The Coronavirus and Open Science: Our reads and Open use cases
As many of us find ourselves working from home we would like to suggest some pertinent reading connecting work on Open Science with COVID-19. Scores of blog posts and articles which demonstrate the value of Open at this time are being written.
I would in particular like to thank Peter Suber and his Open Access Tracking Project (OATP): a service we have been feeding and using for some time now. It is a vital source of news from across the world on Open research and education. OATP is crowd-sourced and updated in real time.
We have used this invaluable resource combined with our own research to create this curated collection of blogs, articles, news on calls to action and key open resources that showcase how open science supports COVID-19.
We had to stop adding to this at the end of March. If you want to follow more on COVID-19 and Open, go to OATP here.
How to use this resource
For those wanting to read about how Open Science leaders and thinkers consider how Open Science is serving to help solve the COVID-19 pandemic and what more needs to be done, the Open Access to research section is for you.
To see how the funders, governments, libraries and research communities are advocating for more access to information to support research through formal calls to action, we have gathered key initiatives calling for change in the Calls to Action section.
If you want to know what publishers are doing to unlock access to some of their materials see the dedicated section.
Last but not least, see the range of resources, e.g. datasets and tools created using Open Science organised by type of output for OS practitioners and researchers working on COVID-19.
Note that this collections was made in late March early April; it does not include all developments since then.
Open Access to research (for research resources, see below)
- Scholarly publishers are working together to maximize efficiency during COVID-19 pandemic
Scholarly publishers working together to ensure that key work related to COVID-19 is reviewed and published as quickly and openly as possible.
https://oaspa.org/scholarly-publishers-working-together-during-covid-19-pandemic/ - Coronavirus: Commission hosts a European hackathon to develop innovative solutions to fight the outbreak
European Commission the pan-European #EUvsVirus Hackathon. It connects civil society, innovators, partners and investors across Europe to develop innovative solutions aimed at fighting the coronavirus outbreak.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/mex_20_728 - European Commission Commissioner Mariya Gabriel’s monthly update | European Commission
European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth shares news on the EC’s approach to Covid-19 in this first monthly update.
https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/eusciencehubnews/newsletter-specific-archive-issue.cfm?newsletter_service_id=1772&lang=default - Harnessing the Open Science infrastructure for an efficient African response to COVID-19 [preprint], 30 March 2020
On ensuring that data produced in this pandemic is FAIR and that analyses are published in OA platforms and on open data repositories.
https://zenodo.org/record/3733768#.XoR3wdMzZVr - Coronavirus crisis inspiring ‘unprecedented’ global research effort | Times Higher Education (THE), 25 March 2020
How collaboration and Open Science is helping in the search for a COVID-19 vaccine.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/coronavirus-crisis-inspiring-unprecedented-global-research-effort - Analyzing more than 1M citations to better understand scientific research on COVID-19 | Medium, 24 March 2020
Resource that uses the new CORD-19 dataset to extract citations and analyse these.
https://medium.com/scite/analyzing-more-than-1m-citations-to-better-understand-scientific-research-on-covid-19-3faa59d726c2 - Covid-19: How unprecedented data sharing has led to faster-than-ever outbreak research | Horizon, 23 March 2020
How sharing data more rapidly and the scientific discourse has changed through open science.
https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/covid-19-how-unprecedented-data-sharing-has-led-faster-ever-outbreak-research.html - It takes a pandemic to change biomedical publishing, 23 March 2020
Helping fight COVID-19 in an Open publishing world.
