Source: Own illustration; Freepik
On March 13, 2024, the open meeting of the RDM network of RWTH Aachen University for data stewards, RDM managers and those interested in RDM took place again. The topic of the digital meeting was “open science” and was presented by Monica Gonzalez-Marquez – open science Manager at Forschungszentrum Jülich.
RDM Speed Dating to Get To Know Each Other
The meeting of the RDM network is not only about exciting topics relating to RDM, but also about personal exchange and sharing experiences within the network. At the beginning of the open meeting oft he RDM network, for example, there was a speed dating round in which the question “what is open science and what is it good for?” was discussed and later presented to the plenum using an online survey tool. Most of the network meeting participants were already aware of what open science is supposed to achieve, but they were able to find out how it works and can be implemented in reality in the subsequent presentation.
Lecture on Open Science
And how can open science” be defined? According to UNESCO, open science, as Monica Gonzalez-Marquez explains right at the beginning of her presentation, is described by the keywords “transparency, verifiability, criticality and reproducibility”. According to COARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment), open science enables the systematic reuse of research results through verifiable and reproducible processes, which improves the overall quality and significance of research. In today’s practice, however, research results in the form of articles, data, posters or lectures are made available openly and free of charge for users (open access) without actually being able to be reused because too much contextual information is missing.
In order to make open science “real” and usable for people, because researchers are people and not machines, Gonzalez-Marquez has developed the “Heliocentric Model of Open Science Documentation”, which she will present in her talk. Instead of the scientific article, the Helio model focuses on the research process and addresses all the information required to understand this process – i.e. its description, discussions and decisions, methods and results. It is a predictive model that provides a clear picture of what Open Science really is and what scientific documentation should look like in the future. The aim is to improve the quality of scientific documentation so that research processes become truly transparent and reproducible.
For all those who would like to dive deeper into the topic of Open Science and Helio, there is a recording of Monica Gonzalez-Marquez on YouTube.
The Next Meeting of the RDM Network
Date: May 8, 2024
Time: 10am to 12 noon
Location: Conference Room of the University Library – Registration
Further information on the open RDM network meeting can be found on the website of the University Library RWTH Aachen University. (*)
Learn More
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If you have any questions about the RDM network or RDM in general, simply write a message to the IT-ServiceDesk. The RDM team looks forward to hearing from you.
Responsible for the content of this article are Lina-Louise Kaulbach and Ute Trautwein-Bruns.
(*) The paragraph was updated on April 5, 2024.
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