Open Science Policy
National Aerospace University
«Kharkiv Aviation Institute»
Approved by:
Academic Council of the
National Aerospace University
«Kharkiv Aviation Institute»
Protocol No. 2 dated September 18, 2024
Date of introduction: September 19, 2024
Edition No. 1
One of the priorities for the development of science and higher education in Ukraine is integration into the European Research Area, as stated in the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union. An important condition for integration is the implementation of open science principles. At the state level, corresponding systemic steps have already been taken and certain measures have been implemented, in particular: the roadmap for the integration of Ukraine's scientific and innovation system into the European Research Area was approved (Order of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine No. 167 dated February 10, 2021), and the list of tasks and measures for the implementation of open science was approved by the Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 892-r dated October 8, 2022, «On Approval of the National Plan for Open Science».
National Aerospace University «Kharkiv Aviation Institute» (hereinafter referred to as the University, KhAI) is one of the leading universities in Ukraine, recognized in the global scientific and educational space. In its educational and scientific activities, the University focuses on the best international practices, experience, and recommendations, which allows it to develop in all areas.
The University strives to establish open science as a norm of educational, scientific, and technical activity. The University creates the necessary conditions to integrate values and practices into all working processes of the University.
The purpose of the «Open Science Policy of the National Aerospace University «Kharkiv Aviation Institute»» (hereinafter referred to as the Policy) is to ensure the possibility of open knowledge sharing and reuse of research results, as well as the integration of the University into the European research and educational space. The Policy is based on the norms and provisions mentioned above, focuses on the relevant policies and practices of international institutions, in particular UNESCO and the European Commission, as well as on the experience of open science development in foreign and domestic higher education institutions, scientific and research institutions.
1. General Provisions
1.1. The Policy defines the principles for implementing open science practices in the educational and scientific activities of the University.
1.2. The implementation of open science principles at the University is a multi-level process that is possible under the condition of implementing both institutional and infrastructural mechanisms involving a wide range of highly qualified specialists in various fields of activity, whose joint work is aimed at developing a favorable environment to support researchers in using open research practices.
1.3. The Policy does not contradict international practice, current legislation, national and intra-university regulatory frameworks.
1.4. The Policy is implemented based on the principles of academic integrity, non-disclosure of confidential information, equal opportunities, and respect for diversity.
1.5. The Policy applies to all participants of the educational and scientific process at KhAI.
1.6. The Policy is posted on the University's website in the Regulatory Documents of KhAI section.
2. Main Terms, Definitions, Designations, Abbreviations, and Acronyms
Author — a physical person who has created a work through their creative labor.
Copyright — personal non-property and property rights of authors and their legal successors related to the creation and use of works of science, literature, and art, which provide permission or prohibition for their use and differ from trademark rights.
Academic Text — an author's work of a scientific, scientific-technical, and educational nature in the form of a dissertation, qualification graduation work, scientific publication, scientific article, report in the field of scientific and scientific-technical activity, deposited scientific work, textbook, study guide, other scientific and educational-methodological works;
Altmetrics — novel methods of tracking and determining indicators of the use of research activity results based on the analysis of social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wiki resources, and others), the number of document downloads, citations of published and unpublished research, and other ways of using scientific results to provide more comprehensive impact metrics.
Open Science — a set of principles and practices aimed at ensuring access to research infrastructure objects, scientific results, and scientific-technical information with the possibility of their reuse, sharing, and distribution using information and communication technologies in order to accelerate scientific-technical and societal development, deepen cooperation among scientists, etc.
Open Access — a set of practices used to organize unhindered and prompt access to scientific results and scientific-technical information using information and communication technologies.
Open Research Data — freely accessible data on the Internet with the ability for any user to download, copy, analyze, reprocess, or use for any other purposes without financial, legal, or technical barriers.
Open Educational Resources — didactic, educational, and research materials in any media (digital or other) that are in the public domain or issued under an open access license, which grants third parties permission for free access, use, adaptation, and distribution of the material without restrictions or with minor restrictions.
