Universities and colleges are better at spreading concepts and innovations outside of their walls than they are at bringing about change within. Innovative research methods that integrate open science and information technology are one way to achieve the latter.
In higher education, what does innovation entail? I have posed this query to numerous presidents of associations and colleges/universities. The usual reply mentions prosperous startups, economic development initiatives, and entrepreneurship education. Yes, these are significant ways that innovation helps society. But how do institutions of higher learning innovate on their own?
Universities and colleges are much more adept at external innovation than internal innovation. By that, I mean that they are good at transferring ideas and inventions outside of the institution through student education or technology transfer, but less skilled at bringing about change internally.
I observed and supported a change in research practises during my fifteen years as the vice president of research at the University of Southern California (USC). USC investigated and experimented with how higher education institutions might develop a research culture that, when paired with information technology, could lead to innovation within the institution and have a greater impact on the outside. This work was done as part of the “Creativity and Collaboration in the Academy” initiative.
The Catalyst:
I watched All in the Family every week as a teenager growing up in the 1970s, along with what seemed like almost everyone else in the United States. The television show, which ran for nine seasons, spent five years at the top of the Nielsen ratings.
Tradition-keeping was not something All in the Family was known for. It challenged us to think about our own prejudices as we observed the dynamics of the Bunker family in Queens, New York, using humour as the medium. The programme highlighted societal changes and our struggles with the ideas of equality, justice, and respect through this lens.
Moving ahead approximately 35 years, to December 2010. Norman Lear, the creator of All in the Family, had attended a dinner discussion with USC faculty members and guests about evolving research practises and how they might impact entertainment. Network TV had already been damaged by cable TV and social media. The music industry had made the switch from physical media to digital content, which is much more difficult to monetize. More people are watching films at home than in theatres.
The group talked about how research might change and whether there was a threat to colleges and universities on the horizon as they considered these changes in entertainment. Would publications in online journals be considered more scholarly than those in print journals? Would USC lose control if someone used its research data? Should academics continue to produce materials that resemble journal articles, or should they envision something more dynamic and interesting? What are the implications of digital analytical tools for humanities research?
Our faculty had researched the creative industries and how technology was affecting them through the USC Norman Lear Centre. The fascinating study “Ready to Share,” written by Johanna Blakley, managing director at the Norman Lear Centre, showed how the fashion industry flourished in the absence of intellectual property protection. The dinner guests witnessed how combining creative concepts can result in new works, such as music produced through sampling, and how Creative Commons licencing has altered how credit can be given to individual contributors.
But are scientists “ready to share” as well?
Changing How Research Is Done:
Administrative systems, such as those used for purchasing, student registration, or patient records, typically come to mind when we think about modernising institutional processes in higher education with information technology. Technology is enabling new kinds of creativity and collaboration while also altering the fundamentals of scientific research. Let’s go back in time more than 500 years in order to fully understand the change.
Science is a process of evidence-based discovery whereby theories are developed and put to the test in scientific communities. However, it hasn’t always been like this. Prior to the discovery of the Americas in 1492, there “was no concept of discovery,” as David Wootton has noted.1 Instead, knowledge was derived, to the extent that it was derived at all, from the past and from presumptions rather than from careful experimentation. For instance, it took new theory and telescopic observation until the 16th and 17th centuries to disprove the geocentric model, which put Earth at the centre of the cosmos.
Five centuries ago, there was a scientific revolution that involved more than just new tools for data collection. It was a revolution in communication technology, particularly the printing press. Science was born as a system in which one scientist’s findings would inform and inspire the findings of others, who might then build evidence in support of fundamental theories or occasionally disprove such theories. This system was made possible by the invention of a method for storing and disseminating knowledge. These fundamental steps of science could not take place without a system for organising, disseminating, and preserving information.
Information technology is once again altering the scientific method and creating new forms of collaboration, much like the printing press did in the past. In addition to accelerating knowledge transfer and research, technology for finding, storing, and sharing data and information also makes it simpler to confirm the validity and accuracy of earlier studies. Although ideas and results could be shared through printed articles, journals, and books, the flow of discoveries among scientists through peer review and publication was slow. Even more slowly, if at all, flowed the research data.
