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- Metrics Remade – Metrics and research assessment (analysis or intelligence Christian Hauschke ) have been highlighted by two recent controversies: first the 'predatory publishing' scandal; and second the EU Commission ward of the European Open Science Monitor being awarded to consortium that included Elsevier as a partner. The consensus in the Open Science community is that the majority of metrics being used in research are 'not fit for purpose' and that a new set of metrics should be built in an scientific, open, accountable, and robust fashion.
- Preprint Culture - arXiv was a thing even before the web itself, and in recent years the concept spread to even more fields. Platforms like Open Science Framework, new concepts like Open Peer Review, policies encouraging "green road" self-archiving, publishers integrating preprint-like services into their platforms - there's contiously happening a lot, preprints seem to be one of the driving forces in changing publication culture. By the way, do we still need journals?
Could ask Jessica Polka (from ASAPbio) to become guest editor. - Open Peer Review (OPR) – a central plank to restoring trust, credibility, and hopefully effectiveness of research publishing. As part of the opening up of scholarly communication on top of Open Access, OPR is accompanied by the following example areas: pre-prints, open annotations, open citation databases, and the DORA agreements for improved research assessment. There are a variety of platforms and ways to carry out OPR and its merits need exploring. Could ask Tony Ross-Hellauer (from Know Center Graz) to become guest editor.
- Diversity in Open Science – what role can Open Science play in contributing towards equality and parity in the numbers, and types of roles, that groups who continue to be excluded or experience prejudices in science, academia, and research outputs. Also is there a role for Open Science in addressing the historic imbalances in research outputs and access from the Global South, especially with the new relationships being formed between Europe and BRICS nations.
- Citizen Science – a survey of Citizen Science practice and looking at where such 'outreach' is being picked up. An interesting set of question in Citizen Science are about how to go beyond a passive view of the public as either crowdsourcing providers, or being about 'the public understanding of science'. What other types of initiatives are out there, such as: research libraries being open to all; science search results in 'normal Google search'; a different voice for science in the media or as we see science creating its own media?; or are shadow libraries part of citizen science? Could ask Jana Hoffman (from Naturkundemuseum Berlin) to become guest editor.
- FOSS and Open Science infrastructure development – Open Source procurement policies 'the need for R&D dev cycles to be in public institutions and not in private sector' - Barcelona city government has a full open source commitment for procurement vs EU Commision and the Open Science Cloud (neutral policy) e.g., current OA H2020 commission. The EU has made positive recommendations on FOSS but its not mandatory. EU FOSS strategy https://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/informatics/open-source-software-strategy_en. Francesca Bria CTO, director Barcelona Digital City (the elected city council) https://cities-today.com/power-to-the-people/#SmartCities
- Open Science in electrical power distribution energy systems – electrical generation/distribution re: climate change, innovations, etc. See: #Energis13 https://twitter.com/hashtag/ENERGI3?src=hash This area is interesting as it is a positive way that engineers and other researchers can make a contribution to addressing climate change, and a number of open initiatives are being made. It is also an example of a specific field being changed by Open Science because of a need for a step-change acceleration in R&D.
- New academic book technology and getting published – look at new platforms and new ways to make academic books. A survey of current book platforms for making different types of book and how to make the book useful for the person / group carrying out the research, and for the user / reader. Another important aspect of new book making is to make the content FAIR and as LOD compatible as necessary for type of publication. This can include the following book types: academic monograph; manuals; reference books; book sprints and collaborative books; image based books; and OER books.