Latin American researchers participated in the conference "Challenges Toward Open Science and Open Education," organized by the Mercosur DAI Network and the UNR.
Open science is a set of practices that make scientific research in any field accessible to everyone, transparent, and collaborative, for the benefit of scientists and society as a whole. From this perspective, work is carried out with open access, equipment, and laboratories, as well as with citizen participation.
This topic was discussed at the Conference "Challenges towards Open Science and Open Education" organized by the Mercosur DAI Network (Open Research Data) and the Open Access Management Unit of the Cabinet Coordination, at the government headquarters of the Universidad Nacional de Rosario, on June 5th.
This is the third meeting of this Network, which was formed two years ago at the initiative of researchers from the University of the Republic, Uruguay; the University of the State of Santa Catarina, Brazil; and the Universidad Nacional de Rosario"In these difficult times for the public university and science, these spaces are a source of support and struggle," said Ana Casali, UNR Coordinator of the DAI Network.
The truth is that the Latin American community has been working on open educational resources for ten years, with the goal of storing them properly and making them available to society, enabling their use and recycling, with appropriate metadata and licenses. They then saw the need to move toward open research data.
These are defined as freely accessible data that can be reused, remixed, and redistributed for different purposes, especially academic research and teaching. "Openly sharing data facilitates its examination, provides the basis for reproducing and verifying research, and paves the way for promoting collaboration," the researcher stated.
For these data to fulfill this virtuous cycle, they must follow the FAIR principles: they must be discoverable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. Discoverable means they must have a persistent ID, they must not be lost, and they must have rich, high-quality metadata so that others can use them. Accessible refers to open, free, and standardized protocols. Interoperable refers to a regulated vocabulary so that they can be easily found. Reusable implies the use of appropriate licenses for these data.
To understand the current state of open data management in the education and technology research community in Latin America, a survey was conducted in 2022. The results showed that the vast majority of research was conducted experimentally, without the production or availability of scientific-quality data collections that allow for the reproduction, replication, and scalability of research.
Just over half had accessed a data repository at some point, but of these, 90% only did so to search, not to publish. Despite this, the majority had a favorable perception of data publication, believing it to be a contribution to the scientific community that would allow them to showcase their work and establish collaborative networks. However, they noted difficulties such as the time and effort required to publish, a lack of understanding of privacy and licensing security issues, and a lack of funding to allocate resources to this task.
Based on this diagnosis, the DAI Network was created to consolidate an open approach to science through a multimodal initiative that enables access to distributed resources for managing scientific research data, from collection, curation, exploration, and publication, using research in digital educational sciences as a case study.
The objective was to build a regional community on the topic of open science, train human resources, and conduct research to develop tools that help the academic community manage open data. In this regard, the professor from the Faculty of Exact Sciences listed the challenges they faced: human challenges, in order to consider their own training; political challenges, in order to implement them; social challenges related to cultural changes; technical challenges, because tools are needed to streamline the process; educational challenges, in order to provide training; and legal challenges, in order to learn how to use licenses.
Open knowledge
UNR Open Access Management Unit Coordinator Paola Bongiovani emphasized that data is the evidence generated during the research process that serves to validate the results and provide the basis for new knowledge.
In Universidad Nacional de Rosario These open access initiatives began in 2008 with the inauguration of the Hypermedia Repository (rephip.unr.edu.ar), which archives, preserves, and distributes teaching and learning materials and scientific production. In 2018, the UNR Journal Portal (revistas.unr.edu.ar) was incorporated, bringing together and providing access and visibility to more than 60 open-access academic digital journals. And in 2021, the First Data Repository in Argentine Universities was launched, an institutional repository for research data (dataverse.unr.edu.ar).
Each of the systems are free software implementations installed on UNR servers. The University's responsibility includes installing these systems, keeping them up-to-date and secure, monitoring for potential issues, ensuring their interoperability with other systems, guaranteeing the sustainability of the data generated, and backing them up with backup copies.
For his part, Rector Franco Bartolacci reaffirmed the commitment to this policy, which was a pioneer in the national university system, and recognized the management teams that have been working to ensure that the University can share experiences that are not shared elsewhere, guarantee access to knowledge and education as a right, democratize production, and give greater visibility to everything that is generated.
Throughout the day, several presentations and debates on the topic took place. "From Open Access to Open Science in Argentina: Advances and Challenges" was led by Marcela Fushimi (UNLP). "Opening Knowledge at UNR: Commitment in Motion" featured presentations by Paola Bongiovani, Paulina Freán, Gisela Chiappero, Dolores Quintana, Analía Salazar, and Agustín Alfieri (UNR).
From USC, Spain, Adriana Gewerc spoke on "Pedagogical Challenges for Open Education," and Diego Torres from UNLP spoke on "Ideas for Conceiving a Participatory, Situated, and Committed Science." Lautaro Julián Matas and Arturo Garduño Magaña presented on "LA Referencia: Advances and Ongoing Projects." The talk "Open Research Data: Free Knowledge Online" was led by Elaine Oliveira Lucas (UDESC, Brazil), and finally, there was a panel discussion on "Open Science and Open Education: Pending Challenges," coordinated by Regina Motz (UdelaR, Uruguay).
Journalist: Victoria Arrabal/Photographer: Camila Casero