Contents:
- Introduction
- Course content
- Learning goals and outcomes
- Course format
- Course duration
- Using the course as part of a PhD study program
- Grading and recognition
- Reusing or remixing this material
This course was set up for new students in the EU-funded Innovation Training Network, "Lidar Knowledge Europe" (ITN-LIKE) that started in 2020. ITN LIKE brings together 15 PhD students across Europe. These students are based at companies and universities, and all have different requirements to complete their PhDs. Because of this, we have tried to set up a course that can be delivered completely online, and independent of any one university.
The course provides students with a foundation in the philosophy and practice of open science. It's based on discussion seminars, self-study exercises, and assignments that help students try out open science.
- Find out more about the goals of the course.
- Find out more about the course format.
- Find out more about the course content.
Some students may want to use the course as part of their studies.
- The basic course includes roughly 60 hours of material. This may be enough for 2 ECTS points.
- The extended course includes 90 hours of material. This may be enough for 3 ECTS points.
Suggestions for grading are given here.
The course is designed for use as part of a STEM PhD study program but could be adapted for different groups. The course may be a good introduction before going into more detail, for example the 1-2 hour courses available through the FOSTER portal.
And, because the course is about open science, we wanted to make the course materials open as well. We have given the material a license that allows reuse or remixing.
Can't find what you are looking for? Try the FAQ.
The course covers the following themes:
- defining open science,
- making data open,
- licensing and cooperation,
- communicating science, and
- data management plans.
This course is intended to give students a working knowledge of open science concepts and tools.
- To educate students about modern approaches to open science data management
- To enable and motivate students to implement these approaches in their projects
- Students are able to recognize “open” and “closed” science and communicate the advantages of open science.
- Students can identify the main steps in the FOSTER diagram and relate them to their own activities.
- Students are able to publish interconnected data objects, boosting their visibility and impact to the scientific community.
- Students are able to list the main tools for Open Science that enable them to achieve the FAIR and R5 goals. (e.g. F - DOIs, A - GitHub, I - modular software, R1 - ..., etc.).
- Students create a data management plan for their PhD projects.
See the course outline for an overview of the seminars, self-study, and assignments in this course.
The course uses seminars to introduce the open science concepts (e.g., here). These seminars are designed as an online interactive discussion for up to 10 students and one leader.
Seminars will include a quick recap of previous material. This could be adapted into a flash test or clicker test.
After the seminars we expect students to spend at least an hour on related reading and self-directed research. This reading is described in each seminar.
Each seminar is followed by self-study sessions. These are described in detail elsewhere (e.g., here). The self-study sessions allow students to try out concepts introduced in seminars on something that is directly related to their own work.
The course includes two assignments that require the students to use what they have learned in a real-world situation. The assignments build on the seminars and self-study sessions:
The course finishes with a workshop where students share their case studies and provide each other with feedback.
The course is structured so that students can choose between 60 hours and 90 hours commitment. This recognises that the lack of university affiliation may make it difficult for students to be rewarded for their participation in the course and so they may wish to limit their effort.
- The basic course is around 60 hours (see the course outline).
- The extended course adds 30 hours to the basic course (see the course outline).
The taught material is the same in the basic course and extended course.
The basic course achieves all of the learning goals and outcomes identified above. It includes 60 hours of study in
- 5 seminars,
- 6 self-study tasks,
- 2 assignments, and
- 1 workshop,
as described in the the course outline.
The extended course adds around 30 hours to the basic course. This gives a 90-hour course, which might be used to get 3 ECTS points in some circumstances.
In the extended course a student can choose to develop a portfolio of work. This is identified in each self study under the heading, "For extra credit". Many students may have already been developing a portfolio anyway through other courses, and so the content they develop here can be added to that.
The portfolio can be developed on any platform that the student likes. We anticipate anything from Twitter to YouTube, Instagram, or LinkedIn. The important thing is that the students apply what they have learned during the course to that portfolio.
The choice of platform(s) should be driven by the communications strategy that students develop in self-study 4.
The course material assumes that the students have already had some experience in self-directed research. Because of this, it is probably unsuitable for use at the Master's level.
The course is designed to help doctoral students adopt open science in their activities, so is best used before students get too far in to their studies. The course is probably therefore best in the first 6-12 months of a doctoral study program.
We suggest the following approach to grading
Either a Pass or a fail grade will be awarded.
- Participation in at least 2 of the seminars in the list above
- Submission of the two assignments N.B. these submissions must also reach the passing criteria for the assignments
- Participation in the workshop
As for the basic course, and:
- Commitment to take part in the extended course by the end of the week of the second seminar.
- Sharing a publicly-accessible link to the student portfolio described under for extra credit in the self-study sessions.
The course is not affiliated with a university directly and therefore students will not receive direct credit for this course. It is offered as continuing education.
Participants passing the course will receive
- A letter confirming their participation in the course and
- A copy of the course outline.
It is the student's responsibility to determine if:
- This course can be used towards degree requirements and
- How many ECTS points they obtain.
Note: You can increase the number of study hours by completing the for extra credit activities identified in the self-study exercises. This is the extended course.
You are welcome to reuse or remix the material in this repository under the terms of the license(s) applied to that material.
- The GitHub repository including e.g.
README.mdfiles is licensed under the MIT license (see the license file for details). - Presentations for each seminar may be separately licensed by their contributors. Please check those documents for license terms. Note that the license for the presentations should be considered to extend to the source material for compiled documents (i.e. LaTeX source code is covered under the license for the PDF). Please also contact the author(s) directly to discuss reuse of their materials.
If you would like to check if you can use the materials, please raise an issue.
Some of the materials in this repository have been created using the LaTeX beamer package. This was used because beamer-based presentations can be adapted and reused quite easily by changing the underlying theme.
- Some basic information about beamer is given on overleaf.
- Contact your Communications or IT groups to ask about beamer templates that meet your corporate identity guidelines.
The course is designed for doctoral students in the first 6-12 months of study.
It depends on the students and how the course fits in with the rest of their studies. The course can be challenging as it is designed for 1. self-directed study and 2. it raises questions without answers.
At the Master's level it's probably a good idea to drop the portfolio-building exercises in the extended course and instead add group study sessions to work through the results from the self-study exercises. We'd welcome ideas for how to structure the course
Presentations made with the LaTeX beamer package can be changed to use a new theme. How to do that, is beyond the scope of this document.
Please note that you should then
- Change the author and affiliation information
- Update the date
- Remove or update any DOIs.
- Acknowledge the original authors as per the license terms.
Some of the slides are made using LaTeX with the beamer package. You can swap out the graphics for your own.
Please note that you should then
- Change the author and affiliation information
- Update the date
- Remove or update any DOIs.
- Acknowledge the original authors as per the license terms.
You are not the first! Please raise an issue. Thank you!
Thank you! Please raise an issue.