Open Science Workshop Vienna 2017

Graphic record of the Workshop. VerVieVas, CC BY 3.0 AT

On September 20th 2017 the Vienna Principles Working Group of the Open Access Network Austria, AT2OA, Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft and Open Knowledge Austria organised the Open Science Workshop at the Austrian Central Library for Physics and Chemistry, which is a special subject library of Vienna’s University Library. This one day event was focussed on providing researchers, research support managers and librarians with information about the numerous Open Science tools and practices across the various scientific disciplines. For this, Jeroen Bosman and Bianca Kramer from Utrecht University gave an overview about the three phases of the research workflow: Phase #1: Preparation, Discovery and Analysis; Phase #2: Writing and Publishing and Phase #3: Outreach and Assessment. Furthermore they were talking about the varying Open Science tools, supporting scientists during the different stages of research process.

Model of the research workflow and useful tools for the various phases. Graphic: Bianca Kramer, Jeroen Bosman, CC BY 4.0

Guest speaker Pietro Michelucci presented his citizen science project called Stall Catchers, designed to help researchers at Cornell University to search the brain for stalled blood vessels that may contribute to Alzheimer’s disease. A hands-on approach to tackle Alzheimer research by involving the crowd in data analysis, respectively analysing data from mouse brain scans through a virtual microscope.

Peter Kraker introduced the audience to the Vienna Principles, a vision for scholarly communication, their rationale and general scholarly commons.

In total 60 participants from various backgrounds, ranging from the social to the life sciences, were encouraged to discover what’s inside the Open Science-backpack. The heterogeneous crowd shared its numerous experience during live Q&A and polls, discussed in small groups within their own discipline and informed the audience about the deliverables of the talks. Potential incentives and barriers for using Open Science methods were identified and passionately discussed.

Summing up the workshop was a very fruitful opportunity to get in touch with researchers, academics, research support and other stakeholders, who were all interested in the idea of Open Science. Alongside it gave a concise overview about the various tools and practices, which are in the market right now. A quote from the workshop organizers shows the importance and topicality of holding events like that: As Open Science methods are ever-growing, providing participants with updates on new developments is fundamental to stay on track.
For further information please check out the POSTMORTEM REPORT, including all the slides and additional information about the workshop.