Workshop: Evolutionary biology and Open Science: practices, challenges and opportunities

This workshop was provided at the ESEB 2017 meeting, Grongingen, Aug 2017.

Open Science is amongst the most prominent movements in the scientific world today. The transition to Open is facilitated by shifts in scientific culture, technological improvements, and policies and mandates imposed by funders, governments, institutions, and publishers. Different fields of Evolutionary biology are at different stages of this transition. This workshop aims at enabling efficient, timely, and informed transition to Open Science, and help evolutionary biologist to greatly benefit from (and actively participate in) this transition.

First, we will briefly introduce (and discuss) the main concepts of Open Science, its requirements, benefits, and potential issues. Next, we will introduce the new data-landscape, and platforms where researchers can easily identify datasets (similar as, for example, Web of Science does for papers). Participants will have some time to familiarise themselves with these platforms (it would be good to bring a laptop along).  Finally, we will focus on types of studies that can greatly benefit (or could benefit) from Open Science. We will then specifically focus on evolutionary meta-analysis, showcasing new frameworks that utilise data (along with published studies) and guidelines on how to make the meta-analysis (or any other scientific work) to comply with the Open principles. For this part of the workshop, participants will be asked to prepare an example of their own study that used data from other studies, or aimed at using them, but failed due to issues in accessing the data.

After the workshop, the participants will be emailed a short questionnaire about pros and cons of Open Science to evolutionary research, and the ways they have so far utilized (or plan to utilize) the Open Data landscape. This questionnaire, together with the workshop outcomes, will be used to produce a document advising on the next steps needed for an efficient transition to, and utilisation of the Open Science (and specifically Open Data) for Evolutionary research.

Organiser: Dr. Antica Culina, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW)