Open Science as an Opportunity for Academic Grey Literature
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6
00:00
Computer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:05
Hello, my name is Joachim Schapfer, I'm Associate Professor of Information Science at the University of Lille in France. I'm a member of the Granite community for many years now, I think more than 20 years now.
00:25
Together with colleagues from France, from other countries, I've published a couple of papers on grey literature.
00:43
Grey literature in open repositories, open access to grey resources. What grey literature means, how it can be used for evaluation, altmetrics, and so on and so on and so on.
01:05
This year, together with Hélène Proulx, who is an information professional at the research organization CNRS in France, this year we proposed a systematic review of grey literature related to open science, the impact of open science on grey literature.
01:41
It's not an empirical study, not a survey, it's a systematic review of recent literature. Our basic question was, what is the future of grey literature?
02:03
Of course, we can't read in the future, nobody knows what the future will be. But what we can do is to have a look on what's going on, the actual development of grey literature in the environment of open science.
02:33
So, when you want to have some ideas about what's going on and what will be the future, what do you have to do?
02:43
You have to look back, and looking back, there are a couple of assumptions, past assumptions about the future of grey literature. For instance, Mackenzie Owen, 25 years ago, he predicted an unprecedented
03:07
increase of the volume of grey literature with global and unrestricted accessibility. This is what Mackenzie Owen predicted, was this idea of the environment of the web and of
03:23
the beginning movement of, it wasn't called open science, it was called open access to scientific literature. A couple of years later, Aertus from Germany, he observed that there was no unusual growth
03:45
of grey documents and he was uncertain what would be the impact of the web on grey. It would be more grey or less grey. He said there will be more access to what was difficult to find and to get before.
04:08
Myself, in 2006, and I will stop looking back in the past with this, myself, I said at the time, nearly 20
04:23
years ago, that there probably would be a greater diversity of grey literature and a kind of convergence between grey and white. Which means that my idea at the time was that there would be, the limit between grey and white would be less clear.
04:44
We wouldn't be able, as before, to say this is white, this is grey. It would be more a transition, a continuum between both sectors of academic production.
05:04
So, last year, Greynet, you may remember, Greynet launched an online survey on the future of grey literature, or next generation grey. And one of the results, I think it was interesting, two thirds of the respondents,
05:26
which were from the Greynet community, agreed that in academic institutions, the affirmation of open science and open access principles significantly further the production, publication and retrieval of grey literature.
05:44
In other terms, most of the members of the Greynet community, you, me, most of us are convinced that open science is good for grey literature. So, what we did this year was just to kind of test this idea, test in a specific way, with a systematic review.
06:13
Is open science really an opportunity for grey literature or a threat? Will it increase grey literature or decrease the part of grey?
06:26
Or is it just another challenge that needs awareness and further action, kind of way we already know grey literature always needed and still needs curation, attention.
06:45
So, our purpose was, and is of our review, is to contribute to the analysis of the development of grey literature in the academic research environment of this new century.
07:06
It's a rejoinder to last year's panel discussion on the next generation grey. What is known, actually, about grey literature and open science, both together? What is questionable? What needs more insight? Are there any recommendations we
07:26
can make based on our experience, based on what other people published? Our approach, as I already said, was a systematic review. We looked for original papers published in the last five years, from 2018 to this year.
07:54
And then we put the focus on four topics. On the production, Biblodiversity, on the dissemination of grey, especially via repositories, on
08:08
the evaluation, all what's going on in the field of research assessment, and on the processing, which means application of fair principles.
08:21
So, we selected five sources for records. Web of Science, Scopus, Dimensions, the Grey Guide repository, and we used Google Scholar at the search engine.
08:46
This way, initially, we identified more than 25,000 papers, and then we screened automatically, manually, and selected at the end, manually, 53 papers.
09:11
Many papers, if you wonder why there is so much paper we discarded, many papers were about grey
09:21
literature, but grey literature is part of systematic reviews in health science, or biology, or chemistry, or any fields. But what we are looking for are papers on grey literature, papers on grey literature, with
09:41
significant and relevant information, results, thoughts, related to open science, and specifically to these four topics.
10:03
So, first topic, what did we find, and what were we looking for? The first topic was about production of grey literature, and specifically in the environment of open science, Biblodiversity.
10:25
Why? Recently, a couple of initiatives have been taken against the development of a dominant open access publishing model, based on article processing charges, APCs. So, some of these initiatives focus on journals, others are more open, inclusive, especially the call for open science and Biblodiversity.
11:05
So, this call, for instance, is one example, there are other initiatives, same kind, explicitly invites for innovation and experimentation in the field of dissemination of research, results, and academic publishing. So, that is a good environment, a good opportunity for grey literature, and what we found with our systematic review, that obviously there is
11:38
a kind of common ground between these initiatives in the field of open science, and what we are doing in the grey nerd community.
11:48
Recent papers highlight the richness and the diversity of unconventional academic literature, partly non-reviewed, partly published, outside of the usual commercial channels. There is a common place where both concepts overlap.
12:07
So, based on this observation, and what a couple of experts, professionals, scientists, said, and published about grey literature, the
12:26
production of grey literature, our idea, our suggestion, would be that the signing institutions, for instance, of the Jucieux Coel, which are research organizations, associations, learned societies, scientific journals, they should explicitly consider grey
12:50
literature when they refocus the issue of business models in the broader perspective of the editorial processes and methods upon which research and innovation will rely in the future.
13:04
For the benefit of a very broad bibliodiversity. We, on our side, as a grey nerd community of practice, we should seize the opportunity of these initiatives for bibliodiversity for advocacy and promotion of
13:26
the richness and diversity of grey literature, which are in constant need of attention and so on. You know this. For the moment, I can see this junction, but it's obvious that
13:43
there's an opportunity for more advocacy and promotion of our work and our advocacy for grey. The second topic, repositories, the dissemination of grey literature. So, Daniela Lübzi, 12 years ago,
14:11
she said that grey literature is at home in open archives. I never forgot this. I think she was right and her observation is relevant and just. And today, going
14:33
through the published papers and research, many papers, many authors express the conviction based on evidence.
14:47
As we do in France, that repositories are good for grey literature and that grey literature as an essential part of scientific output should be part of repositories. Archiving in a repository is a way to let grey literature become open. This is one citation from another colleague from Italy.
15:15
Repositories are essential for the dissemination, for the visibility and use
15:21
of grey literature and that technology has contributed to expand its impact. But what we find in the papers is a confirmation that open access is not enough.
15:41
Repositories have not, by sight, eradicated the issues and problems of grey literature. They have not kind of whitewashed it. The problems are still there. Open access and even accessibility is still not enough. More efforts and investment are required
16:06
to improve the curation of grey literature, issues with the quality of metadata, including persistent identifiers. There's a problem with persistent identifiers, especially with DOI. To say it very easy,
16:24
in a simple way, most of the articles have DOI, most of grey literature don't. There's a problem with evaluation, with monitoring, with findability. We come back to this a little bit later.
16:42
And there's another problem with the assurance regarding quality and long time archiving. There's still an issue with trust. People generally trust articles, perhaps they shouldn't, I don't know. But there's less trust in grey literature.
17:11
This is still an issue, also identified as an issue on open repositories. This situation has not fundamentally changed since 10 years or 12 years.
17:29
But what has changed? That's the question now. These questions are addressed and reformulated
17:41
in terms of fair principles. We come back to this a little bit later. So, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, we spoke about metadata, archiving, quality, and so on. Today, it's a question of fair principles, findability, accessibility, and so on.
18:08
Our third topic was about evaluation. It was about the role of grey literature in this transformation of research assessment.
18:27
How do the research initiatives for a new system of research assessment affect the grey literature? There are a couple of initiatives, more and more, internationally and in different countries. I think the
18:45
best known of these initiatives is the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, DORA, 10 years ago.
19:02
But there are other papers, calls, projects. The European Commission, which just signed the DORA declaration, they published a scoping report on the reform of the research assessment system.
19:23
UNESCO made a recommendation for Open Science recently, including the transformation of research assessment. We at France organized earlier this year a conference, the Open Science European Conference, and in the framework of this conference
19:50
there was a call on research assessment, which reflects the European initiative and the San Francisco Declaration.
20:06
The purpose of all these initiatives is to transform the actual system dominated by journal-based metrics, especially impact factor agetics. In common, they have a recommendation of diversity and inclusivity as fundamental criteria for research assessment.
20:25
And again, if you see this, if you hear this, you can understand that there is an opportunity for grey literature, but
20:42
going through the papers, which makes the junction, the link between these initiatives and grey literature, we observe a kind of paradox. The international initiatives to transform quantitative and journal-based research assessment explicitly call for more diversity of research outputs.
21:11
So that is good for grey literature. More diversity, not only journals, though there are dissertation reports, conference papers, preprints, and so on.
21:26
However, however, and this is a result of our systematic review, however, the role and importance of grey literature for research assessment so far remain marginal.
21:41
We can ask, is this definitive and inherent to the characteristics of grey literature? I don't think so. But based on what we found, empirical results and survey, more general observation, based on this, I think that advocacy
22:05
and promotion of diversity will not be enough to raise awareness for the interest of grey literature for research assessment. It is not enough to say, oh, here is grey literature, you should put it in your evaluation systems for assessment of institutions, projects, individual scientists, and so on.
22:44
It is findable, and it must be disseminated on trustworthy platforms and with fair data and metadata. So the whole environment must develop to include grey literature into research assessment, and more than before.
23:09
Here we come to the fourth topic, fair principles, processing of grey literature. In other words, our question was,
23:24
are the fair principles relevant for the processing of grey literature, and if so, which ones and which way? I will not explain the fair principles. This has been done many times. Fair, findability, accessibility, interoperability, reusability.