Open Peer Review — an umbrella term for a set of mechanisms adapting various types of peer review to the goals of open science. It provides for: absence of anonymity, open publication of reviews, the ability for any member of the scientific community to review academic texts, open discussion of academic texts and commenting on the final version of the manuscript, and the possibility of independent peer review (by another organization rather than the journal editorial office) of academic texts.
Restricted Access Information — confidential, secret, and proprietary information.
Research Data — data and/or metadata collected and/or obtained in the process of fundamental or applied scientific research, which, in particular, are used to substantiate this research and the obtained scientific results.
University Institutional Repository — an open electronic archive of the University that accumulates, stores, distributes, and provides long-term, permanent, and reliable access via the Internet to materials of scientific, educational, and methodological purposes created by employees of any structural subdivision, as well as doctoral students, postgraduates, and students of the University.
Open Science Infrastructure — virtual and/or physical general-use research infrastructure (including scientific equipment and tools; information resources such as open access journals and archives, data platforms; modern research information systems; open bibliometric and scientometric systems used for evaluating and analyzing various fields of science; open infrastructure for computing and data processing, etc.) necessary to support open science and meet the scientific and research needs of the academic community.
Open Access License — a permission from the copyright holder for other persons to use their work or research data under certain conditions.
The most common open access license is Creative Commons (hereinafter referred to as CC). CC allows the author or creator of data to set conditions for the reuse or distribution of the work or research data by other persons. CC may include the following conditions:
CC BY — allows distributing and using the work or research data with mandatory attribution to the author or creator of the data;
CC BY-SA — allows distributing or modifying the original work or research data under the terms of the original license;
CC BY-NC — allows redistributing and using the work or research data for non-commercial purposes;
CC BY-ND — allows distributing and using the work or research data without any modifications.
Metadata ("data about data") — a detailed description of the attributes (characteristics) of a document(s) / data file(s).
Scientific Result — new scientific knowledge obtained in the process of fundamental or applied scientific research and recorded on information carriers. A scientific result may be in the form of a report, published scientific article, scientific report, scientific notification on research work, monograph study, scientific discovery, draft regulatory legal act, normative document, or scientific-methodological documents, the preparation of which requires relevant scientific research or contains a scientific component, etc.
Scientific Peer Review — a process by which a manuscript containing the results of scientific research is evaluated by independent researchers who have appropriate qualifications and are able to assess the novelty, validity, and significance of the presented results.
Data Management Plan — a document that details the data that will be obtained or created during the implementation of scientific research; methods of data management, analysis, processing, protection, and preservation during and after the completion of the project.
Reference / Citation — a collection of bibliographic information about another work or dataset cited in a work or dataset.
Right of Access to Research Data — permission or prohibition to exercise a certain type of access to research data, namely:
- open access data — data freely accessible via direct download from a public web resource.
- restricted access data — access to research data is possible upon request or after a certain period of time.
Intellectual Property Right — a person's right to the result of intellectual, creative activity or to another object of intellectual property rights.
Preprint — a version of a scientific manuscript posted in open access before formal peer review and publication, aimed at providing the scientific community with rapid access to the results of relevant research, receiving suggestions, comments, etc.
Principles of Sound Research Data Management (FAIR principles) — principles that ensure research data are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
Data Repositories / Research Data Repositories — electronic platforms that accumulate, systematize, and store research data and their metadata; they ensure accessibility, reuse, and citation capabilities for the data.
Work — the result of intellectual, analytical-synthetic, or heuristic activity of an individual or a group of individuals, presented in a form that allows its dissemination, retrieval, storage, processing, and reproduction for use by various means, methods, ways, and technologies.
Data Creator — a physical person who has obtained data as a result of scientific research.
Research Data Management — a set of tools, methods, and architectures for fast, secure, and cost-effective collection, access, maintenance, and enhancement of data value.
Citation — the use of fragments of other previously published works or research datasets in one's own work or research dataset with mandatory reference (mention) to their authors or data creators and the citation source.
