Embracing openness: an introduction to Open Science practices

Scope

The course “Embracing openness: an introduction to Open Science practices” is composed of five modules based on various teaching activities, including lectures, podcasts, guided discussions/debates, and exercises. PhD candidates and other early career researchers will finish the course with an Open Science plan for their own work.

Learning goals

At the end of the course, participants are able to:

1. Define Open Science and understand its relevance;
2. Describe different Open Science practices and principles.
3. Understand the difference between preregistration and registered
   reports, explain their benefits and limitations and create a
   preregistration.
4. Describe issues in the context of Open Reproducible Research and identify existing reproducibility tools.
5. Differentiate between traditional metrics and Open Science based approaches to evaluate researchers and research articles.
6. Apply open practices at different stages of the research cycle.

Contents

A key goal of science is to help society solve today’s wicked challenges. This requires require reliable, trustworthy, and high-quality research. Open Science (OS) strongly contributes to achieving these requirements since it aims to make research more verifiable, transparent, and reusable. However, OS is currently not the norm in academia due to cultural (e.g., lack of awareness) and technical (e.g., lack of skills) obstacles. Next to this, embracing open science practices helps both researchers and practitioners to become more future-proof by, for instance, increasing the visibility and impact of their work and getting started with some of the most in-demand job skills.
This course provides a conceptual and a practical overview of OS principles so that you can kickstart your path towards openness. In line with the Dutch and the EU’s OS policies, as well as the UNESCO Recommendation on OS, we will cover the following topics:

1. Introduction to OS, including key incentives and challenges,
   national (National Plan OS) and international (OS Communities)
   initiatives.
2. Preregistration and Registered Reports.
3. Open Data, its relevance and guiding principles.
4. Open Reproducible Research.
5. Rewards and Recognition in OS.

Program

Day 1 (morning): Introduction to Open Science
– Lecture and discussion
– Exercises & self-study
Day 2 (morning): Pre-registration and Registered Reports
– Lecture and discussion
– Exercises & self-study (incl. video lecture and podcast)
Day 3 (morning): Open Data
– Reporting exercise pre-registration and registered reports
– Moderated group discussion & invited speaker
– Exercises & self-study (incl. video lecture)
Day 4 (morning): Open Reproducible Research
– Moderated group discussion
– Exercise
Day 5 (morning): Rewards & Recognition
– Lecture, discussion & debate
– Self-study: final assignment

General information

Registration

Early bird registration deadline: 4 September 2023
Regular registration deadline: 18 September 2023

Course duration

4 days

Credit points

1.0 ECTS

Language

English

Fee

*PhD Participants from Wageningen University are eligible for a reduced fee: WUR PhD candidates pay €125, and your graduate school subsidises the other €125.

The fee does not include accommodation, breakfast or dinner. Accommodation is not included in the fee of the course, but there are several possibilities in Wageningen. For information on B&B’s and hotels in Wageningen please visit proefwageningen.nl/overnachten. Another option is Short Stay Wageningen. Furthermore, Airbnb offers several rooms in the area. Note that besides the restaurants in Wageningen, there are also options to have dinner at Wageningen Campus.

Cancellation conditions

• Up to 4 (four) weeks prior to the start of the course, cancellation is free of charge.
• Up to 2 (two) weeks prior to the start of the course, a fee of 150 € will be charged.
• In case of cancellation within ten or less days prior to the start of the course, or if you do not show at all, a total fee will be charged.

Note: If you would like to cancel your registration, ALWAYS inform us. By NOT paying the participation fee, your registration is NOT automatically cancelled (and do note that you will be kept to the cancellation conditions).

Also note that when there are not enough participants, we can cancel the course. We will inform you if this is the case a week after the early bird deadline. Please take this into account when arranging your trip to the course (I.e. check the re-imburstment policies).