Open Forest Science

The contents of this page are based on the seminar ”Open Forest Science” that was organised by the Finnish Society of Forest Science on 7 May 2018 in Helsinki

Forest scientists have not participated actively in the current discussion on the requirements and implications of open science. However, new requirements on openness concern the whole science community and forest scientists should take an active role in developing them. Special characteristics of forest sciences include multi-disciplinarity, long-term fieldwork and big data. In Finland, forest sciences have a special societal role because of the importance of forestry and forest industries in the national economy. Forests have a special global importance as drivers and/or mitigators of climate change. Thus, the Finnish Society of Forest Science organised a whole day seminar for discussing how we can apply open science principles for enhancing forest sciences from their own points of view and at the same avoid the associated risks. In the spirit of openness, we share the main contents of the seminar through this web page.

The morning plenary session

The plenary talks were recorded and they are available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bca4D5vZ3A. We also share the Powerpoint slides as pdf files. They may be used according to the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 lisence.

  • Introduction to open science, Science Adviser Jyrki Hakapää, Academy of Finland (Presentation as a pdf file)
  • Open Access publishing, Associate Professor Mikael Laakso, Hanken University (Presentation as a pdf file)
  • Transparent writing, Associate Editor Pekka Nygren, Finnish Society of Forest Science (Presentation as a pdf file)
  • Pros and cons of data sharing, Dr Pasi Kolari, University of Helsinki  (Presentation as a pdf file)
  • Panel on morning topics and common discussion (on video only)

Workshops

Each participant of the seminar attended two workshops. Below you find links to the workshop reports and, in some cases, to the introductory presentation by the moderator.

How do I open my data?
Moderator Pasi Kolari, University of Helsinki
Topics of interest: Data repositories, best time for opening data, meta data requirements

Workshop report
Useful reading: http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/media/2894/managingsharing.pdf
pp. 1-16 for this workshop, yet the document contains comprehensive information on data management useful in other workshops as well.

User perspective to open data
Moderator Professor Urmas Kõljalg, University of Tartu, Estonia
Topics of interest: Access to databases, use of deposited data, citations to the data, data quality, communication with the creator of the data

Moderator’s introduction
Workshop report
Useful reading: Wilkinson et al. 2016. The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Nature, https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.18

Value of long time series
Moderator Dr Anna-Lena Axelsson, Swedish University of Agricultural Science, Sweden
Topics of interest: Old and modern national forest inventory data, open data vs open statistics, fitting old and new data together, quality of old data

Moderator’s introduction
Workshop report
Useful reading: Jonas Fridman, Sören Holm, Mats Nilsson, Per Nilsson, Anna Hedström Ringvall, Göran Ståhl. (2014). Adapting National Forest Inventories to changing requirements – the case of the Swedish National Forest Inventory at the turn of the 20th century. Silva Fennica vol. 48 no. 3 article id 1095. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.1095

Opening of confidential data
Moderators Managing Director Heikki Pajuoja, Metsäteho Ltd., and Development Manager Arja Kuula-Luumi, Finnish Social Science Data Archive
Topics of interest: Protecting privacy, anonymisation, cooperation with private sector, trade secrets

Moderator’s introduction
Workshop report
Useful reading: http://www.fsd.uta.fi/aineistonhallinta/en/anonymisation-and-identifiers.html (the latest English translation, minor update for GDPR needed)
http://www.fsd.uta.fi/aineistonhallinta/fi/tunnisteellisuus-ja-anonymisointi.html (fully GDPR compliant but in Finnish only)

Putting open science into practice
Moderators Information Specialist Marja Kokko, University of Jyväskylä, and Information Specialist Markku Roinila, University of Helsinki
Topics of interest: Data management plan, funding for OA publishing, Creative Commons licences

Moderators’ introduction
Workshop report

Selecting an OA journal for my manuscript
Moderators Mikael Laakso and Pekka Nygren
Topics of interest: journal quality, good publisher practices, recognising questionable journals

Moderators’ introduction
Workshop report
Useful reading: Dobson, H., (2016). Think.Check.Submit.: the campaign helping researchers navigate the scholarly communication landscape. Insights. 29(3), pp.228–232. https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.323