Slides
Narrative
OS in SE – halfway in or halfway out?
Distinguished leaders and members of the ASM Akademi Sains Malaysia and ALMI, all attendees, and fellow enthusiasts of open science.
I’m honored to be invited by the Akademi Sains Malaysia and ALMI to share my thoughts on open science—something my own institution hasn’t yet asked me to do. It’s rather amusing that I’m still considered a “young” scientist by ALMI’s standards.
This gathering represents something truly significant in our scientific community – a recognition that open science isn’t just a trend, but a fundamental shift in how we conduct research, share the results to democratize knowledge.
→ next slide
Today I would like to share that “Open Science is just science done right” (as had been long discussed by my colleague RIP Jon Tennant).
Let me share two interesting examples that demonstrate why open science is simply science done properly. First, have you watched the Korean drama Reply 1988?
Those who have seen it will remember certain scenes were blurred out.
Due to copyright restrictions, the production team had to blur both the TV content and the brand logo. Similarly, background music from that era needed to be either muted or replaced with licensed alternatives to avoid copyright infringement. This is especially important for international streaming, where licensing agreements vary by region.
→ next slide
The next example involves a recent debate between two prominent Indonesian musicians, Ahmad Dhani and Ariel Noah, regarding royalty management. Ahmad Dhani advocates for composers’ rights (similar to researchers and academic authors), highlighting how these rights are often overlooked when singers negotiate live performance contracts with event organizers. In contrast, Ariel Noah takes a more moderate stance, stating that he doesn’t object to others performing his songs in shows without seeking permission – essentially not enforcing his rights as a songwriter.
Isn’t respect to copyrights the foundation of “ordinary science”?
Let me ask you this:
What differentiates us, the academic community, from these artists? The similarities are striking.
Songwriters are like first authors of academic papers. Singers and band members are like co-authors.
Event organizers and music labels (Sony, EMI, etc) are similar to academic publishers.
Yet there’s one key difference—they are far more aware of their rights than we are. You might wonder—how can this be?
The truth is, we in academia have unconsciously surrendered our fundamental rights: our right as researchers to have our work understood by the public, and society’s right to comprehend and benefit from our research — and not to mention our economic rights.
We’ve become disconnected from these essential principles of knowledge sharing.
One of these losses of rights occurs every time we sign a copyright transfer agreement (or CTA). Through this process, we retain only our moral rights as creators of scientific work (in the form of academic papers), while surrendering all our economic rights. Has anyone read the content of CTA.
Isn’t knowledge sharing the main goal of “ordinary science”?
→ next slide
Here, I’d like to present the “Solar System of Open Science” which illustrates that open science isn’t about fulfilling obligations, but rather about exercising our fundamental academic rights.
First is our right to read and learn without barriers. This means accessing academic journals without prohibitive subscription fees – whether we’re scientists or members of the public. After all, none of us can be experts in every scientific field, and learning is a fundamental human endeavor.
Second is our right to write and retain both moral and economic rights over our work. We shouldn’t be constrained by pressure to publish in elite journals, nor should we have to transfer our economic rights to profit-driven publishers.
Third is our right to reuse scientific materials in creating new knowledge. This includes citing scientific work based on its merit and relevance, rather than being dictated by citation metrics or impact factors.
Fourth is our right to archive and preserve our work without being accused of self-plagiarism. This is crucial because researchers often face unwarranted accusations of self-plagiarism or duplicate publication when simply making their own work available online through institutional repositories or personal academic websites.
We exercise all these rights to ignite ideas, creativity – both our own and others’ – to advance science further and faster.
Isn’t this exactly what “ordinary science” has always taught us?
→ next slide
Both Malaysian and Indonesian governments have developed various digital tools to maximize scientific production capacity. From research grants to online platforms like MOSP, these initiatives aim to support research activities.
