My journey advocating for Open Science

Hi there, it's been a while since I have written in this space, and a while since I have done some serious work around Open Science. I needed some time to heal some pretty deep wounds. I must say the pain hasn't left me yet, but time has made it a bit more bearable. 2020 is being a disaster, someone might say. And I would be very much inclined to agree with them. On the bright (?) side, I have found the courage back to work on something nice, so, here I am, on "my journey advocating for Open Science". I have had the pleasure to write an article with Lonni Besançon and a bunch of other talented people. The article, now available as a preprint , analyzes some things that went wrong in the last few months with respect to scientific publishing and dissemination. The #COVID19 pandemic has led to a number of questionable research practices which a full adherence to #openscience could have avoided. Researchers, co-sign if you agree. Article: https://t.co/iKwGT7IAmD Sign: ...

Yesterday I lost a dear colleague, but above all a dear friend. I am afraid I will never be able to write these words, if I do not do it now, now that the pain is still so sharp and vivid. Jon was not perfect. In fact, among other things, Jon has taught me that there is no such thing as perfection, and that the illusion of perfection can be a tricky one, something than can fuck up your mind, and pretty badly. Jon was not perfect. What was Jon, you might wonder? I am not sure words will help me, but Jon was a lot of stuff. Clever was only one of these things. Inspirational, another. The right amount of rebel, too. A bit crazy, also. Jon was also kind, compassionate. Understanding and loving. I have met Jon some years ago, the passion for open knowledge has created the occasion for our first, random encounter. Almost everything I know today about open scholarship, I know because of Jon. He used to tell me that I got the key thing for being a successful open science advocate: w...

In preparazione alla giornata Open Data 2020 (7 Marzo), e in concomitanza con l' Open Data Sicilia raduno (che poi purtroppo è saltato), mi sono fermata a riflettere (ancora una volta) sull'importanza di dati aperti per la ricerca scientifica e sull'eleganza e bellezza dei principi FAIR . In questo post vorrei: ricordare perché i dati aperti/FAIR per la ricerca scientifica non sono un'opzione, ma un vero e proprio must-have evidenziare i punti chiave nel costruire una strategia che punti all'implementazione di principi  FAIR all'interno di una comunità di ricerca (indipendentemente dal settore/disciplina) fornire un esempio concreto di suddetta implementazione ricordarmi come si scrive in Italiano e iniziare finalmente un po' di sostegno e diffusione per la scienza aperta nella mia madrelingua Let's go! Vorrei partire dall'evidenziare un privilegio di grandissima portata per noi ricercatori del 21esimo secolo: grazie alle tecno...

When some months ago somebody from the University College Dublin invited me to give a 40 minutes seminar on Open Science, I enthusiastically accepted without realizing how difficult it has become, in 2020, with all the amazing things going on around Open Science, to give a proper introduction to Open Research practices in less than an hour. A couple of weeks after the event, I decided to write a post to highlight what I believe are the absolute key points that have to be part of any broad introduction to Open Science, so here we come. First and foremost, I always find it useful to tell the audience what we talk about, when we talk about Open Science: the majority of people will definitely know what is the subject at hand, but I believe it's essential to highlight the multiple and somehow diverse facets of it. For quite some time, now, I use the definition created by the Accelerate Open Science project, because I believe it successfully captures these different components....