Imagining tomorrow's university in an era of open science

Abstract

As part of a recent workshop entitled "Imagining Tomorrow's University”, we were asked to visualize the future of universities as research becomes increasingly data- and computation-driven, and identify a set of principles characterizing pertinent opportunities and obstacles presented by this shift. In order to establish a holistic view, we take a multilevel approach and examine the impact of open science on individual scholars and how this impacts as well as on the university as a whole. At the university level, open science presents a double-edged sword: when well executed, open science can accelerate the rate of scientific inquiry across the institution and beyond; however, haphazard or half-hearted efforts are likely to squander valuable resources, diminish university productivity and prestige, and potentially do more harm than good. We present our perspective on the role of open science at the university.