In Indonesia, although I’m happy to say that currently we don’t have any open science guidelines in place, but we do have several key platforms that have potentials to be developed into open science ecosystem:
- National Scientific Repository (RIN) from 2015 – for research archiving and RINarxiv preprint server from 2020
- SINTA – aggregates research works, researcher profiles, and journal accreditation from 2016
- BIMA – manages research grants and implementation from 2013
- ONOS (One Nation One Subscription) – provides nationwide access to scientific literature from 2025
- Active popular media like: The Conversation, Kumparan, Kompasiana, as the place for researchers to rewrite their research in a more “human” language.
However, there’s a growing concern among many, including myself, that without comprehensive policies on academic integrity, these initiatives might inadvertently create “journalist” – those who write only for journal publications – rather than fostering researchers to be a genuine author.
We must acknowledge that current policies primarily focus on the downstream aspects of science, particularly publications. This situation needs to change, and it needs to change soon.
Isn’t academic integrity one of the fundamental pillars of “ordinary science”? Without this foundation, how can we ensure research quality and maintain public trust in scientific work?
→ next slide
Many of us are concerned that these policy investments will be underutilized compared to Western examples like the Arxiv and Biorxiv preprint servers and the Pangaea data repository. If we’re to adopt Western policies in research, but we only adopt partially.
Let me pose this question: How many journals in Indonesia, or even Southeast Asia, require authors to upload their raw data files to data repositories?
You might ask, “Why bother? The data is already in the paper’s tables, right?”
But are you certain that complete data is present in every paper you read?
Statistical data, minimum values, maximum values, and standard deviations are not raw data – they’re analysis results. When data is included, it’s usually in PDF format. We all know that tables in PDFs aren’t easily reusable. Yes, they can be reused, but researchers must manually retype everything. How is this better than uploading XLS or CSV files to data repositories, as required by journals like PLOS ONE or PeerJ?
In fact, when I suggested this to a top-tier geoscience journal in Indonesia, the editors dismissed it as unnecessary since it wasn’t required by journal accreditation assessors.
Open and Replicable Data isn’t just a nice-to-have feature – it’s a fundamental cornerstone of proper scientific practice. Without the ability to verify and reproduce results through open data, we’re not doing science – we’re just telling stories.
→ next slide
Given this situation, I believe it’s fitting to compare our current state of science to the Titanic, stuck on an iceberg and waiting to sink. The academia are just like the passengers who remain unaware of the impending disaster while music plays and meals are served on deck, our academic community continues to celebrate accolades based solely on citation counts and journal rankings – metrics that can be easily manipulated.
These superficial indicators are widely used for rankings at every level – from individual researchers to laboratories, faculties, and universities. This isn’t just an Indonesian problem – it’s prevalent across Southeast Asia.
→ next slide
This echoes the statement made by the ANU Vice Chancellor in 2020, who wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that “Global rankings are distorting universities’ decisions“. Indeed, across Indonesia and Southeast Asia, higher education policies and decisions are heavily influenced by World University Rankings indicators. As the Goodhart’s Law states: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”.
The ANU Vice Chancellor’s perspective is just one of many voices from prominent individuals and institutions who have raised concerns about global university rankings. Today, numerous academic leaders and organizations worldwide have joined this critical conversation about the impact of rankings on higher education.
Isn’t objectivity one of the main characteristics of “ordinary science”?
→ next slide
It’s as if we, the scientific community, are standing in a cramped room with an elephant. We can all see it, yet no one is taking any action. This ‘Elephant in the Room’ phenomenon has persisted for far too long in academia – we acknowledge the problems with our current research practices but remain hesitant to address them directly.
Isn’t being critical one of the basics of “ordinary science”?
→ next slide
Of course, Open Science is not a one-size-fits-all policy. However, there are universal academic principles that remain constant – the ones we’ve discussed above. Now we must ask ourselves: Are we moving closer to these principles (halfway in) or drifting away from them (halfway out)?
Isn’t self critics also one of the personality an ordinary scientist should have?
Well you can start now if you haven’t…
thank you…