Principles of Open Kitchen Science

These are the principles or guidelines for Open Kitchen Science. Open Kitchen Science has much in common with Open Notebook Science .As I learn more about Open Science, get comments on these principles and develop my ideas I might update them, in which case I will show the changes made and dates at the bottom of the post.

The general aim  is to increase scientific efficiency by sharing as much information as possible with other scientists and the general public.

• Every finding in Open Kitchen Science is made public. Even if there is no greater understanding of the mechanism yet or if the finding is a so-called ‘negative results’. Any unreviewed results will be accompanied by a disclaimer that no peer review has been applied yet. All results will be accompanied by a a comment section.
• Several standards of quality control are applied to ensure that experiments results are correct and reproducible. The gold standard of scientific quality is replication of results by an independent laboratory. This will ensure that all findings are robust and general. In Open Kitchen Science the aim is to replicate other people’s findings or get your own findings replicated. To this end, as much detail about methods, strains and protocols is shared.
• The silver standard of quality control is traditional peer review. Once greater insight is obtained in mechanism or otherwise conclusions can be drawn about experimental results an open peer review process will be organized. Alternatively, the manuscript could be submitted to traditional academic literature for peer review process but only with Open Access policy.
• Experimental setup is preferably published before the experiments are executed (as is common in larger clinical trials where RCT’s are preregistered).
• Any methods developed and used will be made public once they are tested and ready to use.
• Any other communication on this project, such as posters, slides and talks will be made public.
• The language used in Open Kitchen Science will be as simple as possible and will prevent the use of unnecessary jargon. The aim is that an informed, educated and interested member of the general public can follow ongoing experiments.
• This project will use a personal platform www.reblab.org to communicate the ongoing work, but will also provide updates on social media. The project will send out a newsletter to people in the field with updates on progress. In general, platforms are suitable for Open Kitchen Science when they are non-profit and do not require transfer of copyright or any other ownership.