https://medium.com/@mab992/it-takes-a-pandemic-to-change-biomedical-publishing-12803583ab0f - Covid-19 is reshaping the world of bioscience publishing | STAT, 23 March 2020
How the way research is being disseminated on Covid-19 is changing.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/23/bioscience-publishing-reshaped-covid-19/ - Heather Joseph on the Coronavirus and the Urgent Need for Open Access to Research Publications, The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 43 | Michael Geist, 16 March 2020
Podcast with Heather Joseph discussing researchers, publisher and funder responses to the urgent need for access to COVID-19 research and what this says about the need for open access to research.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2020/03/lawbytes-podcast-episode-43/ - Will the coronavirus kill off the ‘dinosaur’ world of academic publishing? | South China Morning Post, 16 March 2020
Raising the debate on profits made from the publication of research. Big publishers and service providers are taking down paywalls at the request of government, researchers and funders whilst research communities are taking action to share more results more openly.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3075431/will-coronavirus-kill-dinosaur-world-academic-publishing - The Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak highlights serious deficiencies in scholarly communication | Impact of Social Sciences, 5 March 2020
Reflections on how the research and scholarly communication system at the time of the COVID-19 outbreak and the need for more open research shows the duty of research to serve the public good.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/03/05/the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak-highlights-serious-deficiencies-in-scholarly-communication/ - The Covid-19 outbreak highlights the potential of preprints | Times Higher Education (THE), 2 March 2020
The risks and opportunities of pre-prints in the times of COVID-19.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/covid-19-outbreak-highlights-potential-preprints - The hunt for a coronavirus cure is showing how science can change for the better | The Conversation, 24 February 2020
In the time of Corona, while our movements are becoming more restricted, access to knowledge is becoming more open.
https://theconversation.com/the-hunt-for-a-coronavirus-cure-is-showing-how-science-can-change-for-the-better-132130 - Coronavirus outbreak puts ‘open science’ under a microscope | Fred Hutch, 13 February 2020
Will how we report on research results change by helping stop an epidemic?
https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2020/02/covid19-open-science.html - Das Coronavirus und die Bedeutung einer offenen Wissenschaft | TIB-Blog, 12 February 2020
As epidemics are an increasing occurrence, how responsive can scientists be in the light that many scientific results still aren’t open to medical practitioners and to researchers from across the world? Publishers are commendably unlocking access temporarily, but is this what is needed?
https://blogs.tib.eu/wp/tib/2020/02/12/das-coronavirus-und-die-bedeutung-einer-offenen-wissenschaft/
Open Education
- OER4Covid initiative
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and the OERu join forces with the UNESCO IITE and ICDE to support online learning using open educational resources (OER).
https://mautic.oeru.org/oer4covid - CORONAOVIRUS | ICDE, 17 March 2020
Tips for online teaching, webinars, and news and resources provided by the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE)
https://www.icde.org/corona - Why Learning Together is More Important Than Ever Before, 17 March 2020
Letter from the Secretary-General of the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE)
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b99664675f9eea7a3ecee82/t/5e70caaf02aaf53fd400e8bf/1584450224095/ICDE+Letter+on+COVID-19+-+LearningTogether+v2.pdf - COVID-19 Open Education Community Contributed Resources
Open Educational Resources for Teaching and Learning in the COVID-19 Era contributed by the OE community
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iQtZoDphA5XYKHR32zUYJ9imjCh4c1DOfg14MRB7G_I/edit#gid=0 - Creative Commons’ Response to COVID-19 | Creative Commons
Its call to action, and promoting Open Access to education, culture and research and providing resources for online access to knowledge.
https://creativecommons.org/creative-commons-response-to-covid-19/
Calls to Action (in chronological order)
- Fostering Bibliodiversity in Scholarly Communications, A call for Action | COAR, 15 April 2020
COAR call to action calling on the community to develop strong, community-governed infrastructures that support diversity in scholarly communications.
https://www.coar-repositories.org/news-updates/fostering-bibliodiversity-in-scholarly-communications-a-call-for-action/ - IFLA Leads Open Letter on Intellectual Property and COVID-19 | IFLA, 3 April 2020
An open letter to the Director General of WIPO to underline that Copyright and IP laws and practices do not stand in the way of libraries in their current urgent need to provide access to information for research, education and access to culture at distance.
https://www.ifla.org/node/92993 - The Open COVID Pledge | 2 April 2020
Pledging to make intellectual property available free of charge to those that need it to help end the COVID-19 pandemic and reduce its impact.