Today’s substitute is “open science.” In open science, methods and designs are shared at the beginning of a study, data are added to shared repositories as they are produced and gathered, and draught papers are widely distributed. As a result, the lengthy and sequential nature of conventional research (see figure 1) is replaced by a parallel research system that moves more quickly and cooperatively (see figure 2). Research from one laboratory can be more easily validated by another when the underlying data, materials, equipment, and detailed experimental design are shared.
Figure 1: Sequential Analysis in the Past
Figure 2, Collaborative Parallel Research Figure 2
Current Research Issues:
Open science, a novel approach to research, necessitates cultural shifts among research sponsors, disciplines, and higher education institutions. In addition to investing in data repositories, federal sponsors (such as the National Institutes for Health) and foundations are raising the bar for data management and sharing. Discipline experts are reexamining how research contributions are evaluated, and institutions are promoting open science by working with departments and schools to coordinate the combined efforts of their research, library, and IT offices. Several national programmes are helping to develop the best practises for open science:
- The Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science and Board on Research Data and Information of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
- The Public Access to Research Data initiative of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) and the Association of American Universities (AAU)
- The Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House Open Science Programme
- Guidelines for data transparency in journal publication from the Centre for Open Science Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP)
Although open science (or, more broadly, open scholarship) is still being developed, it has already had an impact, as seen in the effort to halt COVID-19. The openness of science and the necessary cultural shift are also exposing problems in the college/university research enterprise.
Reproducibility.
Higher education research, as reported in 2015, is experiencing a “reproducibility crisis.” Earlier, in 2012, C. Glenn Begley and Lee M. Ellis came to the conclusion that only 6 (11%) of 53 “landmark” preclinical cancer studies had scientific findings that could be verified.” There have been concerns raised about the calibre of academic scientific research in other studies of reproducibility conducted by the Open Science Collaboration and John P. A. Ioannidis (the latter study’s provocative title is “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”).2 It is unknown if the standard has evolved over time. What is known is that open science’s transparency makes it simpler for others to verify research results and judge their validity, allowing assessment of reproducibility.
Conflicts of Interest.
Outside financial interests of faculty members have come to light, sometimes unmanaged and undisclosed. Cases in which US scientists received generous compensation from foreign institutions for holding dual positions or in which clinical investigators failed to disclose their financial ties to the businesses that supported their research and communication are especially troubling. The ease with which one can engage in conflicting activities is a result of the fluidity of data and research across institutions and organisations.
Pre-Prints.
To hasten the dissemination of findings, higher education researchers now regularly post early versions of their research papers on pre-print websites (e.g., arXiv, medRxiv, SSRN). Pre-prints are not subject to peer review, but they occasionally receive premature media attention. Notably, the journal’s traditional function as a vehicle for the dissemination and accumulation of knowledge has diminished because the research is so readily accessible and shareable.
Privacy.
Colleges and universities have faced challenges when it comes to respecting student privacy, which applies to both traditional Institutional Review Board (IRB)-regulated research and research based on sizable datasets gathered from social media, technology, and apps. Even when contributors’ data are ostensibly anonymized, investigators can still identify individuals by comparing datasets. Or information contributed by others in the same family tree could be used to identify a specific person. The “Golden State Killer” was discovered thanks to a match to related individuals who had contributed to a public dataset, not to a match to his own data.
Access.
Researchers, research sponsors, libraries, and the general public have pushed for open access to the data and publications produced by federally funded research, which have typically been copyright-protected by journals. Journals’ business models, which rely on subscription revenue to cover the costs of peer review, publication, and distribution, are being disrupted by provisions for freely sharing publications. Major library systems are pushing for free open access to the research conducted by their faculty, students, and staff in place of paying for traditional subscriptions.
These examples show that in order to shed light on both successes and issues and to inspire research of the highest integrity and rigour, higher education research requires openness. The examples also highlight the challenges that colleges and universities face as they try to update their research methodologies.
USC:
Looking back at the USC symposium “Creativity and Collaboration in the Academy,” we were able to recognise the importance of developing a comprehensive plan for technology-enabled scholarly endeavours across the board at the university (though it wasn’t yet called “open science”). However, we had to rethink the foundations of our academic work.
IT tools for data management, sharing, multimedia, analytics, and other purposes could undoubtedly enhance research. However, the university culture was incompatible with these novel tools. Policies and incentives were a holdover from a time when data and other research objects were immobile and difficult to share, when research was communicated on paper. They did not adhere to the innovative and cooperative methodology of open science supported by technology.
