Open Science: How Science Is Opening Up

Trust crisis, replication revolution, and open science explained simply and comprehensively
Author

Lukas Röseler

Many academic disciplines have changed considerably in recent years. New journals, methods, initiatives, societies, structures, and much more have emerged. There is talk of a “crisis” (Mede et al., 2020), a revolution (Nosek et al., 2018), or a renaissance (Nelson et al., 2018). Together, all these changes have led to a greater degree of openness and transparency and have substantially transformed the academic system.

This book provides an accessible explanation of the concept of openness, the origins of this change, and the Open Science movement. It explains the background of the academic system, newly developed methods, and problems with currently established methods, drawing mainly on examples and developments from psychology.

About this translation

While this entire book was written without any AI assistance, this English translation was produced with the help of Claude Sonnet 5 and has not yet been fully reviewed by the author. If you notice any translation errors or awkward phrasing, please refer to the German original or get in touch.

Two things to know about this translation: First, German Wissenschaft has no exact English equivalent — it covers the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities alike. Where the original says Wissenschaft, this translation generally uses “academia,” “scholarship,” or “research” rather than “science,” and Wissenschaftler*in is rendered as “researcher” or “scholar” rather than “scientist.” Second, the figures throughout this English edition still carry their original German labels — the diagrams have not yet been redrawn in English.


References

Mede, N. G., Schäfer, M. S., Ziegler, R., & Weißkopf, M. (2020). The replication crisis in the public eye: Germans’ awareness and perceptions of the (ir)reproducibility of scientific research. Public Understanding of Science (Bristol, England), 963662520954370. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662520954370
Nelson, L. D., Simmons, J., & Simonsohn, U. (2018). Psychology’s renaissance. Annual Review of Psychology, 69, 511–534. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-011836
Nosek, B. A., Ebersole, C. R., DeHaven, A. C., & Mellor, D. T. (2018). The preregistration revolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(11), 2600–2606. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1708274114