OpenFest 2023
Interested in improving academic research and exploring open research practices?
OpenFest is the University of Sheffield’s flagship celebration and exploration of open research, providing an opportunity to explore current issues, share experiences, and consider how open research can be applied in your discipline.
OpenFest2023 took place on the 4th-8th September 2023. Video of those events which were recorded can be found here (scroll to the bottom of the page to see recordings). OpenFest 2023 included the following events:
Workshop on GitHub for academic collaboration
Monday 4th September, 10.00-12.00, in person
Led by Robert Smith (School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield)
This workshop for researchers at the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University will provide a straightforward look at how GitHub can enhance academic collaboration, and a practical introduction to using GitHub and other tools in academic settings. The workshop will cover:
- The benefits of GitHub for academic collaboration
- Setting up RStudio with Git and GitHub
- How to collaborate with colleagues on projects in script-based programming languages (e.g. R)
- Where to find more information - online resources and courses
OpenFest Sheffield Showcase
Wednesday 6th September, 09.30-17.00, in person with hybrid capability
Featuring keynote speakers and talks from both of the Sheffield universities, this event for researchers and colleagues in research-related roles at the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University will provide a valuable opportunity to discuss and explore open research practice at the two institutions.
We will examine current initiatives which are building momentum around openness and explore the application of open practices in varying methodological contexts. The event will culminate in a drinks reception and launch of the Open Scholarship Community Sheffield, an inclusive, supportive, and active community for researchers to interact, share knowledge, and encourage good practice around open research.
Online symposium ‘New Perspectives on Open Research’
Thursday 7th September, 09.00-17.00
Featuring keynote talks from Martin Eve (Crossref / Birkbeck, University of London) and Malvika Sharan (The Turing Way), this event creates space for researchers across the UK and internationally to explore emerging perspectives and practices within the field of open research.
We’ll explore how projects and institutions are reshaping open research infrastructures and reimagining platforms and tools. Panel discussions will address emerging and ongoing issues with the potential to shape our future practice and discourse around open research.
Keynote talks:
Against Austerity
Prof. Martin Paul Eve (Crossref / Birkbeck, University of London)
Arguments for open access are usually split along two axes: the educational and the financial. On the former, it is easy to see that the progress of science and scholarship is advanced by easy, free access to research. A more equitable system of educational access benefits everyone. However, on the second front, it is also argued that open access should be less expensive for libraries, signalling the end of the serials crisis. In this talk, using data from 7 million article records, I examine the publishing practices of scholarly publishers at different levels of revenue, clearly showing that professional publishers, with high levels of revenue, consistently perform better at tasks such as digital preservation. While remaining committed to not-for-profit and mission-driven solutions, I argue that there are more important challenges for open access publishing than merely reducing costs.
Open science for enabling reproducible, ethical and collaborative research: Insights from The Turing Way
Dr Malvika Sharan (The Turing Way, The Alan Turing Institute)
In this talk, I will discuss open science as a framework to ensure that all our research components can be easily accessed, openly examined and built upon by others. I will introduce The Turing Way - an open source, open collaboration and community-driven guide to reproducible, ethical and inclusive data science and research. Drawing insights from the project, I will share best practices that researchers should integrate to ensure the highest reproducible and ethical standards from the start of their projects so that their research work is easy to reuse and reproduce at all stages of the development. All attendees will leave the talk understanding the many dimensions of openness and how they can participate in an inclusive, kind and inspiring open source ecosystem as they collaboratively seek to improve research culture.
Workshop on Re/defining open research values
Friday 8th September, 10.00-12.00, in person
What are the values that inform our open research practice? Are there different and potentially more productive ways to define these, with implications for the way we conduct and communicate research? This workshop for researchers at the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University will bring together researchers and research-adjacent colleagues from a range of disciplinary backgrounds to enable a cross-disciplinary conversation about open research values.
Introductory talks from a range of speakers, including those from qualitative methodological backgrounds, will be followed by activities to identify and finesse a set of alternative concepts through which we might reframe the values of an open research culture, e.g. vulnerability, generosity, radicalism, anti-hierarchy, notions of the gift. This will be followed by collaborative exploration of ways to enact these values at a practical level, focusing on those within the powers of ourselves and our institutions.