Phil Bourne, the Dean of our School of Data Science at UVA, has published a fascinating entry on his blog reflecting on the importance of openness to the field of data science, and to the School in particular. In addition to its extensive reliance on massive, open datasets, Dr. Bourne explains that data science would benefit from more widespread open science publishing because, “In short, current closed access publishing models make it difficult or impossible for data scientists to mine that content.”

Given the importance of openness to the field, and to the school, Bourne explains that of course the school should take steps to promote and incorporate open science through its policies and curriculum. Check out the language on openness from the SDS’s proposed promotion and tenure policy:

Openness: Tenure in SDS requires a commitment to open scholarship. Evidence of that openness comes in the form of observed degree of collaboration, data and software availability, publishing in open access journals, the use of preprints, the presence of an ORCID and Google Scholar profile and other evidence.

The SDS presents a particularly clear and compelling example of the benefits of openness, but any school or department could do its own version of this analysis and find that embedding openness would yield real benefits for the school, its faculty and students, and for the field as a whole. Check out the full post, and consider whether and how this thinking might work in your own context.

Dean’s Blog: Data Science Must Further Incentivize Open Science – Phil Bourne