Contents
Open Research across Disciplines
How the principles of open research can be applied to your disciplineBiological Sciences
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Case Studies
UKRN case study: Quantitative biology and protein production in cells
University of Surrey case study: Training scientists to use genomics programs | University of Surrey
University of Glasgow case study: Research Data Management in Natural History
University of Reading case study: Building Open Lab Hardware to Tackle Antimicrobial Resistance (PDF, 175kB)
University of Manchester case study: WorkflowHub open registry for the life science community to openly share, find and reuse data processing pipelines
University of Sheffield case study: Dr Alice Pyne on DNA supercoiling and molecular recognition
Examples of open research practices
Open Data: Using and contributing to open data. Examples are reported in Table 1 of Feng et al. (2019), such as: “Species distribution records were collected from the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS; http://iobis.org, accessed February 2016), from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF; http://gbif.org, accessed January 2016), the Reef Life Survey (RLS; http://reeflifesurvey.com, accessed February 2016) and for a few species via personal communications (Bosch et al., 2018).” (From Feng et al (2019). A checklist for maximizing reproducibility of ecological niche models. Nat Ecol Evol 3, 1382–1395. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0972-5)
Open Data: Working alongside ‘Open Microscopy’, Glencoe Software have developed and adopted Open Microscopy Environment – Next-Generation File Formats (OME-NGFF). This is a new “Cloud-friendly data format for multi-D bioimaging data using… It has been designed from its inception to work with scalable, cloud-based data resources and for public or shared data repositories used for AI training and data publication. There are examples of using OME-NGFF for whole slide imaging (as in digital pathology), high content screening and 3D imaging of large tissue samples.”. (OME-NGFF in action; Glencoe Software, Inc.)
Resources
General Resources
- MOOC: an introduction to Open Science principles in biomedicine, life sciences and other related research fields. https://www.open.edu/openlearncreate/course/view.php?id=4633
- Taylor, B. and Woods, S. (2020) Reflections on the practice of Responsible (Research and) Innovation in synthetic biology, New Genetics and Society, 39:2, 127-147, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14636778.2019.1709431
- Open innovation in the life sciences. Conference, training, public lectures. https://www.openinnovationlifesciences.com
- Open workshops, seminars, and tools in plant pathology. https://openplantpathology.org
- Open resources about biological sciences to share, exchange expertise. https://elixir-europe.org/
- Mentoring and training program for Open Science ambassadors. https://openlifesci.org/
- Open, digital and collaborative space for biological and medical research. Workflows, data, workshops, funding. https://www.eosc-life.eu
- Agricultural and food sciences community. Scope: to provide access to publications, research data, projects and software related to the field. Includes the following tabs of sharable resources: publications, research data, software, other research. https://beta.aginfra.openaire.eu
- Munafò, M., Noble, S., Browne, W. et al.Scientific rigor and the art of motorcycle maintenance. Nat Biotechnol 32, 871–873 (2014). https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3004
Open Methods
- Presentation on open workflows and tools. https://www.fosteropenscience.eu/content/life-sciences-and-open-science-workflows-and-tools
- Recorded talk on preprints. https://www.youtube.com/watch?index=5&list=PLPkfOHxsjx2gDqOooywho7uvw800pfxq2&v=SWDKyEZ4GeI
- Repository of mathematical models of biological and biomedical systems. https://www.ebi.ac.uk/biomodels/
- Experimental Design Assistant. A web-based platform that can be used to help plan studies with animals. https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/experimental-design-assistant-eda
- Resource Identification Initiative. A webpage that collates unique identifiers for referencing a research resource. https://scicrunch.org/resources
- University of Sheffield discipline-specific guidance on how to make research data and software FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable & reusable). This pilot was conducted in seven departments across the University: Architecture, Biosciences, English, Geography, Mechanical Engineering, Psychology, and the School of Health and Related Research. You can find the full set of checklists from the pilot departments at: https://doi.org/10.15131/shef.data.20496855.v2
Open Data
- Life sciences dataset. https://www.nature.com/sdata/
- UK Biobank. https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/
- GenBank: an annotated collection of publicly available genetic sequences, maintained by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/
Open Outputs
- Preprint repositories.
- Open Access Journals
This page is adapted and extended from: Farran, E. K., Silverstein, P., Ameen, A. A., Misheva, I., & Gilmore, C. (2020, December 15). Open Research: Examples of good practice, and resources across disciplines. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/3r8hb