Experiences in sharing research data and methods in conservation science

Abstract

Openness, transparency, and reproducibility are hallmarks of scientific methods as they enable the peer-evaluation of the quality and accuracy of research. In practice, however, most research carried out still today cannot be reproduced or replicated by others and thus evaluated in detail. This is due to limitations in access to original data, vague or insufficient method descriptions or simply difficulties in accessing the publications that describe the research work. In fields like conservation, where real-life decisions may be based on scientific work, this is a challenge also for transparent decision-making.

During the past years, the Open Science movement has gained popularity among scientists, research, national science policies and everyday practice of many journals. Despite the advancements, a lot of work is still needed to make scientific publications, research data and methods openly available for others to evaluate and develop further. The scientific merit system is gradually changing to support openness, and technological advancements are making it easier in practice. Ultimately, however, it is still up to individual researchers or research groups to decide if and how to share and open the outputs of their research. Hence, personal level experiences are important determinants of the adoption of open science practices. In our Digital Geography Lab, we have attempted to follow the practices of open science for the past years. We have aimed to use open data sources whenever possible as the source of our research, publish our methods online, share the output data and apply storytelling to make our research more approachable and accessible.

In my short presentation, I will share some of the practical experiences we have gained while doing so: What has worked, has it been worth the effort and where we have failed and why.