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Open Science for students

Zwicky, Regula

Publisher
Zenodo
DOI
10.5281/zenodo.17937551
Repository
zenodo.org
Language
en

Abstract

How can I address aspects of Open Science in a practice-oriented manner in my teaching? General information The provided teaching materials can be re-used by instructors for their courses. Description Open Science is an umbrella term for various efforts that all have the goal of making scientific achievements, and thus the scientific process itself, publicly accessible. Students are also affected by the accessibility of digital content, for example, when they cannot access articles that are not open access, or when they re-use images in presentations without respecting the terms of a Creative Commons license, or when they want to self-archive their own research work or presentations. The provided materials can be used by instructors to address aspects of Open Science in courses and to raise students' awareness of Open Science issues. The materials were developed in the context of a teaching tool at the University of Zurich. Format and structure of the teaching material The provided materials (presentation slides and background information) can be used by instructors to address aspects of Open Science in courses and to raise students' awareness of Open Science topics. Based on concrete questions from the students' everyday life, slides are available bundled into relevant topics. The slides can be easily inserted (individually or in combination), for example, into an existing presentation. The short exercise at the end of each slide deck is intended to address the content of the slide deck in a goal- and practice-oriented manner. Suggested questions for further discussions are also provided. Instructors can use the guiding questions to orientate themselves as to which set of slides should be included in the course. In addition to the slides, instructors are provided with texts to read aloud as well as further information, so that the preparation effort is kept to a minimum. The information sheet includes an overview of all relevant topic blocks with the respective learning objectives, the content of the corresponding slides, the solutions to the exercises as well as further references and literature. Target groups Bachelor and Master students, all disciplines Learning objectives and content of the teaching materials New slide decks are constantly being developed. The following topics are already available: Find and cite data: "Where can I find data in my discipline? How do I know whether I am allowed to use the dataset I have found? How do I cite the dataset?" Manuscript versions: "I have found different versions of an article on the Internet. Why is that, and which is the "correct" version?" Re-use of digital content: "I want to use images for my presentation. What do I need to look out for, and where can I find images that may be used?" Open Access: "What is it and what are the benefits?" Paywall: "Why are there paywalls for scientific publications? How can I access scientific publications without having to pay?" Self-archiving: "What can I myself publish Open Access? Which platforms are suitable and how do I do it?" The specific learning objectives of the slide sets are always presented at the beginning (on the document ‘Instructorinfo’ and on the 2nd slide in the presentation notes). Time required 10-15 minutes per unit

Full text

Universitätsbibliothek Teaching Tool ”Open Science“: Paywall Learning objectives (slide 1) — Students are able to explain why articles can be behind paywalls. — Students are able to use a certain tool to access articles without having to pay. Text suggestions for the slides Slide 2 When researching for your seminar paper or Bachelor's thesis, you find an article that is behind a so-called paywall. This means that you cannot access this article via the UZH or the University Library or the Zentralbibliothek. You ask yourself: Why is this the case with some articles? And what can you do to access the article? Slide 3 To understand why paywalls exist in the first place, let's take a look at possible publication routes. Basically, a distinction can be made between Open Access and Closed Access publications. If an article is published in Open Access, the article is immediately and completely accessible in the published version. If an article is published in the traditional way, the article is only accessible if the reader pays for it. This journal is only accessible via "subscription", which means that if your institution does not have a subscription to this journal or has paid for the book, you will not have access to the texts in the journal or the book, because the text is behind a so-called paywall. This is called Closed Access. In the case of closed access publications, authors have the option of archiving their publication themselves in a repository after a certain embargo period. In most cases, they cannot archive the final publisher’s version because of legal reasons but upload a previous manuscript version. At best, this is the final peer-reviewed version that has been revised by the author(s) and accepted by the publisher. This version is called the Author Accepted Manuscript or postprint. In other cases, authors publish only the preprint. This is the version that is submitted to the publisher for peer review, i.e. it has not yet gone through the peer review process. Slide 4 There are various tools and platforms for finding an article behind the paywall. The Open Science Framework platform, OSF for short, supports you in your search for preprints ("Preprint Archive Search"). You can also ask other researchers in which subject-specific repositories you might be able to find preprints. Note, however, that this version might differ in content from the final version on the publisher’s website. Another option is to use the browser extension "Unpaywall" (for Firefox and Chrome), which check whether a freely accessible Open Access version of an article, for example a postprint, is accessible somewhere online. Again, as a reminder: the postprint is the version that has been peer reviewed, revised by the authors and accepted for publication by the publisher; the content is hence the same as in the publisher’s version. Another option is to find the author(s). They might have made their manuscript available on their institution's repository or their personal website. University of Zurich | Teaching Tool “Open Science” 2 | 2 Slide 5 Solution to the exercise: The following article should be found: Baez, S., Castro-Aldrete, L., Britton, G.B. et al. Enhancing brain health in the global south through a sex and gender lens. Nat. Mental Health 2, 1308–1317 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-024-00339-6. Answer to the question: The article was published in a subscription journal, and the UZH has not paid for those subscriptions. Another article that can be searched for: Feng, Z., Zhou, X., Šmejkal, L. et al. An anomalous Hall effect in altermagnetic ruthenium dioxide. Nat Electron 5, 735–743 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-022-00866-z. Slide 6 Notes for discussion Context for the discussion question: Historically, the collaboration between universities and publishers worked successfully for the distribution of research output, with publishers providing paid services to researchers and universities. Digitization simplified the distribution, at the same time prices for journal subscriptions rose horrendously. While university libraries (like the UB/UZH) generally try to find good solutions with the publishers, so-called shadow libraries are emerging as a response to the high prices of the payment barriers. One of the most widely used shadow libraries is "Sci-Hub". The platform initiated by Alexandra Elbakyan aims to make scientific articles accessible to everyone without a paywall. With this, researchers and students from institutions with less financial resources and who cannot afford the high fees for journal subscriptions have equal access to the scientific literature. Currently, over 88 million scientific articles and books are available via Sci-Hub. On the Sci-Hub website, the project describes itself as "the most controversial project in modern science". New articles are added by using access data from university IP addresses which have a paid license. It is unclear how Sci-Hub can access the data (hacking, pishing, voluntary disclosure by university employees, etc.). The legality of such a shadow library is controversial: it circumvents the paywalls, infringes copyright, and engages in piracy by illegally procuring services that the publishers provide (such as carrying out the peer review process, layout, etc.). The publishers concerned are therefore taking legal action against such platforms. In some countries, access to Sci-Hub has been blocked due to the legal disputes. For private use, downloading is legal in Switzerland, but uploading articles is not. Further information and links — Cham, Jorge (Animation), Shockey, Nick & Eisen, Jonathan (Narration): Open Access Explained (Piled Higher and Deeper, PhD Comics). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5rVH1KGBCY (Background and issues of paywalls explained in a video, duration: approx. 8 min; last accessed on 09.07.2025). — Schmeja, Stefan, TIB Hannover: Wie finde ich frei zugänglich Fachliteratur. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT7sFixPF0I. (in German; last accessed on 09.07.2025) — Background on the publication routes: https://www.openscience.uzh.ch/en/scholarly-publishing-andopen-access.html, (last accessed on 09.07.2025). — For more information on the versions and their characteristics: see the slides on ”Manuscript versions” in this teaching tool. All logos and symbols of organisations are protected by copyright. Unless otherwise noted, this slide set is licensed under a CC-BY-4.0 International license. Cite as: Regula Zwicky. 2025. Teaching Tool ”Open Science“: Paywall. University of Zurich.