Technology is changing science: increasing the amount of data we can handle, and providing us with new ways of analyzing and sharing our work. The internet has increased connectivity within the scientific community and between scientists and the public. Additionally, many granting agencies are now requiring that scientific work they fund is made publically available. Although daunting at times, taking an open, web-enabled approach to research presents an opportunity to both improve the reproducibility of scientific practice and to encourage broader participation in the scientific enterprise. Navigating this changing landscape effectively can help early career scientists build a network of collaborators, promote their own work, and engage in larger-scale problem solving. Using examples from the entomological world, this course will walk students through the process of scientific publication in this new, open, technologically enabled framework, and place technical skills in the context of open science philosophy, ethics and regulations.
Christie Bahlai
Office: 204B Center for Integrated Plant Systems
E-mail: cbahlai@msu.edu
Office Hours: Immediately after class each TBD or by appt
##Offered Semester Spring 2016 2 Credits (1-1)
(Optional!) Kristin Briney, Data Management for Researchers: Organize, maintain and share your data for Research Success 2015. Pelagic Publishing, Exeter, UK
Tuesday 2-4 PM Thursday 3-4 PM Center for Integrated Crop Systems Lab Conference Room
Class blog at https://osrrcourse.wordpress.com/ will be used to summarize what we’re working on, and what we’ve learned in each class. Instructional notes/slides will be made available as they are developed as a Markdown file on Github at http://www.github.com/cbahlai/OSRR_course
10% Discussion Lead
Each student will lead 1-2 discussions (depending on total enrollment) during the seminar period on an open science issue. Topics and discussion periods will be assigned during week 2.
5% Discussion Participation
Participation in discussions led by other students.
20% Reflections blog post
Each student will write 1-2 blog posts per semester summarizing the issues discussed during the seminar section of class. Blog post topics CANNOT be on the same topic that the student was discussion lead for. ~500-1000 words.
10% Progress blog posts
These are short, frequent blog posts designed to keep a written record of what each student has been working on and contributing to the final manuscript project. Think of this as a shared lab notebook- help your collaborators keep track of what you’re doing and what the next steps are.
40% Final manuscript
A real, bona-fide scientific manuscript. Students will be assigned small groups (3-5) and a set of real data, and students will be guided through the process of data management and documentation, a simple analysis, an experimental writeup, and submission of the manuscript to a peer reviewed, open-source journal. The goal with this paper is to create a research product that goes slightly beyond a ‘data paper.’ Students who are deemed to have contributed sufficiently by their peers will be awarded authorship if the manuscript is accepted for publication.
15% Collaborator assessment
Students will be evaluated by their peers for their level of contribution to the final manuscript product. Although I expect a fair bit of niche partitioning to occur in groups, students are expected to have left enough information about their respective roles so that group members are able to understand exactly what each other member did.
The grading scale for this course will be:
100 - 93% = 4.0
92 - 85% = 3.5
84 - 80% = 3.0
79 - 75% = 2.5
74 - 70% = 2.0
69 - 65% = 1.5
64 - 60% = 1.0
below 60% = 0.0
Instructor will assess student effort and prior background in making final grading decisions.