Open notebook science and liquid publications: elements to build up a new epistemic culture in the Open Science movement

Abstract

Reports results research project on the concept and practices of open notebook science, an innovation created in the context of the contemporary Open Science movement. Our theoretical framework adopts the notion of epistemic culture and the “three technologies” perspective of Shapin and Shaffer while our empirical research enters the “open laboratory” through a documentary research. The research identifies that this innovation is not an incremental improvement, but a new “literary technology” that fosters a new way of producing and communicating science. It dialogues with the liquid publications notion and it is a strategic element of a complex, open collaborative ecosystem that aims to move from a “science based on trust” to a science based on transparency and data provenance. Embedded within new material and social technologies, it fosters a epistemic culture that we name matter of proof because it values, above all, the ability of scientists to adequately document the experiments that subsidize their claims.