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In 2019, as I was approaching the end of my doctorate, I decided to commit to open science practices. Why? Can't say it any better than Erin McKiernan, who inspired me to do this.
If I am going to "make it" in science, it has to be on terms I can live with.
More than four years have passed. It is time to look back and assess how truthful I have been to my own commitment. And maybe make a couple of adjustments.
<aside> 🚨 Spoiler alert I'm writing this primarily for myself. So, unless you are somehow particularly interested in what's happening in my life, you should close this tab and move on with your day.Spoiler alert
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Still reading? Let's go then!
I will not edit, review, or work for closed or hybrid access journals or conferences.
This is an easy one: The pledge gave me an ethically acceptable to say "no" to reviewing requests, which, as we all know, consume a lot of time. I genuinely regretted saying "no" once when I was invited to the TPC of RTSS, a top-notch conference I really like. I made one exception and agreed to review for a small workshop that a friend of mine was chairing, which wasn't open access but one operational research. That was another of my weak points! While drafting this post, I also reviewed a paper for CACM (a hybrid journal) because that paper perfectly matched my current research. So, two exceptions.
There is probably a cost to saying "no" regarding establishment/reputation as an early career researcher: being part of such PCs is a very effective way to get known by senior community members. But since I anyway changed fields after my doctorate, this did not matter much to me; I wouldn't get invited since no one knew me (yet).
So it was pretty easy and relatively painless. I did break the pledge a bit, though. Could do better.
I will publish only in open access journals or conferences; at least when I am the lead author.
That's the trickiest point; let's have it right now.
Since my pledge, I have published only one paper in a hybrid conference (for which we paid the open access fee). However, in all honesty, I have submitted several other papers to hybrid conferences. We just got rejected. So, pledge broken?
Well... yes. But I don't feel bad about it.
Objectively, there are not many gold open-access options in my field. USENIX conferences are great, but getting accepted is tough. Besides, there is too much randomness in the reviewing process to sensibly ask the Ph.D. students I work with to wait just until the next NSDI deadline, and hope we get in this time... For better or worse, students need the papers to graduate, and it feels misplaced to let my self-imposed rules add more constraints for them. So, for the students I advised, I always put the open-access option on the table if there was one, but I let it go if a hybrid venue was preferred.
For the work I led, I could be tighter on my commitment. This record is still clean, but again, in all honesty, I plan to submit to hybrid venues soon. Why? In short: Picking my battles. I really believe in "real" open access and that it is worth fighting for. I also know it is not the most pressing issue on our hands right now.
Over the past two years, I got into sustainability research. I think advancing science in that area is much more pressing than open-access activism. I chose to maximize the chance of my work contributing to those advances, which means publishing (well, submitting...) in the most appropriate and reputable venues in my community. So, I chose not to make open access a strict requirement, only a (strong) preference.
So, publishing only in open-access venues? Broken.