14 Open Science State-of-the-Art in the Czech Technical University in Prague

Imagine an Ideal Open Science academic world – no matter what the level of excellency and research field, researchers all follow similar research cycles: read – get funding – work – finish – (patent) – publish – and … disseminate? There is an Open Science challenge at every stage:

Read – follow OA publications, repositories, DOAJ, use open data.

Get funding – funder’s OA policy, OA text and data requirements.

Work – communicate, cooperate, share data, methodologies, collect and analyse results.

Finish and publish – select medium to publish in; meet funder’s requirements, R&D assessment requirements and institutional OA policies.

Patent brings information embargo during the research process; a significant aspect with regard to Open Science.

Disseminate – self-archive, disseminate research results via Green OA – repositories, social networks, data repositories, etc.

Based on the SPARC Europe Checklist, we have not come far. We have laid solid foundations by implementing parts of Open Science, but some aspects, including user motivation are ‘sci-fi’ for us. We run a repository connected to the University and international infrastructures; we provide OA publishing guidance, including Horizon 2020 requirements; we support ORCID identification; and we help researchers promote their work by OA publishing, self-archiving, data sharing and social networks. We do our best to teach PhD students e-research principles, OA, Open Science, publishing standards, etc. in normal classes as well as through single lectures.

There are many challenges within Open Science. Some aspects, however, are not within the Library’s competencies, so our role is partly one of coordination. We tend to be ahead of our University demands, foresee trends in Open Science publishing and policies, and need to get support by the University management. As such we would need to push implementing institutional and national OA policies, CC licensing, data repositories, open educational materials, etc.

We want to help researchers to get more out of Open Science/OA than they are able at this point. Now, we intend to focus on more aspects of Open Science during the research cycle, on open communication, Open Access publishing and dissemination of research results. We do have success with individual researchers and journal editors. We wish to motivate more pioneers and show that Open Science is a step towards excellence. We need to open their eyes and minds to Open Science to open their opportunities to survive in today’s academic world.