Last year in June UCL held the first Open Science Day, attended by over sixty people. This one day workshop provided an opportunity to ask for practical advice and to discuss different aspects of Open Science in a greater detail. Following its success, booking is now open for the second Open Science Day that takes place on Thursday 23rd May, at UCL Institute of Education (Logan Hall).

This one day workshop will explore the facets of Open Science and how these are, or could be, pursued by UCL researchers. In the morning speakers will discuss different aspects of and perspectives on Open Science. Afternoon workshops will offer practical advice on Software Carpentry, Citizen Science, GDPR and Open Education. There will also be opportunity to discuss the steps UCL should take to support Open Science.

Morning sessions include:

• Open Pharma – Prof. Matt Todd, UCL School of Pharmacy
• Research Evaluation and DORA – Prof. Steven Curry, Imperial College
• Reproducible Research Oxford – Dr. Laura Fortunato, University of Oxford
• Digital Science – Speaker TBC

The afternoon workshops will cover:

• Scholarly Communication: megajournals and measuring impact – The recently-launched UCL Press megajournal is an an example of how new models of publishing can be used to support open science. This workshop will outline the work done by the megajournal and some of the issues around measuring the impact of open publications, with contributions from members of the editorial board.
• Software Carpentry. Taster session – Software Carpentry is a project dedicated to teaching researchers basic computing skills such as like program design, version control, testing, and task automation. This is a short taster session to introduce the program and give an idea of what is available.
• Citizen Science discussion – Citizen Science is a fundamental element of many open science programs, and is part of a broader move to link research with wider society. Universities are having to develop new ways to support this work, with new processes and services.
• GDPR and opening data – One of the biggest issues surrounding making research data openly available is the protection of personal information. This workshop, delivered by the UK Data Archive, will discuss how the goal of openness can be balanced with the need for protection, particularly in the light of new and more stringent regulations.
• On the Trail of Open Education Policy Co-creation – This workshop looks at developing policies which can be used to support open education and open science, considering different issues and contexts, and the various interested parties.

And close with a discussion on building open science communities, with UCL researchers Isabelle Van Der Vegt, Dr. Sandy Schumann, Dr. Ben Thomas, and Dr. Vaughan Bell.

This free event is open to all and is delivered by UCL Library Services with support from UCL Organisational Development.

You can register via Eventbrite here.

For any questions please contact lib-researchsupport@ucl.ac.uk

On 25th of June UCL held the first UCL Open Science Day, a one-day workshop organised by UCL Library Services with support from UCL Organisational Development. Over sixty people attanded the workshop, and the day began with a welcome from Professor David Price, Vice-Provost (Research).

Morning sessions discussed different aspects of and perspectives on Open Science. Dr Paul Ayris, Director of UCL Library Services and Pro-Vice-Provost, started with an analysis of the LERU Roadmap for Open Science from the League of European Research Universities. After this introduction to Open Science Dr Catriona MacCallum, Director of Open Science, Hindawi, followed with a publisher’s perspective on the Open Science movement. Professor James Wilsdon from the University of Sheffield presented an overview of the responsible use of metrics in an Open Science environment.

After the break Simon Hetrrick from Software Sustainability Institute followed with a talk about the role of software in Open Science. Dr Emily Sena from the University of Edinburgh ended the session with a presentation on how Open Science can help in pre-clinical work.

In the afternoon attendees participated in one of the five breakout sessions:

• How do we make Open the default at UCL?
• How to make your data Open and FAIR
• UCL Press: engaging in Open Peer Review
• Open Education: Introducing OpenEd@UCL
• Citizen Science in research: UCL ExCites

These workshops gave an opportunity to ask for practical advice and to discuss different aspects of Open Science in a greater detail.

The day ended with a panel discussion – Dr Paul Ayris, Director of UCL Library Services and Pro-Vice-Provost, Professor David Bogle, Pro-Vice-Provost, UCL Doctoral School, and Clare Gryce, Director of Research IT Services, UCL ISD answered questions from the audience about the emerging role of Open Science at UCL. Following the panel, Rebecca Lawrence from F1000 delivered a final presentation on embedding Open Science in university culture.

Presentations from the sessions are now available in UCL Discovery, under the following links:

• Open Science and Universities: managing the change, Dr Paul Ayris
• Open Science – a publisher perspective, Dr Catriona MacCallum
• A turning tide? Responsible metrics for open science, professor James Wilsdon
• Translational failure in preclinical research; how open science can help, Dr Emily Sena
• Embedding open science in the university culture, Rebecca Lawrence

On 25^th June UCL is holding Open Science Day. The workshop will explore the facets of Open Science and how these are/could be pursued by UCL researchers. In the morning speakers will discuss different aspects of and perspectives on Open Science, and the afternoon workshops will offer practical advice.

Open Science, or Open Scholarship, is a movement that extends the principles of openness to the whole research cycle; it goes beyond making the primary outputs of publically funded research open access.

Open Science beehive, available from https://www.fosteropenscience.eu/content/what-open-science-introduction, under CC BY licence

Open Science includes various movements that aim at making every step in the research lifecycle open. It starts with Open Notebooks, an emerging practice of sharing the entire record of the research project. With Open Notebooks researchers share raw and processed data, failed and other experiments that otherwise would remain unpublished. Open Data focuses on the next step in the research cycle. The data related to a research project is managed to ensure that it is easily discoverable and accessible, and can be shared. You can find out about Research Data Management at UCL here.

Open Peer Review has many definitions. The most open approach would be to post the whole pre-publication history of the article online, with reviewers’ comments, authors’ responses and previous versions of the article. See Wellcome Open Research for an example of a platform that publishes research with open peer-review. Open Access is making research articles freely available online, preferably under a licence that allows re-use, so that they can be used and shared easily. Open Source involves sharing software including the source code, also in a fully accessible and discoverable way; the code and software can be freely disseminated and adapted.

In the movement, there is also space for Scientific social networks; researchers can share scientific knowledge not only by responsible use of social sites like ResearchGate.net and Academia.edu but also via platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn .

Part of the movement is involving general public in the process of scientific research via Citizen Science, where non-academic public can actively contribute to science. This can be a part of public engagement programme at an institution or crowdsourcing research activities, as in UCL’s project Transcribe Bentham or ExCiteS. Open educational resources is yet another step in making research openly available, and it involves making materials that are useful for both teaching and research purposes freely available and usable.

If you want to find out more about Open Science register for UCL Open Science Day via Eventbrite.