23:43
What you know, I think, most people, experts in the field of academic information and communication, know that initially developed for research data repositories,
24:05
these principles have been progressively applied to all kinds of infrastructures, procedures, and resources. Including items belonging to grey literature. For instance, I attended recently a
24:23
conference at Novi Sad on the fairness of electronic thesis and dissertation. So it was a conference dedicated on the application of these principles for two dissertations, PhD especially.
24:43
So, we had to look at the paper we retrieved regarding these specific aspects, applications of fair principles to grey literature.
25:06
And what we found is this. Above all, there are two principles which are an issue, a problem for grey literature. It's about findability, and it's about accessibility.
25:25
Findability means that there are still issues, problems with the quality and richness of metadata, and above all, there's a problem with persistent identifier. I already said it. Especially with the DOI.
25:46
This is a problem when it comes to be compliant with fair principles because quality of metadata, standards, and persistent identifier, these are crucial criteria for the compliance with fair.
26:09
The second issue is about accessibility. Restricted access remains an issue for grey literature, even if the deposit on open repositories improves dissemination and impact. I already said this, but it remains an issue.
26:26
There's one part of grey literature which is still kind of hidden and cannot be accessed easily. Two recommendations which are not really you, I admit. Not really you.
26:43
We said this and we repeat this for many years now. On the one hand, the producers of academic grey literature and repository managers, they should systematically attribute persistent identifier to grey literature.
27:07
Especially when these documents are deposited in institutional repositories, which is not the case up to now. And, on the other hand, institutions and repositories should create a framework, technical framework,
27:25
political framework, social framework, legal framework, that fosters openness and accessibility to grey literature. Openness and accessibility should be the dissemination by default. It should be the normal situation of grey literature, and still it isn't.
27:49
So, which are the perspectives? The findings of our review reflect a continuing and scientific and professional interest in grey literature, in and outside of the grey net community of practice.
28:08
Compared to what was published 20-25 years ago, the main issue of grey literature today is not typology, what is grey and what is not grey, but its fairness, the compliance with these principles I just mentioned.
28:26
Open science improves the openness of grey literature, its visibility and its accessibility, especially in open repository. However, open science also emphasizes and exacerbates the usual shortfalls of grey literature.
28:50
The shortfall we know very well, the lack of persistent identifier, problems with the quality and the richness of metadata, not with the
29:00
quality of the literature, this is not in question, but the quality and the richness of metadata, and with the long-term conservation. Sure, these are questions and problems which are not specific to grey literature. This is not a problem only of grey literature.
29:22
I cite here, especially two recent studies, very interesting studies, empirical studies, from Michael Laxo from Finland, which shows that inconsistent implementation of unique identifiers, persistent
29:42
identifiers, are key challenges for open access books, books, commercial books, not grey literature, and another study which shows that open access journals can simply vanish from the web. There is no preservation, they are still not there, and you can't get the articles from journals, not grey literature.
30:08
So, these are not problems specifically for grey literature, but the lack of long-term conservation, of
30:21
findability, non-efficient search and retrieval, and of standards, are serious threats to the sustainability of grey literature. And here, I cite a recent paper from Dubrey Kasavich, probably you will have read, he made exactly the
30:47
same observation as we do. There are problems, and this may be a problem in the future for the sustainability. How to conclude? Open science is surely an opportunity for grey literature, but it's
31:15
also a challenge, a continuing challenge. It's not only an opportunity, but also a challenge.
31:23
One way to face this challenge is a continuous work on the concept of grey literature. What does grey literature mean in this new environment? Again, I cite our colleague and friend Dubrey Kasavich, who said four years ago that taking into consideration the
31:59
volume and the speed of grey literature creation, there seems to be a need to revisit the old definition.
32:08
We already did this in the past. You know that there have been different approaches to what grey literature means. Luxembourg definition, New York definition, an approach a little bit more specific.
32:32
Prague definition, maybe there will be another, perhaps next year Amsterdam definition, I don't know.
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But it sure, we must continue to think about what does this mean, what we are looking, what we are processing in libraries, what we are looking for in the field of scientific production.
33:03
Our suggestion for the gradient community of practice would be a kind of, don't know how to tell it perhaps, grey literature observatory. What I mean is a virtual place for information professionals, researchers and service providers to analyze and discuss the
33:24
impact of open science on grey literature and to contribute with integration into this new landscape with advocacy information. And training. We need this. We must continue to work on this. The landscape
33:41
is moving, quickly moving with initiatives, as I said, for the transformation of research assessment. And interconnection of research infrastructure with issues like interoperability. And this means that there must be continuous attention
34:07
on grey literature, for the curation of grey literature, for the minting of persistent identifier and so on. So let's continue to work on this, let's continue to discuss this. It's important not
34:23
only for the production of grey literature but for the whole community, research community, because of the value and the interest and the significance of grey literature for academic research. Thank you.