We presented echinopscis at the recent Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) meeting in Hobart, Australia in one of the “contributed oral” sessions. The talk focussed on the development of echinopscis through participation in the Open Life Sciences (OLS) program - a 16 week mentoring scheme for open science leaders. (Note - OLS has since been rebranded to “Open Seeds” to support the inclusion of researchers working in humanities fields).
A couple of key points from the OLS program which really changed our approach:
The distinction between the different kinds of “open” project: open by default and open by design
(We chose this image of the open door deliberately - yes its technically “open” but would you feel safe walking through it? - It looks like something from a nightmare 😱).
We also found it useful to draft a single page overview (an “open canvas”) of the project and the community that will use and build/sustain it. We’ve since used this approach in the discussions about the digital extended specimen.
OLS / TDWG overlap and future potential: Kit Lewers is participating in the eighth cohort, and OLS acknowledge that they receive relatively few applications from biodiversity affiliated fields, so look out for the application call for future cohorts.
Useful links:
- Talk abstract in BISS: Nicolson N, Lucas E (2023) The Role of the OLS Program in the Development of echinopscis (an Extensible Notebook for Open Science on Specimens). Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 7: e112318. doi:10.3897/biss.7.112318
- Open Seeds (OLS): openlifesci.org
- Mozilla Open Leadership principles