Digital Object Identifier / DOI — a unique string of text symbols, a type of persistent identifier (PID) used to identify digital objects such as published journal articles, datasets, or open-source software releases.
3. Main Values and Principles of Open Science According to UNESCO Recommendations
3.1. Open Science Values:
Quality and Integrity — open science should respect academic freedom and human rights, and ensure high-quality research by uniting multiple sources of knowledge and making research methods and results widely available for rigorous analysis and verification using transparent evaluation processes.
Benefit for Society — as a global public good, open science should belong to and benefit all humanity. To this end, scientific knowledge should be in open access, and its benefits should be part of the public domain. Scientific practice should be inclusive, sustainable, and equitable, including regarding opportunities for scientific education and capacity building.
Equality and Fairness — open science should play an important role in ensuring equality between researchers from developed and developing countries, ensuring fair and reciprocal exchange of scientific achievements and results, and equal access to scientific knowledge for both producers and consumers of knowledge, regardless of location, nationality, race, age, gender, income, socio-economic standing, career level, language, religion, disability, ethnicity, migratory status, etc.
Diversity and Inclusiveness — open science should embrace diversity of knowledge, methods and working procedures, languages, research results, and topics that meet the needs and epistemic pluralism of the scientific community as a whole, various research groups and scientists, a wide range of the public and knowledge holders located outside the traditional scientific community, including indigenous peoples and local communities, as well as social actors from different countries and regions.
3.2. Open Science Principles:
Transparency, Control, Critical Analysis, and Reproducibility of Results — openness should be encouraged at all stages of scientific activity in order to enhance the reliability and accuracy of scientific results, as well as the impact of science on society and society's ability as a whole to solve complex interrelated problems. A higher degree of openness leads to increased transparency and trust in scientific information and strengthens the fundamental foundations of science as a distinct form of knowledge based on facts verified through comparison with reality, logical analysis, and peer review.
Equal Opportunities — all scientists and other stakeholders of open science, regardless of their location, nationality, race, age, gender, income level, socio-economic status, career stage, language, religion, disability, ethnicity, migratory status, etc., have equal opportunities in terms of access to open science, participation in it, and the use of its results.
Responsibility, Respect, and Accountability — openness leads to increased responsibility for all participants in open science, which, along with public accountability, identification of conflicts of interest, vigilance regarding possible social and environmental consequences of research activity, intellectual integrity, and respect for ethical principles and consequences related to research, should become the basis for effective open science management.
Collaboration, Participation, and Inclusiveness — collaboration at all levels of the scientific process beyond geographical, linguistic, generational, and resource barriers should become the norm; interdisciplinary cooperation should be promoted alongside comprehensive and effective participation of public representatives and the use of knowledge from marginalized communities to solve socially significant problems.
Flexibility — due to the existing diversity of scientific systems, actors, and resources in the world, as well as through the dynamic development of information and communication technologies, there are no universal approaches to using open science tools. Various trajectories of movement towards open science and forms of its implementation should be encouraged while adhering to the principles and values of open science.
Sustainability — for open science to be as effective and efficient as possible, it must rely on long-term sustainable working methods, services, infrastructure, and funding models that allow ensuring the equitable participation of scientists from less developed institutions and countries. Open science infrastructure facilities should function and be funded mainly on a non-profit basis, relying on a long-term concept of improving open science methodology that maximizes continuous and unrestricted access for all interested parties.
4. Implementation of Open Science Principles in the Educational Activities of the University
4.1. The University purposefully ensures accessibility of learning for all participants in the educational process, including vulnerable population groups and persons with special educational needs.
4.2. To ensure high-quality learning, the University provides higher education students with open access to all its own educational resources and educational-methodological materials published by the KhAI Publishing House in the KhAI Electronic Library and in the NMZD module, where the "Complexes of Educational and Methodological Support of Disciplines" are stored (https://library.khai.edu/).
4.3. The publication of higher education students' qualification works in open access is mandatory in the University's institutional repository. Exceptions are works containing restricted access information; the publication of such works in open access is carried out in accordance with current legislation.
