Joshua Chalifour

The processes and supports within an institution can, I've noticed,
demand a bit of effort to change. When we speak of **open scholarship**
or **open science**, many aspects tie-in or lead out from those
concepts, which makes the whole prospect of institutional change quite
complex. I'm very excited about the efforts so far that the Open Science
Working Group (of which I'm a participant) at Concordia University has
undertaken and accomplished. These include an initial report on
"[**Recommendations for Fostering Open Science at Concordia
University**](https://doi.org/10.11573/spectrum.library.concordia.ca.00992647)"
(DOI: 10.11573/spectrum.library.concordia.ca.00992647)

Of course, the Library is always doing outreach about open access (OA).
In the past I've organized activities, events, and
[projects](https://chroknowlogy.ca/intellectual-liberty/2022/talk-broad-value-open-access/){data-type="post"
data-id="64563"} for [open access
week](https://www.openaccessweek.org/). I can see how frequently our
modern research practices, which involve digital techniques are enabled
by the various forms of open: open source, open data, open protocols,
open access, etc. However, I've always found that it's a struggle to get
people's interest and that we have to be creative in order to educate
about OA issues. Part of what I suspect makes advocating for OA
difficult is the sort of singularity that comes from being "just the
library," the group that's always talking about it. So when this Open
Science Working Group formed, I was excited about its multidisciplinary
nature and that it included both students and faculty. I think that
really helps to broaden involvement across the university.

The working group, led by colleagues Krista Byers-Heinlein (who is also
Concordia University Research Chair in Bilingualism and Open Science)
and Nicolás Alessandroni, initiated the effort through a day-long
[conference on open
science](https://www.concordia.ca/cuevents/artsci/2022/05/27/open-science-concordia.html)
in 2022. Later they established the working group by inviting people to
participate in a workshop (there were over 20 people representing many
disciplines). The workshop operated through a modified form of DORA's
[SPACE
rubric](https://sfdora.org/resource/workshop-toolkit-to-introduce-the-space-rubric/),
which was designed for academic institutions to use toward improving
their policies. I think using that tool to organize such a large group
of people toward a practical outcome was extremely beneficial.

After more meetings, discussions, and revisions the working group was
able to produce a set of
[recommendations](https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/992647/)
to bolster open scholarship throughout the university. It addresses many
issues, including existing policies, outreach, inter-institutional work,
position principles, open education, resources, and more. Of course,
this is not the end of the process. Among other things, next steps
include focused discussions with department heads, administrators, and
others. I imagine that getting to a place where open scholarship/open
science is well-understood and hopefully a default institutional
position for research and education will require ongoing work.

The recommendations in the report tend to be specific within the context
of Concordia University but I felt it worthwhile to write about here
because the process, the findings, and the recommendations may be of
interest to others. Perhaps you would like to try something similar at
your institution? The Concordia work could be one model to reflect on
what would work well or not so well in your own context.


The processes and supports within an institution can, I’ve noticed, demand a bit of effort to change. When we speak of
<strong>
 open scholarship
</strong>
or
<strong>
 open science
</strong>
, many aspects tie-in or lead out from those concepts, which makes the whole prospect of institutional change quite complex.

Rogue Scholar Posts

Institutional Change toward Open Scholarship and Open Science