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\begin{document}

\title{Open Science in Practice - The Aftermath}



\author[1]{Pinar Akyazi}%
\affil[1]{EPFL Signal Processing Lab}%


\vspace{-1em}



  
  \date{May 05, 2024}


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Prior to the summer school ``Open Science in Practice'', I knew only
very little about the vast ways of operation of what is called open
science. Apparently I thought I knew more than I truly did, and at the
end of our five days I learned a lot which I will try to summarize here
as much as possible. My second essay will be rather informal, as I got
to be part of the community and had a piece of the atmosphere we all
shared. It will have the flavor of a blog post, since this summer school
inspired me to be informative and creative in various platforms and a
blog post is certainly one way of accomplishing this.

In my first essay I mainly focused on emphasizing the impact of sharing
raw data and codes in repositories, the importance of clear
documentation and benefits of preprints, from the perspective of both
individual scientists and communities. In the field of signal and image
processing, we rely heavily on experiments that require high quality
datasets and algorithms. To carry our research further, we have to have
access to the data, as well as the algorithms in previous researches to
make fair comparisons and justify improvements. Aside from this
practical aspect of our research, it is crucial for us, as it is for the
rest of the scientific community, to be able to access recent
publications related to our field to advance in the theoretical aspect.
Moreover, easy access to publications builds communities faster by
increasing chances of interactions, hence strengthening the motivation
and development of research, and researchers themselves.

For sharing algorithms and data, I knew only of
\href{https://www.github.com}{GitHub}, which~is an open access platform
allowing users to share their projects and provide documentations.
GitHub also helps to maintain a version control, and though I had heard
about this many times before I was still hesitant to give it a try and
have first hand experience on what this ``version control'' is.
Unfortunately I have been one of those people who have many versions of
codes, and therefore, troubles retrieving the last version. During
workshops I had the chance to have a GitHub account and start using it,
and I am now noticing which of my colleagues have shared their
repositories along with their research. I do want to become one of them,
as now I am very much convinced about the importance of reproducible
research. As pointed out in our workshops, we all have hesitations about
sharing codes. We worry about being ridiculed, losing time on preparing
documentation and cleaning up, not knowing exactly what to share, and to
what extent. However, the essence of our work is to develop science. We
have to put such personal worries aside and regard the time spent on
data sharing as an investment to our practice. As for what to share, we
have to inform ourselves on what is within our rights to share. The
algorithms we hold the rights of, we should not be hesitant to share.
After all, what good is science for if it is carried out only within
closed circles?

The fear of being scooped goes hand in hand for sharing data and
publishing preprints. Current practices in open science for data sharing
and publication have time stamps and license options to protect the
authors, which prevent attempts of scooping. Learning about the
different types of licenses providing distinct levels of openness was
very beneficial, and discovering the rights held by different publishers
was as interesting. Other benefits of preprints have been emphasized,
such as the difference between the time it takes for one paper to go
through a peer-reviewed journal versus a preprint server, as well as the
speed of interaction between communities and hence the development of
research~\cite{polka}. The ``buts'' of preprints were successfully
cleared, giving way to a more efficient way of conducting research.

Previously I was only informed about \href{https://arxiv.org}{arXiv},~a
relatively widespread preprint server widely used in my area of
research. Through the lectures I learned about preprint servers covering
different areas of research, similar to the categorization of
traditional journals. I was also not informed before about the
statistics concerning open publications and traditional journals, and
how they have been changing over the past decades. It is very moving to
see communities engaging more in preprints and being introduced to many
other platforms such as \href{https://www.authorea.com}{Authorea},
\href{https://zenodo.org}{Zenodo},
\href{https://sciencematters.io}{Science Matters} and
\href{http://jupyter.org}{Jupyter}, some of which I have already started
using.~

Throughout and following the summer school, I have gained a different
perspective on my research. The very first code I started writing
afterwards, I tried to document it as clearly as possible so that my
algorithms can be reproduced and replicated. I now have an account on
GitHub and Zenodo, on which I am planning to deposit my work in a clear
frame from now on. Aside from this personal development, at present I am
also closer to scientific communities. Many works I used to regard as
unapproachable and discreet, I now see that I can explore and moreover,
take part in and contribute to them. This has carried my view on science
and research to a whole different level. I am eagerly looking forward to
being involved in other projects and collaborating with scientists.

It was a real pleasure attending the summer school ``Open Science in
Practice'' and learning about trending practices together with many
scientists from different disciplines. I have to thank you all in the
organization team for showing me that science can be open, and also
welcoming \cite{gatto}, as Laurent Gatto pointed out in his
lecture. ``If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go
together.'' I was always enthusiastic about collaboration, but never
took action by myself. I am now discussing possible collaborations with
my colleagues in neighboring labs, taking part in the preparation of a
prospective summer school, proposing to share our ideas on Authorea.
Inspired by one of the Friday talks, I checked
"\href{https://lauzhack.devpost.com/submissions}{hackathons}" and
started getting creative, which is still very surprising to me. I am
leaning towards keeping a research oriented blog, as my passion for
writing would surely contribute to my professional life and grant
recognition. All thanks to everyone involved in organizing this summer
school, the speakers, workshops and the attendees, because each
contributor showed how they channel their efforts to create something
new, to share ideas and to take further steps in becoming more visible
and open.

The summer school was neatly organized, the venue was efficient and the
number of people was comfortable, balanced. The speakers were really
well chosen, some like Jessica Polka and Laurent Gatto, if they had been
promoting Scientology maybe I would have given even that another
consideration. It is genuinely satisfying to attend a lecture and leave
with new insights. We were all feeling tired at the last quarter of each
day and it was difficult to concentrate after long hours. Among
ourselves we had discussed that cutting the 30-minute coffee breaks down
to 15 minutes, starting the afternoon sessions at 1:30pm and ending the
day earlier could be a better strategy. The last 30 minutes of lunch
were idle, and 15 minutes of coffee breaks were enough for us to rest
and have some chat about the preceding lectures and workshops. Having
mentioned the coffee breaks and lunches, I found all of them very
satisfying. The only part I felt a bit out of focus was Wednesday
afternoon during the exercise on data management plan. The groups were
disconnected from each other, the discussion was not very fruitful and
everything took a rather slow course. Personally, I would prefer a four
days summer school instead of five, but while planning a summer school
myself I learned that four days do not amount up to two credits, so I
understand that. In that aspect, Friday was a very nice touch. Short
presentations from different fields, different venue, it was a very
broadening day. I actually enjoyed the company and lab presentations on
their products, they got me out of my little bubble and gave me a bigger
perspective about things going on, things I could be a part of. The
dinner was a success as well, great food, well chosen place, very fun
evening to enjoy together. Lastly, the final e-mail we have received
from Luc, I very much appreciated the fact that he addressed me
personally and wrote a few comments about my first essay. Thank you Luc,
again, for your time and interest.

All in all this summer school was unexpectedly beneficial for me. Before
I did not even consider citing information I use
from~\href{http://stackoverflow.com}{Stack Overflow} but now I will
definitely do that, since I know about licenses and I have the open path
to follow! I am more than ever motivated to carry on with my research,
produce and submit preprints and reach out to my community. On a closing
note, I would like to thank again to all contributors of this
experience; the organizing team, speakers and all attendees. Thank you
for all your efforts and I am looking forward to meeting you again. I
would definitely like to take part in the future open science summer
school organizations, please count me in. We have work to do to change
open science into, just, ``science''.~

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