Add “ego” and “capitalism” to purposes
    • DOING vary the incremental more variable