Open Science Community Leiden (OSCL) is a new community initiative that promotes learning about open science practices for faculty, students and all others interested. The community is intended as a social place to share knowledge and experiences; members can indicate what they already know about Open Science, and what they want to know more about. With that information, we can learn from each other’s experiences and organise events like workshops. The OSCL will kick off with 'OPENing drinks' on September 20th, 4 pm, downstairs in the FSW building (Pieter de la Court building). The dean of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Professor Paul Wouters, will speak about the open science vision of our university at this festive opening, and an example of how Open Science is practiced in our faculty will be showcased with the launch of the new website of the Brain and Development Center.

Open Science

Open Science aims to tackle current problems in science, and is likely going to be part of what our workflow looks like in the future. Open Science is an umbrella term for an approach to science that aims to make scientific research accessible, reproducible, and freely available to people within and outside of academia. An important goal is to practice science in a transparent way. Examples of Open Science practices include transparent writing, preregistration, replication, sharing data and materials, uploading preprints, and publishing open access. These practices allow researchers to build on each other's work more efficiently, check each other’s work, and enable replication, therefore leading to more reliable scientific findings and less scientific waste.

The community

OSCL is the Leiden part of a larger network of learning communities that are now spreading all over the Netherlands and beyond. The aim is to learn and talk about open science practices and to help each other; there is no prior experience required. Via the member section on the website, anyone can find their colleague across the holeway who has some experience, and ask them about it. You can also share your own open science experiences (whether positive or negative!) with others, for instance during one of the forthcoming events or workshops. The community is intended as a social place to share knowledge and experiences and to help members achieve openness in their research step by step in an accessible way. 

Current members have indicated that they want to learn more about preregistration, new publication initiatives, research data management, open data, citizen science, and the philosophy of open science, among others. We will organize events to inform and involve current and new members–from student to professor–in the discussion about these topics. 

Learn more

For more details about the upcoming events, join us by creating your own OSCL profile, follow us on twitter: @OSCLeiden, or send us an email at OSCL@leidenuniv.nl to be put on the list for the newsletter.