2025-05-20 –, Jeanne Roos
Academic communities play an important role in the promotion of Open Science (OS). While many thriving OS communities exist, guidance on how to start an OS community is still sparse. Drawing on our experience of building the Community of Practice for Open Naturally Occurring Data, we will present the steps undertaken in establishing this community and share key lessons we learned in the process.
This interactive session will provide practical guidance on how to build an OS community of practice, by drawing on our experience with setting up the Community of Practice for Open Naturally Occurring Data, which currently comprises 20 researchers and research professionals. We will outline the steps we undertook in building the community—such as identifying and reaching target audiences, inviting them to join the community, and developing community-sustaining structures. For each step, we will explain how me made important decisions and evaluate their outcomes.
This way, rather than offering a rigid ‘recipe’ for establishing an OS community, this session will help you to:
1. Identify key factors to consider when building an OS community;
2. Anticipate possible pitfalls as well as leverage opportunities unique to your situation.
The last part of the session will be reserved to your answering questions and providing tailored advice. So, if you are considering or currently developing an OS community, you are welcome to share your dilemmas or difficulties and receive input from both the presenters and the rest of the audience.
Dr Bogdana Huma is an Associate Professor of Language and Communication in the Faculty of Humanities at VU Amsterdam. She is passionate about Open Science and has co-authored the article 'One Size Doesn't Fit All: Lessons From Interaction Analysis on Tailoring Open Science Practices to Qualitative Research'. Between April ’24 – March ’25, she led the NWO-funded project 'Building a Community of Practice for Open Naturally Occurring Data'. In October '24, she initiated the project 'Mapping the Landscape of Open Science: Tensions, Challenges, and Hidden Moralities' funded via a Starters Grant.
