Can science open up?

A big flaw in scientific research is a lack of open access to data, including both research papers and general scientific practice. With many of the top research journals requiring you to pay hundreds, or sometimes even thousands, of pounds annually in subscription fees, a lot of people often feel disengaged with scientific research in the UK. I am lucky enough to have free access to such journals due to my student status at the University of Glasgow, with the university covering my subscription fees.

However, there is a big push in science to make all raw data and scientific research in peer-reviewed journals open and free to access by any member of the public. But what is open access? An open access journal, according to Wikipedia, are scholarly journals that are available online to the reader "without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself". Essentially, this means that you should not have to pay any subscription fee to the journal to access the data. An article published in Nature by Richard van Noorden highlights the true cost of publishing data in science. 

Open access journals also aim to remove many of the copyright and licensing restrictions surrounding publication. Whilst these journals are free to access for the public, costs surrounding publication and production are still enforced. Open access journals tend to either be funded by government institutions. academic institutions or paid for by the author of the paper.

There is a big push currently in scientific research to increase the amount of open access content that is available. As of February 2016, there are over 11,000 open access journals registered on the Directory of Open Access Journals website. This is a large increase from the 4,800 open access journals that were registered in 2009. 

One of largest, and most well known, open access scientific journals is PLOS Biology, which was launched in 2003. It is a well respected, peer-reviewed journal that I personally have cited many times whilst writing reports at university. There are a variety of other websites, such as the Dryad Data Repository that allow authors of scientific papers to publish the data sets they used online. However, despite this progress, it was reported in a study conducted in 2013 that only 12% of journals are open access. A lot therefore is still required to push the open access movement in science forward.

This leads me on to what I have set this blog up to address. What you see on this blog will form my assessment for a course I am doing in Biodiversity Informatics as part my masters degree at the University of Glasgow. My topic will be analysing how easy it is to find and access data surrounding Marine Protected Areas in Scotland. These are areas set up to preserve the natural environment and animal species of the ocean surrounding our beautiful coast. 

It is with the thought of being open about my own project that I will be sharing this blog on social media with my friends and family. I hope you enjoy the journey!