The blog is five years old! Here is a round-up of the Think Open articles published this spring

During the spring, the University of Helsinki’s open science blog Think Open has published a diverse selection of articles on the openness of science from different angles. Below is a brief overview of the spring offerings.

(Tämä artikkeli on saatavissa myös suomeksi.)

Think Open blog turns five years old

The Think Open blog, which focuses on different aspects of research openness, turns five in May. To mark the anniversary, the blog revisits articles from the inaugural month of 2018. The following articles will be reviewed during this week:

The future of the Publication Forum

In an extensive article (in Finnish), Janne Pölönen, secretary general of the Publication Forum, examines the relationship of Jufo, a quality indicator for research publications, to open science, responsible evaluation and the new players that have emerged in the field of open access publishing. Pölönen’s article will also look at the future of Jufo.

Open data

The digitisation of cultural heritage material requires a range of skills that are not always taken into account in the public debate. In her article (in Finnish), Johanna Lilja, service director of the National Library of Finland, explains the issues related to the availability, usability and preservation.

Research data management

In the Faculty of Pharmacy’s and the Helsinki University Library’s project, teaching of research data management (RDM) and open access publishing were included in the master’s students’ course. The blog article describes how the teaching was carried out and what was learned from it.
The University of Helsinki’s new data service under development, the long-term storage of research data (Tutkimusdatan pitkäaikaistallennus, TPAT) focuses on storing data for 5–15 years after the research is completed. The blog article explains what the service is all about.
The University of Helsinki Data Support has published a material package that offers students and supervisors tools for planning research data management (RDM) already in the thesis phase.

Open source

University of Helsinki’s new open-source code principles were published at the end of 2022. The blog article answers questions about what open-source code principles and openness mean, to whom the principles apply and where you can find more detailed guidance on their application.

AI and open science

Researcher Salla-Maaria Laaksonen discusses in her blog article,”Text-producing AI and scientific openness” (in Finnish), the recent development of AI from the perspective of openness and transparency, as well as data reliability and quality. She also points out that openly available research publications could play a role in the development of AI.

Open access

During the spring, EU countries have been working on a joint declaration on scientific publishing. In addition to immediate openness, the declaration highlights that open access publishing should be free of charge for authors. The blog article, ”EU wants to get rid of author fees for open access publishing” (in Finnish), explains what the declaration means in practice.
The UH Library has published a guide, Assessing open access journal quality, to help researchers find reliable publishers and identify dubious publishers. The guide includes checklists and other tools to help you choose a publication channel.
Professor emeritus Esko Linnakangas, PhD in law, explains in a blog interview (in Finnish) what got him excited about open access publishing and what drives him to publish tax-related monographs at a book-per-year pace. In the interview, Linnakangas also sheds light on his future book projects.

Open education

Think Open Digest’s thematic issue for teachers provide online content – articles, services, tools, guides, and recommendations – related to open education and open educational resources (OER).

Previous Think Open monthly overviews can be found on the blog.