All is (not) FAIR in FOSS and Scientific Research
The FAIR principles of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reproducibility are often (aptly) said to make up the four foundational pillars behind the Open Science movement that aims to make scientific research accessible to everyone. Traditional scientific practices like closed data, proprietary software, or paywalled research that limit accessibility hinder factors essential for scientific progress at large like collaboration, transparency and reproducibility, etc. FOSS plays a crucial role in overcoming these challenges and hence enabling open-science by providing free, transparent, and community-driven tools.
In this talk, I’ll go over what the Open Science movement is, it's key principles and I'll explore how FOSS empowers it. I examples from FOSS projects and initiatives relevant in the Indian context as well as International. I'll go over some case studies which can interest and help drive the point for a general audience and then discuss how researchers and developers can contribute to this ecosystem.
This talk will also cover the challenges open-science faces like sustainability, adoption barriers, and ensuring scientific rigor in community-driven projects. I then plan to cover efforts being undertaken to help address them including various initiatives (with both long-term as well as short-term / more recent developments). I will also mention how open-science principles align with broader trends in public/tech policy like open-data initiatives or the growing demand for transparent AI/ML models given the complex implications they may have in topics like AI sovereignty.
I'll also highlight ways to get involved and contribute to such initiatives, whether as a scientist looking to incorporate more open-source tools or research infra into their work or as a (much more personally relatable) developer interested in contributing to open-science projects in the Indian as well as International contexts.
What open-science is and why it matters for research accessibility and reproducibility.
How FOSS drives open-science via free, transparent, and collaborative tools and frameworks for community collaboration.
Awareness of challenges faced Open-Science & Open-Source and a state of the recent initiatives to address them.
Why the open-science movement needs both researchers and developers to thrive and how the two groups can get involved and contribute.
Akshit Tyagi
