[New Best Practice Guide]: Integrate Expectations and Acknowledgements for Open Science

[yunks128]

Checked for duplicates

Yes - I've already checked

Describe the needs

Following the recent discussions (@c-h-david @PaulMRamirez @hookhua @yunks128)about the potential creation of an EXPECTATIONS.md file, it has been suggested that we could consider incorporating these elements into a more approachable ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.md file (@PaulMRamirez). This file could serve a dual purpose:

1. Acknowledgments: Recognize contributions, support, and resources.
2. Commitment to Open Science: Define the project's commitment to open science principles, outlining expectations for contributions, collaboration, and scientific impact.

Proposed Structure for ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.md:

• Contributors:

  • Core Team
  • External Contributors

• Special Thanks:

  • Individuals or organizations that provided guidance, inspiration, or support.

• Code Attribution:

  • Citing external libraries, frameworks, or code snippets.

• Funding and Support:

  • Acknowledgment of financial support or grants.

• Documentation and Community:

  • Recognition of contributions to documentation, translations, or community support.

• Commitment to Open Science:

  • Outline the project's commitment to open science.
  • Describe expectations related to scientific integrity, publication contributions, and funding support.

Discussion Points:

• Should we integrate expectations into the ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.md, or should they be a part of a separate EXPECTATIONS.md file?
• What are the specific commitments to open science that should be included?
• How can we ensure that this file is comprehensive but remains approachable and clear for all contributors?

[c-h-david]

@yunks128, thanks for opening this thread! My perspective here is as a research scientist who practices and embraces open science, while recognizing and trying to alleviate some of its challenges for scientific research. To me, the concept of ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.md itself would naturally relate to the "Acknowledgments" section of a paper published in a journal, i.e. it's a place where folks and institutions who may not be in the authorship are thanked for their participation. In other words, this would be a place where authors thank their support, rather than one where they guide the community on how to work together with authors.

The concept I had in mind for EXPECTATIONS.md is more along the lines of outlining how to sustainably work together with the software authors, in the special case for which the authors are scientific researchers whose research is competitively funded. I don't think this really exists anywhere but I might be wrong! It's more about "speaking the unspoken", or "writing the unwritten rules" of scientific collaboration, and specifically outlining how to sustainably work with the team so that everybody wins. Just for the sake of allowing everyone to throw darts at this and reveal the potential limitations in my thinking, let me share an example below. I would much appreciate community feedback on this!

[c-h-david]

Expectations

Our metrics of success

This piece of software is developed with FUNDING obtained through competitive grant proposals by scientific researchers for whom there are three primary metrics of success:

• Achieving scientific and societal impact.
• Publishing articles in peer-reviewed journals.
• Gathering funding to support our research activities.

Open source takes time

We proudly share our software under an open-source LICENSE, recognizing that:

• Making code truly open-source demands time and dedication.
• Sharing our methods openly in real-time exposes our latest ideas to colleagues and competitors alike.
• Open-source development is an everyday dilemma opposing our metrics of success and our service to you.

What we expect from you

To help ensure sustainable open-source development of scientific software, our expectations from you follow three principles:

• Open source does not mean free support, please be respectful of our own needs when reaching out to us.
• When using our software, please don’t compete with us, we’re on the same team.
• Help us help you, please consider the many ways you can help us achieve our three metrics of success above, together.

[PaulMRamirez]

@c-h-david I wondered if what you were looking for could be rolled into an ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS file along with some other items what typically occur.

For instance adding the following sections beyond what is listed in this issue:

Commitment to Open Science

• Developing science as a community
• Achieving scientific and societal impact.
• Publishing articles in peer-reviewed journals.
• Gathering funding to support our research activities.

Note: Making sure these align with objectives listed in NASA's TOPS maybe even cite it

Attributions

• - Use the CITATION.CFF
• inclusive research - engage us when developing new ideas (i.e. here in the open when related) and derivative works (reference us in your open works) - we will engage in the open
• inclusive publications - engage us on development of papers, posters, talks - willingness to contribute in both ways

[PaulMRamirez]

As another thing to consider could things from the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity

Such as :

Research Principles

• Reliability in ensuring the quality
of research, reflected in the design, the
methodology, the analysis and the use of
resources.
• Honesty in developing, undertaking,
reviewing, reporting and communicating
research in a transparent, fair, full and
unbiased way.
• Respect for colleagues, research
participants, society, ecosystems, cultural
heritage and the environment.
• Accountability for the research from
idea to publication, for its management
and organization, for training, supervision

or

Collaborative Working

• All partners in research collaborations
take responsibility for the integrity of the
research.
• All partners in research collaborations
agree at the outset on the goals of the research
and on the process for communicating their
research as transparently and openly as
possible.
• All partners formally agree at the start
of their collaboration on expectations and
7
standards concerning research integrity,
on the laws and regulations that will apply,
on protection of the intellectual property
of collaborators, and on procedures for
handling conflicts and possible cases of
misconduct.
• All partners in research collaborations
are properly informed and consulted
about submissions for publication of the
research results.

EXPECTATIONS sounded harsh in my opinion whereas the content seemed more aligned with ACKNOWLEDGING and approach and effort required to conduct Open Science.

These are some food for thought. I did not see a NASA Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. I also wanted to be mindful not to overlap too much with CODE_OF_CONDUCT.

