Open Science in Environmental Health Research

P-797 Introduction: We have been conducting environmental health science and epidemiologic research as part of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Superfund Basic Research Program for over a decade. It is our view that publicly supported scientific knowledge and tools produced by research programs like ours should be freely available and accessible. Here we present the methods we are using to implement our commitment to open science, including new web-based technologies and alternative approaches to licensing work that make the vision of shared research possible. Methods: Our program's web site employs novel web-based technologies to help accomplish the goal of making our scientific work open and accessible. The use of open source wiki software encourages communication and collaboration on research, both externally with the public and internally within a research group. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allows subscribers to automatically see the latest products of research, including new publications, events, and research tools freely accessible through a web site. Emerging permissionless licensing systems allow researchers to choose the terms under which they want to share their work; these include Creative Commons Licenses and General Public Licenses. As the products of research come in many forms, these tools can be used in different ways. Statistical techniques and computer code for modeling environmental exposures and health outcomes can be licensed through permissionless systems, written in open source languages and fully commented, and shared through a wiki. Laboratory methods and synthetic data created to test different techniques can also be shared, updated, modified by individual researchers or collaboratively, and discussed through wiki software. Published articles can be made accessible through Open Access on-line journals. Results: Our ultimate goal is to provide a compelling model for sharing scientific findings, analytical tools, data, and research methods developed by research programs. With the help of alternative licenses for scientific work and web-based technologies that promote information sharing and collaboration, we are making these research results freely available to anyone who can use them. We will share these methods with other researchers and with programs at other institutions, and will provide full detail on their implementation and the reasoning behind them. Conclusions: We hope these new technologies will enable research to be shared in a more open, accessible way, ensuring that it will be used widely and effectively for the general welfare.