Open Science Training Courses

The FOSTER taxonomy defines Open Science as the movement to make scientific research, data and dissemination accessible to all levels of an inquiring society.

Sounds good but what does Open Science (OS) mean in a practical sense? These courses answer some of the most common questions you might have about putting open science into practice. Each course takes about 1-2 hours to work through and you’ll receive a badge upon completion. The courses include practical tips on getting started with OS as well as providing information on discipline specific tools and resources you can use. There is no specified order through the courses – just explore topics that you want to learn more about at your own pace.

What is Open Science?

Spanish version available

This introductory course will help you to understand what open science is and why it is something you should care about.

Best Practices

Spanish version available

This course introduces some practical steps for opening up your research practices and how to meet  expectations relating to openness from funders, publishers and peers.

Managing and Sharing Research Data

Spanish version available

In this course, you'll focus on which data you can share and how you can go about doing this most effectively.

OSS and Workflows

Spanish version available

This course introduces Open Source Software (OSS) and workflows as an emerging but critical component of Open Science. 

Data Protection and Ethics

Spanish version available

This course helps you to get to grips with responsible data sharing. 

Open Licensing

Spanish version available

This course helps you to find the best open license for your open research outputs. 

Open Access Publishing

Spanish version available

This course will help you become skilled in making your publications openly accessible in line with funders' requirements and in the wider context of Open Science. 

Sharing Preprints

Spanish version available

This course introduces the practice of sharing preprints and helps you to see how it can support your research. 

Open Peer Review (OPR)

Spanish version available

This course will introduce you to OPR and let you know how you can get started with it. 

Open Science and Innovation

This course will show you how Responsible Research and Innovation is accelerated through Open Science. 

Use Open Data in Teaching

 

This course shows you how you can use open data in your teaching and improve the research data management literacy of your students. 

Assessing the FAIRness of data

This course shows you how to go about assessing the findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability (FAIRness) of research data. 

Acknowledgements

These modules have been developed reusing openly available content produced by a range of content providers including DataOne, Research Data Netherlands, Open Data Institute, European Data Portal, Digital Curation Centre, UK Data Service, CESSDA, DARIAH, ELIXIR, Software Sustainability Institute, FOSTER and many others actively developing open educational resources relating to Open Science.

The modules are presented in a similar style to that employed by the Open Data Institute (ODI) and the European Data Portal in the hopes that this will enable our content to augment the body of Open Science related materials already produced and make their collective reuse more seamless. To this end, we have also made use of the Adapt authoring tool also used by the ODI and European Data Portal.

We have employed a variation of the case study approach developed by the European Commission's Open Science Monitor to help illustrate useful tools and initiatives from disciplinary perspectives.

Images used in the modules are under CC0 license unless otherwise stated.