Open Science (CA0035)

The Government of Canada will maximize access to federally-funded scientific research to encourage greater collaboration and engagement with the scientific community, the
private sector, and the public

Commitment 6. Open Science (✪)

Commitment Text:

The Government of Canada will maximize access to federally funded scientific research to encourage greater collaboration and engagement with the scientific community, the private sector, and the public.

The Government of Canada makes significant investments in scientific research. As a result, Canada has become a world leader in a number of important scientific research areas, and continues to support leading-edge research by some of the world's best scientific minds. Increasing public access to government-funded scientific research data and information has the potential to further drive innovation and discovery across the broader scientific community.

On 12 June, 2013, the Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, signed the G8 Science Ministers Statement on behalf of the Government of Canada to promote policies that increase access to the results of publicly funded research to spur scientific discovery, enable better international collaboration and coordination of research, enhance the engagement of society and help support economic prosperity. Accordingly, the Government of Canada will establish a government-wide approach to open science to increase access to federally funded scientific publications and data.

Deliverables to be completed in 2014-16:

• Develop and publish a government-wide Open Science Implementation Plan with specific activities and milestones, including the following:
  • Public consultations on the implementation of open science;
  • Launch of open access to publications and data resulting from federally funded scientific activities;
  • Development and adoption of policies, guidelines and tools to support effective stewardship of scientific data; and
  • Promotion of the adoption of open science standards in Canada.
     
• Establish an online service to enable a one-stop search for publications and data resulting from federal scientific activities.
• Develop inventories of federal scientific data and initiate the public release of data.
• Publish and maintain a consolidated online list of peer-reviewed articles by Government of Canada scientists dating back to 2012.

Responsible institution: Environment Canada, Industry Canada

Supporting institution(s): None

Start date: November 2014   End date: 30 June 2016

Editorial note: This is a starred commitment, because it is measurable, clearly relevant to OGP values as written, of transformative potential impact, and was substantially or completely implemented.

Commitment Aim:

The purpose of this commitment is to improve access to scientific information and data that is either developed by, or supported by, government.

STATUS

Mid-term: Limited

This commitment was behind schedule at the time the mid term progress report was written.  The open science implementation plan required clarification, which delayed its approval. This commitment is somewhat unique from the other commitments found in the action plan in that all milestones flow from the first - thus delayed approval of the open science implementation plan in turn delayed other milestones.

End of term: Substantial

The open science implementation plan received approval on September 24, 2015. However, milestone two was not completed: according to documents provided by the Canadian government to the IRM researcher, the existing open.canada.ca website is being used as the primary search mechanism.

The government developed four guidance documents toward the fulfillment of milestone three: ‘Release of data associated with publications’, ‘Conducting a data inventory,’ ‘Metadata for scientific data,’ and ‘Data Stewardship and Data Management Plans.’

The need for departments and agencies to adhere to the Open Government Directive, and to establish open government plans and inventories, helps to support the goal of this milestone. However, the inventories and subsequent public data release have not been fully completed.

As was noted in the mid term progress report, some departmental lists of citations have been released as open data on the open.canada.ca site.

Did it open government?

Access to information: Marginal

At this early stage for open science it can be said that the effect on openness are marginal at best, primarily because only some departmental citation lists have been published. This does not mean that the commitment does not have potential for more transformative change, but that this change has yet to be seen in part because of the limited completion of the commitment at the end of the second action plan cycle. It should be noted that the publication of the lists has resulted in significant inter-departmental collaboration which, although not necessarily visible to citizens, helps to pave the way for further future progress.

The one-stop publication search has not materialized in a manner that is apparent to users and the list of peer-reviewed articles is similarly melded with the functionality of the open.canada.ca site. There is no easily identifiable page on the site for accessing the information and data referenced under this commitment.

Civic participation: Did not change

Consultations related to open science were primarily internal to government. According to information provided to the IRM researcher, they took place in December of 2015 and early in 2016 to refine the direction taken to fulfill the commitment. Given that such consultations were internal to government, they brought together federal science-based departments and agencies together, which is significant in itself - but the process has not led to significant external public participation.

Carried forward?

This commitment was carried forward to the third action plan. It is reflected in Commitment 14, ‘Increase Openness of Federal Science Activities (Open Science)’. Milestones under this commitment include:

• Create a Chief Science Officer mandated to ensure that government science is fully available to the public, that scientists are able to speak freely about their work, and that scientific analyses are considered when the government makes decisions.
• Increase the public availability of data and publications produced from federal Science and Technology (S&T) activities.
• Increase engagement with Canadians on federal S&T activities.
• Develop metrics to track collective federal progress on open science activities.
• Develop and implement an open access policy for scientific research funded through grants and contributions.
• Work toward the development of policies on digital data management for research funded through the Granting Councils.  ^{Canada’s Third Biennial Plan to the Open Government Partnership 2016 – 2018, http://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/Canada_AP3.pdf}