The Mozilla Science Fellowship application asks:
What do you see as the opportunities for impact around open research at your university? Could you leverage this opportunity in a potential project?
The answer field allows 100 words, but here I develop my idea before condensing it for the application.
Cambridge University is unusual in that most PhD students are not required to take any classes - they do research from day 1. There are optional classes offered that cover a small proportion of the skills needed to do research in the modern, open environment, but these are far from comprehensive and in particular do not cover most aspects of open science.
This creates a situation where most students are ill equipped for important aspects of modern research, and have to find their own path to learning. There is a huge opportunity here to equip researchers for open science at the start of their careers by providing them high quality training. In my experience, PhD students are a powerful force for positive change in research groups.
I propose to start a School of Open Science within the Graduate School of Life Sciences (GSLS) at Cambridge. I would:
- use university teaching resources (rooms, computers, etc.) and seek support from the GSLS training co-ordinator
- work symbiotically with Software Carpentry, Data Carpentry, Mozilla Study Groups, the Open Science Training Initiative, ContentMine and others to reuse existing materials and contribute new materials
- leverage my existing connections in the administration of many departments within the school to seek that every department encourages their incoming and existing students to attend the school
- include existing training offerings in the curriculum where possible, to avoid duplication of effort and to recognise the excellent work already being done in training
- seek to officially align the school with existing open initiatives within the university, such as the cross-department OpenPlant project, and the university-wide OpenAccess@Cam initiative
- leverage local contacts with an interest in open science and teaching to help deliver the training
- seek to connect the school with the strong open culture in Cambridge, for example by working with PLOS, eLife and EuropePubMed (all based in cambridge) on resources related to publishing
- develop and provide training for the trainers (following the Software Carpentry model)
- deliver the entire training program at least once in each of the three terms
- seek to have the school supported financially and politically by the end of my 10 month tenure so that it would continue to exist and grow
Deliverables:
- Open curriculum (guaranteed)
- Open teaching materials (guaranteed)
- A series of training sessions each term (guaranteed)
- An entity (the school) that sustainably creates impact around open research with a lasting presence in the university (likely)
Importantly, the School would provide a template that could be replicated in other universities.
Within Cambridge, the school would also serve as a focal point for forming partnerships that increase the visibility of, and institutional commitment to, open science.
Cambridge University offers little support and training around open science, despite a local abundance of interested people and organisations. I propose a new program, a School of Open Science, providing training in key skills for open science. The program would bring together the local open science community to create and deliver training, and aim to unite the community to drive political change in the university. I would cultivate support within the university with the aim of having the program sustained in the long term. The program would provide a template that could be implemented at other universities.