Force11

Force11

Force11 is a scholarly community and grassroots organization that advocates for improved practices in scholarly communication, research data management, and open access. Founded in 2011, it brings together researchers, librarians, publishers, technologists, and funders to develop policy, tools, and community-driven standards. The community has engaged with initiatives across digital scholarship, metadata, and reproducibility involving universities, research funders, and professional societies.

History

Force11 emerged after a 2011 meeting that convened participants from Wellcome Trust, National Institutes of Health, European Commission, and attendees from institutions such as Harvard University, University of Oxford, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University College London. Early gatherings featured contributors affiliated with PLOS, Nature Publishing Group, Elsevier, and Wiley-Blackwell, and drew involvement from advocacy organizations like SPARC and Creative Commons. The initial agenda built on outcomes from conferences such as the OpenAIRE summits, the Research Data Alliance plenaries, and workshops at Association of Research Libraries meetings. Over the following decade, Force11 projects intersected with work by Crossref, DataCite, ORCID, and funder-led efforts from the Wellcome Trust and National Science Foundation.

Mission and Principles

Force11’s mission emphasizes the acceleration of scholarly communication through principles resonant with Open Access advocates, Scholarly Publishing reformers, and data stewardship proponents. Its guiding principles align with the ethos of Budapest Open Access Initiative, the Berlin Declaration, and declarations from organizations like SPARC Europe. The community endorses interoperability promoted by Crossref and DataCite, persistent identifiers such as ORCID and DOI, and reproducibility frameworks advanced by projects connected to Center for Open Science and the Reproducibility Project. Force11 places priority on transparent peer review practices discussed at forums like COPE and integrates policy perspectives from funders such as the European Research Council and Wellcome Trust.

Activities and Initiatives

Force11 has coordinated conferences, working groups, and community-driven outputs that intersect with initiatives by PLOS, Elsevier, Nature Research, and nonprofit platforms such as arXiv and bioRxiv. Notable outputs include recommendations on data citation which reference standards from DataCite and metadata practices used by Crossref; guidelines that complement identifier adoption promoted by ORCID and Handle System adopters; and competency frameworks that echo training models at EDUCAUSE and Jisc. Workshops and meetings have been co-located with events like the International Conference on Digital Libraries and have produced digital objects compatible with repositories such as Zenodo and Dryad. The community has also produced manifestos and resource documents paralleling initiatives from Project CRediT, the FAIR principles, and policy dialogues involving National Institutes of Health data sharing guidance.

Governance and Membership

Force11 operates as a community-governed association with working groups and steering entities involving representatives from universities like University of California, Berkeley, corporate entities including Elsevier and Springer Nature, and nonprofit organizations such as SPARC and Open Knowledge Foundation. Membership comprises scholars, librarians, publishers, funder representatives, and technologists from institutions such as MIT, Yale University, University of Toronto, and Max Planck Society. Governance decisions have been informed by stakeholder consultations similar to processes used by Research Data Alliance and advisory structures seen at the European Commission and the National Science Foundation. The group’s working groups have collaborated with infrastructure providers like Crossref, DataCite, and ORCID to operationalize outputs.

Impact and Criticism

Force11’s influence is visible in uptake of data citation practices by publishers such as PLOS and Springer Nature, integration of metadata standards used by Crossref and DataCite, and endorsement of identifier use promoted by ORCID. Its outputs have informed policy discussions at Wellcome Trust, European Commission, and national research agencies including National Institutes of Health and UK Research and Innovation. Criticisms have come from stakeholders concerned about coordination with large commercial publishers like Elsevier and potential alignment with proprietary platforms such as Clarivate products; some commentators from academic libraries (e.g., Association of Research Libraries affiliates) and advocacy groups like SPARC have urged clearer transparency on funding and vendor relationships. Others have debated the scope of community recommendations relative to initiatives like the FAIR principles and the work of the Research Data Alliance.

Category:Scholarly communication