RepScience 2016 - 2016 First International Workshop on Reproducible Open Science

This Workshop aims at becoming a forum to discuss ideas and advancements towards the revision of current scientific communication practices in order to support Open Science, introduce novel evaluation schemes, and enable reproducibility. As such it candidates as an event fostering collaboration between
(i) Library and information scientists working on the identification of new publication paradigms;
(ii) ICT scientists involved in the definition of new technical solutions to these issues;
(iii) scientists/researchers who actually conduct the research and demand tools and practices for Open Science.
The expected results are advancements in the definition of the next generation scientific communication ecosystem, where scientists can publish research results (including the scientific article, the data, the methods, and any “alternative” product that may be relevant to the conducted research) in order to enable reproducibility (effective reuse and decrease of cost of science) and rely on novel scientific reward practices.
Background
In the last decade, information and communication technology (ICT) advances have deeply changed the way research is conducted within research infrastructures (RIs). A Research Infrastructure is intended as the compound of elements regarding the organization (roles, procedures, etc.), the structure (buildings, laboratories, etc.), the resources (microscopes, telescopes, sensors, services, data, digital library resources), and the technology (hard- and software, network protocols, Internet, applications, etc.) underpinning the implementation of scientific research. In this respect research relies mainly on high-quality and digitally accessible research products (e.g. publications, datasets, experiments, software, web sites, blogs) in order to generate novel ideas, findings, and concrete results. Along the same line scientific communication has mutated in order to adapt its underlying mission (and business models) to such new scenarios and benefit from them. In particular, the traditional paradigm of research publishing by sole articles cannot cope with the increasing demands of immediate access to all research outcomes, such as research data and research methods, and therefore exploit the opportunities of reproducibility (which subsumes repeatability) offered by “digital” science today. Scientists, funders, and research institutions are pushing for innovative scientific communication workflows (i.e. submission, peer-review, access, re-use, citation, and scientific reward), marrying a holistic approach where “publishing” includes in principle any digital product resulting from a research activity that is relevant to the interpretation, evaluation, and reproducibility of the activity or part of it. Defining, taking up, and supporting such “revolutionary” publishing workflows become urgent challenges, to be addressed by ICT solutions capable of fostering and driving radical changes in the way science is developed.