Attitudes and practices of open data, preprinting, and peer-review-A cross sectional study on Croatian scientists.

Ksenija Baždarić,Lidija Bilić-Zulle,Martina Mavrinac,Jadranka Stojanovski,Mario Malički,Iva Vrkić,Maja Gligora Marković,Evgenia Arh

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0244529

Abstract

Attitudes towards open peer review, open data and use of preprints influence scientists' engagement with those practices. Yet there is a lack of validated questionnaires that measure these attitudes. The goal of our study was to construct and validate such a questionnaire and use it to assess attitudes of Croatian scientists. We first developed a 21-item questionnaire called Attitudes towards Open data sharing, preprinting, and peer-review (ATOPP), which had a reliable four-factor structure, and measured attitudes towards open data, preprint servers, open peer-review and open peer-review in small scientific communities. We then used the ATOPP to explore attitudes of Croatian scientists (n = 541) towards these topics, and to assess the association of their attitudes with their open science practices and demographic information. Overall, Croatian scientists' attitudes towards these topics were generally neutral, with a median (Md) score of 3.3 out of max 5 on the scale score. We also found no gender (P = 0.995) or field differences (P = 0.523) in their attitudes. However, attitudes of scientist who previously engaged in open peer-review or preprinting were higher than of scientists that did not (Md 3.5 vs. 3.3, P<0.001, and Md 3.6 vs 3.3, P<0.001, respectively). Further research is needed to determine optimal ways of increasing scientists' attitudes and their open science practices.

Highlights

Open science, despite lacking an universally accepted definition, is widely recognized as a global phenomenon and an initiative emerging from the philosophical concept of scholarly „openness“
The second Principal Axis Factoring (PAF) analysis was more suitable (KMO = 0.80; Bartlett’s test P
Using the ATOPP questionnaire, we explored Croatian scientists’ attitudes towards those topics and the association of those attitudes with their open science practices and socio-demographic information

Summary

Introduction

Despite lacking an universally accepted definition, is widely recognized as a global phenomenon and an initiative emerging from the philosophical concept of scholarly „openness“. With the principles and values of openness rooted in the idea of scientific knowledge being a common good [1]. The term open science was coined in 2001 by Recep Şenturk, and he used it to refer to a democratic and a pluralist culture of science. For Şenturk, open science indicated that different perspectives in science are considered equal, rather than. Attitudes and practices of open data, preprinting, and peer-review in biomedicine (uniri-biomed-18-99) of the University of Rijeka, Croatia

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion