We need to break down barriers to access to scientific research, and remove hierarchies and the culture problems that these cause.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown not only how important fast and open publication of research is, but also what can be achieved when the scientific community work together towards a common goal.
What is Octopus and how will it help disrupt research culture?
Octopus will create a new ‘primary research record’ for recording and appraising research ‘as it happens’.
It breaks down the publication of scientific research into eight elements, unlike a traditional journal article.
The eight elements are:
- Problem
- Hypothesis/rationale
- Methods/protocol
- Data/results
- Analysis
- Interpretation
- Real-world implementation
- Peer review
These elements will be linked together to form chains of collaborative work.
These smaller units of publication encourage faster sharing, and credit can be given to individual work at all stages of the research process, including peer review.
This will encourage a new culture of collaboration, constructive critique and fast sharing of work by resetting the incentive structure in research to reward best practice in every aspect of the scientific process.
The platform will be free for researchers to publish their work, free for anyone to read and embeds the principles of openness and transparency throughout.
What are we doing?
Building a tool for the research community, which is owned by the community.
Initially we are undertaking technical developments to move the experimental Octopus platform from a prototype to an active service that’s available worldwide.
Technical developments include:
- Refining the design of Octopus based on user feedback
- Creating a fully functional, scalable service
- Integrating persistent identifiers, such as ORCID and DataCite
- Producing open API end points for all data
- Extensive user testing prior to launch
Alongside this we are investing in:
- Marketing, outreach and user engagement
- A programme of evaluation and user research
- Work to develop a sustainable model for Octopus in the long-term
Find out more
For more information about this project, contact John Kaye (john.kaye@jisc.ac.uk), Liz Bal (liz.bal@jisc.ac.uk) or Lola Harre (lola.harre@jisc.ac.uk).
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A community for users of the Octopus service, and those interested in open science, research practice and related topics.
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