Open Science and Research

Open science and research is a principle that covers both research and development activities, as well as learning and teaching. Its four main areas are 

1. operating culture (open scholarship),
2. open access to research publications,
3. open access to research data and methods; and
4. open education and educational resources as promoted by the research community.

The areas and their objectives are described in the Declaration for Open Science and Research (2020-2025). Each theme is promoted through the guidelines and concrete objectives collaboratively drawn up by the research community. They also guide the development of Jamk's operating practices and instructions.

Jamk is committed to the Declaration for Open Science and Research 2020-2025 prepared by the Finnish research community. To support this, Jamk has issued a president's decision (id 365250), which was last updated in spring 2022. It defines our principles, objectives and key operating methods to promote open science and research:

1. We promote the openness of our operating culture, the openness and wide utilisation of the outcomes of RDI activities, the opening of research data and methods, and the openness of education and educational resources.  We implement openness so that it is as open as possible and as closed as necessary. 
2. Our operating culture is based on reliability, data protection and data security, legislation and conventions, ethical and pedagogical guidelines and principles, and good scientific practice. 
3. An economically and ethically sustainable and responsibly open operating culture is part of the operating practices of each member of the Jamk university of applied science. We encourage and support our staff to adopt open operating methods.
4. We will make the findings of new information and the results of our research and development activities available to society and the working life as quickly and efficiently as possible. This is a part of Jamk's communications, RDI activities and educational task. We support our staff in utilising high-quality open access publishing channels and, as a rule, we self-archive all our scientific publications.
5. We promote the opening of the research data, research methods and outputs of staff research and development activities as well as student theses as openly as possible and as closed as necessary. RDI activities and teaching utilize Jamk's research infrastructures and they are also available to other actors.
6. We develop the data management competence of staff and students. The data management plan is part of the Bachelor's and Master's theses. In research and development projects, we require that a data management plan be drawn up if the project produces research data.  
7. With high-quality data management, we want to support the implementation of the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re-usable) for data, outcomes and outputs. We encourage the use of national and international services that comply with EU legislation and promote visibility in the national Research.fi service.
8. We actively participate in various networks (EduFutura, Digivisio) for the development of our mission as a university of applied sciences. We utilise and co-develop open educational resources suitable for formal learning and non-formal continuous learning.  
9. We promote open educational resources and teaching practices. The instruction is developed together with the students, teaching staff and working life. The student can make individual choices and we support this by recognising prior learning acquired both at the university and in other ways. We develop the active role of learners in the planning of their own learning.
10. Together with the staff, we develop the awareness of Jamk employees of open educational resources, and related copyrights and licenses. We encourage the opening of data related to the planning and organisation of education through Jamk's websites and in national data repositories.  Open educational resources should be distributed on high-quality publishing platforms with an editorial process, and guaranteed lifecycle and information security. 

• Open operating methods increase the quality, reliability, visibility, and societal impact of research, as well as promote cooperation and the creation of new innovations.
• The production of open data is also a merit for its author.
• Open science promotes decision-making based on research data.
• Open science increases the visibility, findability, and further use of expert information, and in various ways benefits researchers, project staff, and project, the Jamk University of Applied Sciences as a whole, companies and the development and economic activities of the society in general.
• Open learning lowers barriers to learning and increases its accessibility, for example through open learning materials and practices. Digitalisation also plays a key role in this.
• In recent years, the openness of written publications produced by Jamk staff has been over 85 % (Ministry of Education and Culture statistics).
• Jamk regularly monitors the development of openness. Publications, research data, research projects and infrastructures can be viewed at Research.fi.