Open Science, Philosophy and Peer Review

Open science is a term that is being used in the literature to designate a form of science based on open-source models or that utilizes principles of open access, open archiving and open publishing to promote scientific communication. Open science increasingly also refers to open governance and more democratized engagement and control of science by scientists and other users and stakeholders. Sometimes other terms are used to refer to the same or similar conceptions of science, such as wiki science or Science 2.0, which focus on ‘technologies of openness’ that promote not only more effective forms of scientific communication but also increasingly the deep sharing of large databases (linked data) and cloud computing. Openness is also an essential aspect of the ethics of science. Scientists, by virtue of their professional status and membership of scientific communities, are bound by expectations to openly share their work and to make public their methods and procedures as much as the data or results. Perhaps most importantly, scientists should be open to criticism and participate in the review of scientific work. David Resnik (1998, p. 58), in The ethics of science, emphasizes this aspect when he writes: ‘Science’s peer review depends on openness. Openness prevents science from becoming dogmatic, uncritical and biased’. The virtues of open science in so far as it draws on commons-based peer production is increasingly seen as a mode or system of production structured by large-scale collaboration, driven by motives other than profit. In this regard,