Christian Heise explores the concept of openness in scientific communication through his doctoral thesis and research activities. He discusses the challenges and solutions encountered while conducting a PhD as openly as possible, emphasizing the importance of transparency and immediate sharing of results. He offers practical tips for overcoming fears related to open science and highlights the benefits of participating in creating future scientific criteria.

1. „Scientific writing in
an open platform“
Christian Heise

2. christianhei.se
• political scientist in cultural studies interested in „openness“ (biased?)
• worked in (media) publishing industry (DIE ZEIT/German Press
Agency)
• changed to Leuphana University (Centre for Digital Cultures / Hybrid
Publishing Lab) researching new forms of scholarly communication in
the digital age, Lecturer in the Digital Media Bachelor’s program
• opening up networks at Förderverein Freie Netzwerke e.V.
(freifunk.net)
• opening up knowledge at Open Knowledge Foundation Germany e.V.
(okfn.de)

3. My doctoral thesis
• rough focus: research on the status of openness in scientific
communication & actually do open science as part of the
needed negotiation process on the criteria of the future of
science
• amongst other things, inspired by my work on the translation of
the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI 10) Recomondations
• handed in an Exposé in November 2012 and opened it
immediately ;)
• asked PhD commission in 2013 if it’s possible to write the whole
PhD „as open as possible“

4. Thesis: From Open Access to
Open Science
Structure of the Thesis (live.offene-doktorarbeit.de):
1. Basics on Open Access/Open Science and more about the history of
openness in science
2. Evaluate on debates on openness in literature, identifying challenges
regarding openness in scientific communication
3. Conducting a survey: comparative study asking more than 1.112
(german-speaking) scientists on various issues of openness in scientific
communications
4. Ethnographic research: documenting the process of writing a PhD as
open as possible
5. Discussion and Conclusion

5. „Publish everything of the PhD research process as
soon as possible, as comprehensive as possible
under an open license (see opendefinition.org),
online available at all time for everyone.“
— http://offene-doktorarbeit.de/ueber/
What does „open as possible“
mean? (including a promise)

6. What does „open as possible“
mean?
• planning and development of the scientific research question
(Exposé) live in a Blog
• documented research process (writing, survey, presentations in
colloquium…) live in a blog and on a writing platform
(Authorea) as soon as the PhD commission allowed to do that
• research analysis and evaluation procedure was done open —>
interim results and raw data were published immediately on
the Blog and via data wrapper
• communication of the results was also done immediately and in
open formats (.csv)

7. (main) Obstacles
• organizational: Permission by the University took nearly a year December
2013
• social: fear orthography, fear of make a fool of oneself :), fear of idea theft…
• technical: technical issues (Authorea could not handle the length), Platforms
for Scientific writing were very rare in 2013 and did not fulfill the
requirements

8. (part of the) Solution
• organizational: don’t stop arguing and wait ;)
• social: get used to it…
• technical: connected Authorea to GitHub; build own Software to show .tex from
GitHub (authorea-github-tex-reader@GitHub) see: http://live.offene-doktorarbeit.de

9. Tips
• check if openness is „allowed“ if not: try to get the permission
• gather technical know-how on the process of digital publishing/research methods
• make a good decision on the software you want to use
• schedule some extra time for the open process
• don’t expect to much and be careful with feedback
• document your work well
• use an open license
• What happens on the Internet stays on the Internet
• use your social networks and make the project public
• always make clear that your work ist work in progress

10. Q: How to overcome the „fear“ of opening up science?
A: Just do it, it does not hurt!
Q: What are good reasons to open up science?
A: By doing it, you can help to shape the criteria for the
future of science (in a digital world)!
Q: What is in it for me?
A: Help to save the principles of academic autonomy and
freedom!
Conclusion

11. What else?

12. Let's keep in touch
http://christianhei.se
http://offene-doktorarbeit.de
@christianheise