4.4. For the purpose of accumulation, systematization, storage, and long-term open access to electronic versions of educational-methodological materials, scientific works, qualification works, etc., the maintenance of the Institutional Digital Repository of National Aerospace University KHAI is organized and implemented at the University.
5. Implementation of Open Science Principles in the Scientific Activities of the University
5.1. The University promotes scientific research by providing open access to its own research infrastructure to domestic and foreign scientists.
5.2. The University recommends researchers to draw up data management plans at the initial stage of research, which provide for how data will be processed in accordance with FAIR principles.
5.3. The publication in open access of reports on the results of research and development works (scientific-technical developments) and grants funded by the state (hereinafter referred to as R&D), as well as dissertation works, is mandatory (under an author's agreement) in the University's repository (Institutional Digital Repository of National Aerospace University KHAI). Exceptions are works containing restricted access information; the publication of such works in open access is carried out in accordance with current legislation.
5.4. Work with research data and materials:
5.4.1. The University strives in its activities to adhere to FAIR principles regarding R&D research data.
5.4.2. All persons involved in R&D are responsible for the accuracy of the research data they obtained, collected, developed, or implemented.
5.4.3. Before starting R&D execution, the project manager, as well as scientists involved in R&D execution, shall develop a data management plan.
5.4.4. All participants in scientific collaboration must be informed in advance about all permitted and prohibited forms of dissemination of joint research data and their scientific results.
5.4.5. Research data must be published in such a way that they can be used as widely as possible, both by specialists in the same or related fields of knowledge and by information retrieval or analytical systems.
5.4.6. In order to ensure reproducibility, reliability, and accuracy of research data, all materials must be:
- properly documented from the beginning of the project in accordance with general data documentation standards or specifications of funding organizations;
- available in the data repository under a CC BY license, unless this contradicts confidentiality, personal data protection, intellectual property, etc.;
- in case access to research data is restricted, their metadata with a detailed description of the terms of access to research data must be available in the data repository.
- ensuring their proper storage for a specified period of time (10 years is recommended) if they cannot be distributed in open access.
5.5 Publication of Scientific Results.
5.5.1 University scientists are recommended to publish R&D results in accordance with open access principles as much as possible.
5.5.2 Published scientific results must contain information about the source of funding for the study and any conflict of interest.
5.5.3 It is advisable to publish research results of failed experiments and projects, provided that this is of scientific interest or prevents waste of resources through repeated research.
5.5.4 All scientific publications of university scientists must contain a statement (information) about the availability of research data.
5.6 All scientific journals of the university support the policy of open peer review of publications, open access, and are published using CC BY licenses.
5.7 The university, if necessary, ensures the acquisition of intellectual property rights to scientific results and their licensing. Free access to scientific results that require intellectual property rights protection is carried out after obtaining protective documents.
6. Implementation of Open Science Principles at the University Involves:
- developing a regulatory framework for creating favorable conditions for the implementation of open science principles at the university;
- the availability of appropriate infrastructure, which includes: a repository of academic texts;
- systems for collecting and analyzing metadata of scientific results (National Electronic Scientific Information System "URIS" (University Research Information System));
- a cloud storage for long-term storage of scientific data;
- access to research infrastructure;
- the use of the Open Journal Systems platform by the university's scientific journals;
- popularization of open science principles among participants of the educational and scientific process;
- professional development and support for researchers (training / workshops / consulting) on open practices in educational and scientific activities;
- development and implementation of mechanisms for evaluating the effectiveness of educational and scientific activities of structural subdivisions under the conditions of implementing open science principles at the university.
7. Concluding Provisions
7.1 The University undertakes to plan and carry out planned activities aimed at fulfilling the declared provisions.
7.2 The Open Science Policy of the National Aerospace University "Kharkiv Aviation Institute" must be brought to the attention of all university employees and taken into account by them in their ongoing activities.
7.3 By decision of the Academic Council, appropriate adjustments may be made to the Open Science Policy of the National Aerospace University "Kharkiv Aviation Institute" as needed.