https://opencovidpledge.org/ - UNESCO mobilizes 122 countries to promote open science and reinforced cooperation in the face of COVID-19 | UNESCO, 30 March 2020
122 country representatives of ministries in charge of science meet at UNESCO hosted online meeting to share views on the role of international cooperation in science and increased investment in the context of COVID-19.
https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-mobilizes-122-countries-promote-open-science-and-reinforced-cooperation-face-covid-19 - Open COVID Pledge, 30 March 2020
Pledge to call on authors to make all IP under their control available to help end the COVID-19 pandemic and reduce the impact of the disease, free of charge and without encumbrances.
https://opencovidpledge.org/ - Data Together COVID-19 Appeal and Actions, 30 March 2020
CODATA, GO FAIR, RDA and WDS in unison over the fact that we need to meet both the immediate needs and long-term objectives of global science and accelerate the implementation of a FAIR ecosystem.
https://codata.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Data-Together-COVID-19-Statement-FINAL.pdf - Statement on open and sustainable knowledge | Spanish Library Consortia, CSIC and REBIUN, 30 March 2020
Urging research institutions, publishers and providers of information services to accelerate the transition towards Open Access in an economically sustainable way.
https://www.rebiun.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/Statementonopenandsustainableknowledge.pdf - Fast-track co-creation funding for COVID-19 related activities | EOSC secretariat, 27 March 2020
A fast-track procedure to apply for funding activities related to COVID-19 in Europe.
https://www.eoscsecretariat.eu/news-opinion/funding-covid-19-activities - Joint statement of the members of the European Council, 26 March 2020
European Ministers unite to make 22 points on where they will collaborate to combat the pandemic. One point being to collaborate worldwide and to promote the urgency in sharing scientific information in the shortest possible time, making it available to all those in need.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2020/03/26/joint-statement-of-the-members-of-the-european-council-26-march-2020 - RDA COVID-19 Working Group – Urgent Call for Expert Contributions | RDA, 26 March 2020
RDA calling for experts to work on defining guidelines on data sharing and re-use to help researchers follow best practices to maximize the efficiency of their work related to COVID-19.
https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/rda-covid19 - Outbreak of the COVID-19 virus and implications for teaching and research | Consortium of UK research institutions and their libraries, 20 March 2020
10 actions that research institutions, libraries and publishers, aggregators and vendors can take to support institutions and colleges in the time of the Coronavirus.
https://sconul.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Statement_on_access_to_content_in_response_to_COVID-19.pdf - Coronavirus : appel aux éditeurs pour ouvrir leurs publications à tous (Coronavirus: call to publishers to open their publications to everyone) | French library consortium COUPERIN, 19 March 2020
https://www.couperin.org/breves/1414-coronavirus-appel-aux-editeurs-pour-ouvrir-leurs-publications-a-tous - With launch of COVID-19 data hub, the White House issues a call to action for AI researchers | Techcrunch, 16 March 2020
New machine-readable COVID-19 Open Research Dataset known as CORD-19 announced to speed up efforts on tackling Corona virus.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-machine-learning-cord-19-chan-zuckerberg-ostp - Petition · Brian Napack: Unlock Coronavirus research for scientists · Change.org
Petition to call to publishers to make their material related to the Coronavirus open. See how it worked here.
https://www.change.org/p/brian-napack-unlock-coronavirus-research-for-scientists-89a7ce07-6a46-4ed1-8a73-9745c2496df5 - Statement on the Global COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impact on Library Services and Resources | ICOLC Website, 13 March 2020
ICOLC (International Coalition of Library Consortia) on behalf of its 200 library consortia worldwide call on publishers to take action to make material on COVID-19, Coronaviruses (regardless of species affected), vaccines, antiviral drugs Open Access amongst other demands, and to start planning to lift paywalls or campus-only restrictions to information for example.