[ifenty]

@c-h-david I think the expectation:

"When using our software, please don’t compete with us, we’re on the same team."

is contrary to the spirit of open science. I propose something along the following lines:

"If you find our software helpful, consider collaborating with us so we can advance science together "

[larour]

I do concur with @c-h-david with the need to have a separate expectations file. Acknowledgements is a file name that will register less interest (given how removed it usually is from classic authorship considerations in the scientific world) than a file called EXPECTATIONS.md. Open science needs to achieve a merge of open source and science, with science having strong competitive funding requirements.

[c-h-david]

@ifenty, I like your suggestion and there is great value in being inviting rather than forbidding. I think at the root of my draft version of that sentence is that it's unfortunate (painful?) when someone writes your next paper/proposal with your model before you and without your knowledge. I actually don't know if competing is better for open science than collaborating. I need to think about that more...

[c-h-david]

@PaulMRamirez, your suggestion of using the term "Commitment to Open Science" is a very good one. Your choice of words for "Attributions" and the descriptions related to "inclusive research", "inclusive proposals" are also great.

[c-h-david]

@PaulMRamirez, I read the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity with great interest. The chapter on collaborative working is exactly along the lines of what we're discussing here, particularly the bullet:

• All partners formally agree at the start of their collaboration on expectations and standards concerning research integrity, on the laws and regulations that will apply, on protection of the intellectual property of collaborators, and on procedures for handling conflicts and possible cases of misconduct.

Is someone using your code a "partner"? If so, how can we describe "expectations and standards" such that the yet-unknown partner or partner-to-be might understand how to start this collaboration?

[c-h-david]

To further feed the conversation, here is an excerpt from a paper I wrote a few years ago (https://doi.org/10.1002/2015EA000142):

Finally, and contrary to common belief, open source software does not mean free user support [Barnes, 2010; Easterbrook, 2014]. This unfortunate misconception hinders sustainable sharing as it does sustainable research. An analogy between traditional publishing and digital scholarship can be made here. It is common that a given researcher reads a scientific paper written by another researcher , applies the published methods to his/her case study, and writes their own paper citing the work of . However, it is less usual for to ask for help with the data collection or application of the methods to the new case study without an implied understanding of co-authorship. Such is particularly true if the associated efforts require rigorous data collection, detailed data inspection, and/or enhancement of the methods. The same modus operando can reasonably be applied to digital scholarship. Citation of the digital research products is appropriate – and sufficient – when using these products “as is”. However, if user support requires “substantial” expertise or involvement from the developers, co-authorship seems appropriate. Similarly, if research proposals planning to use open source software are likely to necessitate assistance from the developers, a proportionate amount of funding can reasonably be requested. Such funding can then be used to answer new scientific questions and leveraged for support. Developers must therefore acknowledge that they too often drown – happily – in the time sink of user support. The benefits of community feedback cannot alone justify the associated efforts as developers’ time could be very well spent instead on new publications or new research proposals. As we encourage geoscientists to enthusiastically embrace the open source approach, our community must therefore also strive for a proper balance between further sharing and sustainable research.

[PaulMRamirez]

@c-h-david yes that collaborative working was the most applicable part to what I believe were your intentions. EXPECTATIONS.md doesn't sound fully aligned with what you've described. I'm wondering if this is an addition to the CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md or a RESEARCH_CODE_OF_CODUCT.md. The former seems to talk to the community around the repository while the latter would be about production of derived research products. This is a new area for me so I'm conflicted about recommending a new file.

Going down this path I believe one would also want to make sure the principles aligned here with TOPS community and guidance there. This would be a good issue to cross post or get others from that community to weigh in.

I think the core of this speaks to science code and research conducting utilizing the codebase.

[yunks128]

Great discussions! I would like to start a document that describes what we have discussed. The title and scope are to be updated (code of conduct, expectations, acknowledgments, etc.)

https://github.com/yunks128/slim/blob/main/docs/guides/governance/contributions/code-of-conduct/EXPECTATIONS.md

[PaulMRamirez]

We discussed this ticket during our SLIM community meeting today and @yunks128 is going to open an issue on the TOPS side to see if we can broaden the conversation for feedback and more input on this topic. TOPS discusses CODE_OF_CONDUCT which is typically focused on behavior. One central concept here appears to be conducting open research and the agreed upon approach (i.e. EXPECTATIONS). @yunks128 took the action to cross post as he noted the potential applicable sections.

[c-h-david]

@PaulMRamirez, @yunks128, thanks for fostering this conversation! I love the idea of opening a cross post with TOPS to welcome a broader range of feedback. In the meantime, I've done some reading...
Ensuring Scientific Integrity at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 2011
NASA Guidelines for Promoting Scientific and Research Integrity 2018
NASA Guidelines for Promoting Scientific and Research Integrity 2023
OSTP Scientific Integrity Policy 2023
Codes of Conduct for Collaboration as Social Rule Systems for Transdisciplinary Processes, 2023

I've convinced myself that the topic that I'm concerned with is not one of scientific and research integrity, which instead focuses on topics of honesty, objectivity, and transparency. The OSTP reports defines:

Scientific integrity is the adherence to professional practices, ethical behavior, and the principles of honesty, objectivity, and transparency when conducting, managing, using the results of, and communicating about science and scientific activities. Inclusivity and protection from inappropriate influence are hallmarks of scientific integrity.

It appears that "code of conduct for collaboration" might be a good term, at least as defined by Sholtz & Renn (2023):

[A code of conduct for collaboration] is a set of values, standards, rules, and principles describing expectations for what members of an organization or participants of a process should do.