#OpenSciComm

An invitation to contribute!

The focus of the theme is to look at new creative ways researchers are in dialogue, engaging, and co-creating with the wider public. To look at what is being learned from creative styles on YouTube, or social media, and the like — and what is being put in place in science and scholarship for communications from the tech sector practices of ‘design research’ — co-creation and agile approaches. 

Virtually no new product or service from the private or public sector would be brought out onto the market without engaging in some form of ‘design research’ — essentially talking with communities and asking them questions. So how is R&D utilising ‘design research’ methods? One size does not fit all and sometimes new can also mean the rediscovery of forgotten conventions, which is why we want to look at a variety of practices — to look at projects, literature, programmes that are engaging in these processes.

Simply having better, more scientific, or evidence led policy and communications no longer seems enough when we are confronted by a ‘post truth’ world where ‘anti-science’ views are being encouraged. These new forms of deliberative public engagement would seem to offer up a richer experience for the public, a sense of ownership, and to expose them to the workings of science and scholarship. 

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have provided a framework to work around to anchor the use value of R&D with Open Science clearly flagged as being important to the extent of being called ‘Science for the Future’. Recent announcement of the project partnership of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Wikimedia Foundation on trusted information about COVID-19 show the need for trusted channels and how new engagement can be practiced with Wikimedia’s 250,000 volunteer editors to combat what the WHO calls an ‘infodemic’.

‘an overabundance of information and the rapid spread of misleading or fabricated news, images, and videos.’

WHO

So what’s so different about Open Science Communication to standard Science Communication — part of the answer is that Open Science is about acknowledging that there are systemic problems in the functioning of academia that need fixing — from its basic efficacy, to addressing knowledge equity and diversity of participation in scholarship. 

Digitisation has brought along a new toolbox for scholars, scientists, and the public. The Open Science community is using this moment of change to try and fix the social and technical problems that in some way or other orientate around the broken knowledge chain of:

research > review > condensed authoritative information

If you would like to contribute or have any questions please send over to Simon Worthington – GenR Editor via Twitter @gen_R_ (DMs open), chat on Matrix / Element, or via email simon@genr.eu.

Image by Joseph Mucira from Pixabay – Pixabay License. Free for commercial use. No attribution required