https://icolc.net/statement/statement-global-covid-19-pandemic-and-its-impact-library-services-and-resources - Global Officials Call for Free Access to Covid-19 Research | WIRED, 13 March 2020
Government science advisers from 12 countries – Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, the US and the UK – ask scientific journals to make data more freely available through PubMed Central or through the World Health Organization’s Covid database.
https://www.wired.com/story/global-officials-call-free-access-covid-19-research/ - President Trump’s Science Advisor and Government Science Leaders from Around the World call on Publishers to make all COVID-19-Related Research Publicly Available | The White House, 13 March 2020
Official White House communique: Today, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and government science leaders from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom call on publishers to make all research results related to COVID-19 immediately available.
http://listserv.crl.edu/wa.exe?A2=LIBLICENSE-L;23fe98a3.2003&FT=&P=&H=&S= - Calling all coronavirus researchers: keep sharing, stay open | Nature, 4 February 2020
Calling researchers to ensure that their work on COVID-19 is shared rapidly and openly.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00307-x - Sharing research data and findings relevant to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak | Wellcome, 31 January 2020
To help save lives, Wellcome calls on researchers, journals and funders to ensure that research findings are rapidly shared openly.
https://wellcome.ac.uk/press-release/sharing-research-data-and-findings-relevant-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak
Publisher special offers
- COVID-19: Special Offers, News, and Updates From Library Vendors, Publishers, Online Services, and Others
Links here provide updates and special offers from vendors and other companies that work with the library community.
https://www.infodocket.com/2020/03/17/covid-19-news-and-special-offers-from-library-vendors-publishers-online-services-and-others/ - Extended access to OpenEdition Books and OpenEdition Journals content | OpenEdition, 27 March 2020
95% of the content published on OpenEdition Journals and 80% of the books on OpenEdition Books are usually open access; many of the remaining publishers have now unlocked thier material to open access.
https://oep.hypotheses.org/2515 - Publishers make coronavirus (COVID-19) content freely available and reusable | Wellcome, 16 March 2020
Following the call from a dozen countries to make scientific results related to COVID-19 / the Coronavirus open and re-usable, over 30 leading publishers making related publications and data immediately accessible in PubMed Central (PMC) and other public repositories.
https://wellcome.ac.uk/press-release/publishers-make-coronavirus-covid-19-content-freely-available-and-reusable - Coronavirus (Covid-2019) | STM
Links to STM publisher members who are making COVID-19/ Coronavirus research results quickly and freely available.
https://www.stm-assoc.org/about-the-industry/coronavirus-2019-ncov/
Open Research
- OpenAIRE COVID-19 Gateway
This resource brings together COVID-19 records, including publications, data, software and other research outcomes in a single access point.
https://www.openaire.eu/openaire-covid-19-gateway - ZB MED COVID-19 Hub
This Hub brings tools, publications and data related to COVID-19 and the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
https://covid-19.zbmed.de/ - Citizen Science resources related to the COVID-19 pandemic
This site contains links to citizen science and crowdsourcing projects related to COVID-19
http://eu-citizen.science/citizen-science-resources-related-to-the-covid19-pandemic/ - Coronavirus Disease Research Community – COVID-19, 16 March 2020
A new community launched on Zenodo to collect research results that could be relevant for the scientific community working on the Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) and SARS-CoV-2. A joint Zenodo/OpenAIRe initiative.
https://zenodo.org/communities/covid-19/about/ - COVID-19 Social Science Research Tracker
This new list tracks new research amongst social scientists on COVID 19, including published findings, pre-prints, and projects.
https://github.com/natematias/covid-19-social-science-research - Pensar la pandemia. Observatorio social del Coronavirus – CLACSO
(Think about the pandemic Coronavirus Social Observatory – CLACSO), 21 March 2020
https://www.clacso.org/pensar-la-pandemiaobservatorio-social-del-coronavirus/ - COVID-19 Highlights the Need for EOSC | EOSCSecretariat, 13 March 2020
EOSC has the potential to respond to public emergencies such as the COVID-19 virus by providing a wide pool of open data and tools to support collaboration across all disciplines.
