Readiness towards the implementation of open science initiatives in the Malaysian comprehensive public universities

Abstract

This research explored the readiness towards implementing Open Science (OS) initiatives in Malaysian comprehensive public universities; OS stands for a transition to a new, open. A collaborative way of conducting, publishing, and evaluating research is a system in which scientists and researchers worldwide can come together and contribute to all research processes. It also allows for sharing many valuable scientific discoveries beneficial to different aspects of human life at the end of the methods. This practice and procedure are implemented through the readiness and willingness of the stakeholders in most places. However, findings still show that most of the stakeholders were even not fully participating in the system. To achieve the objectives of this research, four comprehensive universities among the public universities in Malaysia were chosen to examine the readiness of the academic researchers and the professional librarians in these universities towards Open Science initiatives. Mixed-method research was implemented, where a questionnaire and interview were used to gather information from the respondents. A total of 255 responses was received from both the academic researchers and the library professionals for the quantitative method. A total of 6 librarians were also interviewed for the qualitative approach to complement the first method. At the end of the research, a triangulation was done to aggregates the significant findings of the research. The results indicated that the comprehensive public universities in Malaysia were partially involved in OS, even though the term was still new to most participants and where most of them assumed that OS is another term for open access. The institutional repository was the commonly known way these universities have been involved in the OS practice. However, only 10% to 30% of their contents were also available to the general public, while some Institutions only provide abstract to the public. The Institutions also provide the specializations, metadata, and the personal contact details of their researchers on their website, for those who may want to work with them. However, these institutions are still working on providing a policy on operating and fully engaging another aspect of the OS practices. While some recommended factors identified by the stakeholders to fully implement the OS practices were the need for more enlightenment on the system, more modern digital facilities or infrastructure such as high-speed internet, and well-managed and secured servers.