August update for the Open Science MOOC!

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the slightly-delayed August update for the Open Science MOOC! We have a couple of nice bits of news this round.

The first draft of the pilot module, Open Source and Open Research Software, is now complete. It is currently being revised thanks to a range of incredibly helpeful feedback from across the globe. However, this does not mean that the content cannot be currently used, and there are plenty of goodies available below already:

DOI

In the near future, we aim to add a further task showing users how to integrate R and Git (scary, but useful), screencasts for all tasks to help as guides, a quiz to test your knowledge, and an introductory video from Open Source gurus from around the world! Our ultimate objective is not to have all of this and the rest of the MOOC content as a unidirectional learning resource, but more of a community-based peer-to-peer learning space.

This month, we were also fortunate enough to be invited to the Joint Roadmap for Open Science Tools in Berkeley California, where we joined a brilliant group of people in trying to help build a future for Open Science. Recent partners also include AuthorAID, an organisation that helps to provide support for researchers in low and middle income countries.

Some things you can do to help the MOOC

  • Make sure to have joined our open Slack channel and join in the discussions. We now have more than 200 users here!

  • The next module to develop will be the first on Open Principles, and we are all cracking on already with content development here. If you are interested in helping out with this and joining our amazing Production Team, please let us know! While this is open to everyone, we especially welcome people from under-represented groups as part of this.

  • Share information about the MOOC with your friends and colleagues, including asking them to sign up to our mailing list! We are on Twitter too for those of you who use it.

  • In the future, we want to create an introductory video for the whole MOOC. If you would like to be part of this, simply send us a short video recording of yourself (and/or your colleagues) saying something like “Hi, my name is XXX, and I/we love Open Science!” This can be in whatever language or setting you want - the more the better!

We appreciate all of your ongoing support, and will continue with developing the content and putting it out there for use as soon as it is ready.

Cheers!

Jon and the Open Science MOOC team