Weekly digest: what’s happening in open science?

Adeline Rosenberg

Featuring Green Templeton College’s mini-symposium, discussions of gender equity in academic publishing, UCL’s COVID-19 research platform, the #BetterPoster campaign, a new read-and-publish deal between the Max Planck Society and AIP Publishing, and the evolution of Executable Research Articles.

Research Talks Symposium via Green Templeton College

Green Templeton College’s July 2020 Research Talks Symposium on face mask policies, primary care, palliative care and open access in clinical trials transparency is now available to view as a recording here. The mini-symposium, which was just over two hours long, was convened by Green Templeton College’s Visiting Research Fellow Lindy Castell and featured presentations from Senior Research Fellow Professor Trisha Greenhalgh, Visiting Associate Fellow Professor Timothy Hoff, Common Room Member Michael Minton, Associate Fellow and, of course, CEO of Oxford PharmaGenesis and co-founder of Open Pharma Chris Winchester, and Emeritus Fellow Marshall Young.

Gender equity and the benefit of employee resource groups via The Scholarly Kitchen

Employee resource groups are vital for improving best practices and processes for equality and inclusion, especially in light of the gender disparities in academic publishing. Here, three women from leading publishers discuss the steps they’re taking and the lessons they’ve learned from participating in employee resource groups to improve gender diversity.

  1. Strategy is key.
  2. You don’t always have to spend money to create impact.
  3. Don’t be afraid to try new things.
  4. Don’t be afraid to start small.
  5. Divide and conquer.
  6. Leverage other community groups in your organization.

UCL’s COVID-19 research platform reaches 500 publications via UCL News

University College London (UCL) Press, which prides itself on being the UK’s first fully open access university press, manages the UCL COVID-19 research platform via ScienceOpen. The database records all publications, preprints, working papers and reports on COVID-19 from UCL researchers and has just this month passed the 500-count landmark.

Minimal is the new black: #BetterPoster via The Publication Plan

Organizational psychology PhD candidate Mike Morrison (Michigan State University) has been making waves throughout academia with his #BetterPoster campaign to improve the design and readability of scientific posters, including at the 16th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Medical Publications Professionals. Here, the Publication Plan interviews Mike to find out more about his experiences and motivations for his new approach to scientific poster design and the future of #BetterPoster.

The Max Planck Society’s agreement with AIP Publishing via CISION PR Newswire

The Max Planck Society and AIP Publishing, a subsidiary of the American Institute of Physics (AIP), have entered into a transformative read-and-publish deal. The multi-year agreement will enable all Max Planck researchers to publish open access in any AIP Publishing journal without needing to pay an article processing charge, which will instead be paid for by the Max Planck Digital Library. Max Planck researchers will also be able to access all AIP Publishing journal content free of charge.

Executable Research Articles via eLife

eLife’s Reproducible Document Stack approach to computationally reproducible papers as an open-source suite of tools has evolved into Executable Research Articles. These papers will feature computational publication enhancements such as live code block and interactive figures, allowing readers to examine and reformat data to look at new analyses in real time, without leaving the site.

We at Open Pharma would like to continue to encourage all our readers to look after themselves and their community and continue to follow advice from their country’s government and health organizations.

Coronavirus mental health and wellbeing resources:

Mind UK

Mental Health Foundation UK

Centre for Disease Control and Prevention