Stronger together: Fostering collaboration between the University of Twente’s Digital Competence Center, the Open Science Community Twente, & 4TU.ResearchData

In 2022, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Twente’s Dig­i­tal Com­pe­tence Cen­ter (UT DCC), the Open Sci­ence Com­mu­ni­ty Twente (OSCT) and 4TU.ResearchData are join­ing forces to co-organ­ise events and the­mat­ic ses­sions for researchers, lec­tur­ers, and sup­port staff in their shared jour­ney towards open sci­ence. 

As we nav­i­gate the tran­si­tion from ’sci­ence 1.0 to sci­ence 2.0’, it’s true to say that open sci­ence is no longer a niche endeav­our. Fun­ders, pol­i­cy mak­ers, insti­tu­tions, and jour­nals world­wide are increas­ing­ly demand­ing researchers to adopt open research prac­tices. More­over, there are an over­whelm­ing num­ber of open sci­ence ini­tia­tives being devel­oped and com­mu­ni­cat­ed via online events to inform and inspire researchers, lec­tur­ers, and sup­port staff. Col­lec­tive­ly, this can place a bur­den of choice on them.

Last year, the UT DCC, OSCT and 4TU.ResearchData inde­pen­dent­ly organ­ised events for their respec­tive com­mu­ni­ties that focussed on sim­i­lar open sci­ence themes (see the UT DCC the­mat­ic ses­sions, Open Sci­ence Kitchen and 4TU.ResearchData events).

Upon reflect­ing at the end of 2021, we realised that we could be more effi­cient in our approach to host­ing events. For this rea­son, we decid­ed to har­monise our par­al­lel efforts to pro­vide our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers with a coor­di­nat­ed events sched­ule. 

By reduc­ing the num­ber of events, we hope to lessen the bur­den on researchers and make plan­ning their event atten­dance sim­pler. We also antic­i­pate that our cross-insti­tu­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion will help us reach a broad­er audi­ence, stim­u­late diverse dis­cus­sions and strength­en rela­tion­ships for an improved learn­ing expe­ri­ence among par­tic­i­pants.

What’s on? The next three months… 

JANUARY | Open Education in Transition. Social Movement or Evidence-based Research Domain? | DATE: 27th January, 2022 at 14:00

The OSCT will make a start and host an Open Sci­ence Kitchen event in Jan­u­ary. Prof. Mar­co Kalz (UNESCO chair of open edu­ca­tion of the Open Uni­ver­si­ty) will speak about “Open Edu­ca­tion in tran­si­tion. Social move­ment or evi­dence-based research domain?”

Reg­is­ter

FEBRUARY| 4TU.ResearchData: A repos­i­to­ry ser­vice and com­mu­ni­ty for FAIR data |
DATE: 24th Feb­ru­ary, 2022 at 16:00

4TU.ResearchData will present an overview of their repos­i­to­ry ser­vices and com­mu­ni­ty for FAIR data. Part one of the pre­sen­ta­tion pro­vides more detailed infor­ma­tion about the tech­ni­cal infra­struc­ture to sup­port FAIR data. Part two pro­vides infor­ma­tion about the com­mu­ni­ty (human infra­struc­ture) around the data repos­i­to­ry.

Reg­is­ter

MARCH | Open Sci­ence Week 2022 | DATE: TBC

Togeth­er, we plan to host a joint hybrid Open Sci­ence week with speak­ers, a poster ses­sion, and net­work­ing over cof­fee (if Coro­na allows).

Event pro­gramme com­ing soon!

Who we are

Uni­ver­si­ty of Twente Dig­i­tal Com­pe­tence Cen­tre (UT DCC)

The net­work for exper­tise on open sci­ence — espe­cial­ly fair data and open access‑, dig­i­tal­iza­tion of sci­ence and research ICT facil­i­ties. As a part­ner, we want to sup­port UT researchers and con­nect them with exper­tise and ser­vices else­where inside and out­side our uni­ver­si­ty. We work close­ly with researchers on opti­mal solu­tions with a focus on inno­va­tion.

Open Sci­ence Com­mu­ni­ty Twente (OSCT)

OSCT is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary, bot­tom-up com­mu­ni­ty to pro­mote, learn, share, and dis­cuss Open Sci­ence prac­tices.

4TU.ResearchData

4TU.ResearchData is an inter­na­tion­al data repos­i­to­ry for sci­ence, engi­neer­ing and design. Its ser­vices include cura­tion, shar­ing, long-term access and preser­va­tion of research datasets. These ser­vices are avail­able to any­one around the world. In addi­tion, 4TU.ResearchData also offers train­ing and resources to researchers to sup­port them in mak­ing research data find­able, acces­si­ble, inter­op­er­a­ble and repro­ducible (FAIR).

If you have any ques­tions or sug­ges­tions for topics/events that you’d like to see from this col­lab­o­ra­tion, please feel free to con­tact: dcc@utwente.nl.