https://www.eoscsecretariat.eu/news-opinion/covid-19-highlights-need-eosc - Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources (EIOS)
Bringing together new and existing initiatives, networks and systems to create a unified approach to early detection, verification and assessment of public health risks and threats using open source information. Also creating a community of practice for public health intelligence.
https://www.who.int/eios
Open Access Publications
- Knowledgebase on epidemics from Amelica/Redalyc journals
More than 6 thousand articles in Linked Open Data (LOD) format made available in a new thematic discovery service.
amelica.org/epidemics - medRxiv COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 preprints from medRxiv and bioRxiv
Preprint server for the health sciences gathers research related to Corona virus, open to all.
http://connect.medrxiv.org/relate/content/181 - medRxiv.org The pre-print server for health sciences
https://www.medrxiv.org/ - bioRxiv.org The pre-print server for biology
https://www.biorxiv.org/ - Peer-Reviewed Research to Inform the Coronavirus Crisis
In collaboration with the Association of Research Libraries, BioOne and our publishers have made articles related to the Coronavirus available open access through 2020.
https://complete.bioone.org/covid-19 - Over 24,000 coronavirus research papers are now available in one place | MIT Technology Review, 16 March 2020
Covid-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19) released as collaborative effort between organisations including over 24,000 research papers from peer-reviewed journals and other resources such as bioRxiv and medRxiv
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615367/coronavirus-24000-research-papers-available-open-data/ - LitCovid – NCBI – NLM – NIH
LitCovid is a curated literature hub for recent scientific information about the new Coronavirus drawing on over 1000 articles from PubMed.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/research/coronavirus/ - Open peer-review platform for COVID-19 preprints | Nature, 3 March 2020
With support from Wellcome, Nature launches Outbreak Science Rapid PREreview. It is an open-source platform to enable the rapid peer-review of preprints related to emerging outbreaks.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00613-4 - Statt Paywall: 5300 Forschungsartikel über Corona-Virus zugänglich gemacht |Heise Online, 4 February 2020 (In German)
Activists have made more than 5,300 scientific publications on the corona virus freely available. Many hidden behind paywalls.
https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Statt-Paywall-5300-Forschungsartikel-ueber-Corona-Virus-zugaenglich-gemacht-4653018.html
Datasets and data tools to fight Corona
- ELIXIR support for SARS-CoV-2 research
As the European (ESFRI) Research Infrastructure for life science data, ELIXIR provides a range of services to help researchers and consortia working on SARS-CoV-2 research.
https://elixir-europe.org/covid-19-resources - The COVD Tracking Project
This Project collects information from 50 US states, the District of Columbia, and 5 other US territories to provide comprehensive testing data for the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2.
https://covidtracking.com/ - Wikidata:WikiProject COVID-19|Wikidata
A Wiki Project collects resources from Wikidat on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_COVID-19 - WikiJournal Preprints/Aggregation of scholarly publications and extracted knowledge on COVID19 and epidemics | Wikiversity
This project uses Wikidata and Wikpedia, R, Java, textmining and semantic tools to create a new resource of published information on viruses and their epidemics.
https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_Preprints/Aggregation_of_scholarly_publications_and_extracted_knowledge_on_COVID19_and_epidemics - Human Coronaviruses Data Initiative | LENS.ORG
The Lens building interactive tool for understanding patent and research landscape in all domains, including coronavirus and COVID-19.
https://about.lens.org/covid-19 - COVID-19 Open Source Dashboard – Towards Data Science, 23 March 2020
Christoph Schönenberger creates dashboard using open source tools to track and visualize the spread of COVID-19.
https://towardsdatascience.com/covid-19-open-source-dashboard-fa1d2b4cd985 - GenBank – SARS-CoV-2
This is the NIH genetic sequence database and the SARS-Coc-2 subselection which holds an annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/sars-cov-2-seqs/
Let us know if we’ve missed an essential resource and we’ll add it. Mail us at info@sparceurope.org
These links were collected throughout March 2020.