Interoperability: A Fundamental Aspect of Open Science
Access to information in the form of research and data is essential for advancing knowledge and innovation. To maximise accessibility, information must be discoverable and usable, which usually depends on infrastructure such as search engines and repositories that rely on interoperability.
Interoperability is therefore a fundamental aspect of open science as it’s key to establishing a seamless environment for information to be accessed and reused.
In this article, we define interoperability and explore how it increases the visibility and useability of information.
What is interoperability?
Interoperability refers to the ability of different systems to work together, i.e., inter-operating, to transfer and use information in a uniform and efficient manner.
Search engines and repositories are highly visible examples, as they aggregate information from different sources into one system. For example, ensuring different datasets are interoperable would be necessary for unifying them into one searchable system. This is why the FAIR Guiding Principles for Data Management and Stewardship emphasise standardisation and machine-readability.
To build a searchable and unified dataset, the following is required so that the data can be integrated clearly and effectively:
- Standardisation.
- Robust and standardised metadata, which refers to data about the data.
- Persistent identifiers.
- Descriptions.
Interoperability can also apply to hardware, software, research articles, and more.
A household example is how users of a music streaming service may seamlessly switch from playing a digital music file stored online through a phone to a television without interruption. The software on the two systems are interoperable, enabling the user to seamlessly move between using them.
There are different levels of interoperability that determine how useful the information is:
- No data exchange.
- Unstructured data exchange.
- Structured data exchange.
- Seamless sharing of data.
- Seamless sharing of information.
Open science relies on connections across all aspects of the scholarly publishing system and is massively boosted by the seamless sharing of information.
In short, interoperability allows us to leverage computational power to aggregate, mine data, create new tools and services, and ultimately generate new knowledge.
How interoperability increases visibility
If systems are not interoperable, it can lead to the inconsistent presentation of results and data due to a lack of standardisation and duplication of efforts due to lack of visibility.
Alongside remedying these issues, the benefits are as follows:
- Improve the consistency of information in metadata, presentation, and format.
- Accelerate compliance with standards.
- Unexpected data use which can lead to innovation.
- Quicker access to data and more efficient research.
- Increase access through centralised platforms like repositories.
These benefits are particularly vital in interdisciplinary fields such as climate and health research, as these require data and findings from diverse sources. For example, the growth in volume of health, clinical, and biomedical data is accelerating every day. Creating the conditions for the effective exchange of information is essential to leveraging these data and therefore creating innovative research that can save lives.
With recent advances in technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), the potential of interoperable systems only grows, as a huge volume of data can be processed and analysed by AI tools, helping to cope with the increase in output that humans cannot keep up with.
MDPI: optimising research for discoverability
As a pioneer in Open Access publishing, MDPI’s core mission is to facilitate the dissemination of and increase access to relevant and impactful research.
MDPI journals are highly visible and widely accessible. They are indexed in leading databases, such as Scopus and Web of Science, which requires adherence to their rigorous standards.
All MDPI articles are published under a CC BY license and obtain a digital object identifier (DOI) to ensure permanent retrievability and the ability to cross-reference citations. DOIs are also applied to all MDPI Books and entries on Preprints.org.
Furthermore, MDPI.com is designed to be as clear and structured as possible for search engine crawlers, with search engine optimisation in mind.
By meeting the requirements for leading indexers and also optimising for visibility, MDPI ensures that accessing research through interoperable search engines like repositories is easy, therefore boosting visibility for authors and making the research process as smooth as possible.
Ensuring visibility and useability
Interoperability is a key aspect of open science through establishing a seamless environment for discoverable and reusable information.
MDPI is committed to ensuring its research results are accessible. It has more than 500 journals dedicated to providing the latest findings, many of which publish interdisciplinary research. If you are interested in submitting your work, see the full list of journals here.
Further, we are dedicated to giving you all the information you need to understand Open Access. Our article All You Need to Know About Open Access covers a range of topics.
