Many are familiar with the concept of open source in software development, but what is open science?

The emerging practice of open science seeks to make tools and data available to researchers worldwide so that scientific advances can be made faster and more cost effectively.

Contrast this with the traditional model of academic research, where labs often work in silos, rarely make the raw data and analysis code publicly available, and publish in journals that require payment to access content. This lack of transparency, in conjunction with the increasing complexity of data processing techniques, leads to reproducibility problems. Therefore, this “closed” model of doing science is beginning to shift towards a more open approach to research, where the data, code and results are all publicly viewable from the beginning of the project using platforms like GitHub and FigShare.

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