Why interoperability matters for open research

Ten years ago, when we launched the open research publishing venue F1000Research, scholarly publishing approaches and practices to support open research were a universe away from where we are now. Today, many of the reservations we encountered have gone, and open and transparent ways to share and validate research are becoming much more commonplace: for example, the requirement for authors to share their data openly as part of the publishing process, and for peer reviewers to provide their reviews in full and transparently. 

In this guest blog on Scholarly Kitchen, Rebecca Lawrence, Managing Director of F1000, argues to enable open research to flourish and deliver its promise and bring efficiencies to (and impact from) our collective research system, it requires connections across all aspects of the system. She then goes on to ask, why have we not achieved more in delivering connectivity across the research system? 

Rebecca highlights why this connectivity matters to open research. By enabling researchers to publish, make discoverable, and connect a wide range of their research outputs and insights through the foundations of common descriptors and identifiers, scholarly publishers and other actors in the research system can make possible the shift to a more inclusive and holistic research system.   

Why does interoperability matter?

As the ability to share different types and formats of research expands, embedding standard research descriptors and identifiers around key research inputs and outputs is going to become increasingly crucial to fulfil the promise of open research and to ensure the discoverability and connections between pieces of research. 

Rebecca concludes by stressing the need to work collaboratively and in partnership to support those that are making the knowledge, to help them spend as much time as possible on actually conducting research, and to then maximize the impact of their work for the benefit of us all. 

To read the full blog on why interoperability matters, please go here. 

For more discussions and debates on the latest in research and publishing, visit  Open Thinking on F1000.   

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