We carefully examined our promotion and tenure (P&T) process from a policy standpoint. The wording in our P&T manual at the time stressed “independence.” That is, a faculty member needed to succeed in an independent research programme in order to be considered for tenure. We modified that language to emphasise the importance of independent or group research contributions. Additionally, terminology was added to describe born-digital work and unconventional research outputs like multimedia, “interactive works that are impossible to publish in print form,” and digital repositories or databases. The USC Academic Senate adopted standards for the attribution of various research products as an addition to the P&T manual, realising the importance of crediting sources in order to comprehend contributions.
USC also adopted a policy on biorepositories to fulfil our duty to protect the privacy and rights of human subjects who donate samples and data to research studies. The university’s office of research took on the problem of “Rigour, Transparency, and Reproducibility,” providing the research community with tools and training. The university also created instructions and training materials for data sharing and management.
Resourcefulness is crucial. In order to assist groups of faculty members creating innovative research communities, we established a “collaboration fund” and a “core instrumentation fund” after the symposium. To assemble “4-C” resources—communication, collaboration, creation, and cataloguing—we created an online portal at https://digital.usc.edu. Additionally, we created and put into place the TARA (Total Access for Research Administration) system as an integrated system for the entire university, going entirely digital for tasks like proposal submission, ethics review, managing intellectual property, and managing core labs.
USC benefited from the work done at its Information Sciences Institute on scientific workflows, which resulted in numerous national repositories created specifically for scientific communities (ranging from earthquakes to facial imaging), as well as faculty recruitment efforts targeted at faculty leading collaborative research communities (e.g., neural imaging and clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease). USC has received excellent support from federal organisations as a result of this concerted effort, which aims to provide resources for scientific communities rather than individuals. In 2010, for example, USC was given the Clinical and Translational Science Award by the National Institutes of Health.
Achieving Change:
Information technology has the incredible ability to transform the way research is conducted, moving away from the paper-based sequential process of the past and towards a process that is quicker, more inventive, and more collaborative. But making the change doesn’t just involve investing in new technology. The shift necessitates a strategic reimagining of the research culture, supported by resources and policies, and motivated by a desire to innovate. However, there are difficulties:
- The creators must continually work on sharing data, which takes them away from their main task of experimentation.
- By sharing data, others may be able to “scoop” the creators and take credit for their labour of love.
- The costs of publication are passed on to the researcher by open-access publications.
- Governments and businesses may plagiarise one another’s best concepts in an effort to advance commercially or gain a military advantage.
- Agency demands for data management are unfunded compliance mandates that do not advance research.
These criticisms are valid, but they primarily highlight the inability of cultures and organisations to change to new collaborative research techniques that ultimately advance science.
The offices that support research, particularly the research office, the library, and the IT organisation, must work together to implement change. The research office needs to reevaluate research methods, the characteristics of research outputs, the methods for honouring and rewarding contributions, and the security of intellectual property. New types of research products need to be supported by the library in terms of curation, preservation, and access. The IT department must create new tools for administration, storage, computation, privacy protection, and administration in order to support the creative aspects of research.
The IT department should also be aware that research data should be shared (with some privacy exceptions), as stated in Harvard University’s Information Security Policy: “Harvard is equally committed to preserving an environment that encourages academic and research collaboration through the responsible use of information technology resources.”
Also influencing change are the sponsors of research. The National Institutes of Health expanded the requirements for open-science data-sharing plans on October 29, 2020, and held grant recipients accountable for carrying out their plans during the grant-review process. The new regulations, which go into effect in January 2023, require higher education institutions to start preparing immediately.
Conclusions.
Colleges and universities’ core missions revolve around research and scholarship. Information technology has the power to change these practises, but doing so requires a shift in culture and a rethinking of how faculty and staff in higher education collaborate and provide services.
Additionally, change is required due to competition in higher education that is not for profit. Private businesses are vying for market share in the academic sector. Colleges and universities have thrived by providing a variety of campus activities (such as athletic competitions, cultural events, housing, and hospitals, in addition to research and education), but leaders will need to put in more effort to maintain this “multiversity.” Higher education’s cross-subsidies leave institutions vulnerable in fields that produce surpluses and where new technologies can provide better services at lower prices.
It’s time for IT innovation within the organisation. Similar to All in the Family, higher education must buck convention. Having a ready?
