This sounds like a huge abstract challenge, though in practice it comes down to precise practical actions that already start before conducting research.
As a program assistant of Open Science I followed the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) of the Delft University named ‘Open Science'. During this course I learned that numerous actions of data management are important. Before starting data collection, it is necessary to write a Data Management Plan (DMP), where researchers plan how they will collect and process their data. When you want to share your research findings and your data after you finished your project, it is important to clearly describe what you did, in order for other researchers to understand your research and how the data was generated. It is also important to store your data on a safe storage location, and connect a license or terms of use to it, to prevent loss of data or tampering. The MOOC Open Science is a good way to gain knowledge about how to implement the FAIR Principles as a daily practice as a researcher.
Sharing research outcomes is part of practicing open science, something that becomes easier with good research data management. Sharing outcomes can for example be done on the platform Open Science Framework (OSF). OSF is an online data repository which can be used by scientist to collaborate, document, archive, share and register research projects, materials and data. The platform has been founded in 2013 by prof. of Psychology Brian Nosek and Research Technologist and Methodologist Jeffrey Spies and can be used free of charge. Nosek and Spies are scientists who engaged with Open Science as a reaction to the reproducibility crisis that rose from the academic field of Psychology around 2010.
The University Library of the Vrije Universiteit offers courses in both writing a Data Management Plan and how to use Open Science Framework. These courses can be of great help for students or researchers in order to become an ‘Open Scientist’. Both courses are delivered by colleagues of mine who are working in Team Training of the University Library. Writing a DMP is a course that accessible for PhD-students of the Vrije Universiteit and will start again from September 2022 onwards. Courses on OSF Framework start again in the end of 2022. If you cannot wait until then, take a look at the presentations on Open Science Framework by Dr. Anita Eerland and Dr. Jacek Buczny.
Want to know more about the open science program, contact Iris van der Werff: i.m.van.der.werff@vu.nl or Sander Bosch: s.e.bosch@vu.nl.
