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Erin McKiernan is a researcher in experimental and computational neuroscience. You can follow her on Twitter @emckiernan13

F1000Research is the first journal that goes beyond open access, by practicing both open data sharing and open peer review. Sharing information in an open manner leads to a better scholarly environment by, among other things, promoting collaborations and enabling further analyses through further scrutiny of data. Access to information however, is a problem in many parts of the world. A huge portion of academic literature is locked behind paywalls that many people cannot get past, due to prohibitive costs. This is what it looks like from the outside:

Paywalls restrict access to information. Credit: John R. McKiernan

Lack of access to information impedes learning, stifles innovation, and slows scientific progress. It should not be hard for researchers to see why making their work open is so important. But they simply do not do it. Why?  Many researchers have grown up, academically speaking, in environments that do not encourage them to share. They have been told – either implicitly through university evaluation and incentive systems, or explicitly by colleagues and mentors – that being open with their work is incompatible with being successful. We need to quash this idea and usher in a new era of open everything in academia – open access to the literature, open educational resources, open data, open science. And who better to usher in this new era than the next generation of researchers?

“From Nigeria to Norway, the next generation is beginning to take ownership of the system of scholarly communication which they will inherit” – Nick Shockey, founding Director of the Right to Research Coalition.

“To be successful, our community must put the next generation at the core of what we do to promote openness in research outputs,” – Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition).

This is the idea behind OpenCon 2014, the Student and Early Career Researcher Conference on Open Access, Open Education and Open Data. The conference will be held November 15-17, 2014 in Washington, D.C.

In preparation for OpenCon2014, F1000Research will be holding a tweetchat focusing on “Advocating for Open Science as an Early Career Researcher”, next Wednesday, August 6^th at 1PM EDT. Guests will include:

Erin McKiernan (@emckiernan13)

Joseph McArthur (@McArthur_Joe)

Michael D L Johnson (@blacksciblog)

Abigail Goben (@hedgielib)

Caleph Wilson (@HeyDrWilson)

These students and early-career researchers will discuss their experiences with open science advocacy, their concerns about publishing openly in terms of career advancement, and suggestions for institutional reforms that could support Early Career Researchers (ECRs) in being open with their research. We will also provide details about OpenCon 2014 and how ECRs can apply to attend. Use #F1000Talks to follow along.

Culture change is desperately needed in academia, especially with respect to attitudes on sharing research. OpenCon 2014 is aiming to help us accomplish this change so that one day, sharing will be the norm.