Previously I was only informed about
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
Authorea,
Zenodo,
Science Matters and
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 "
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
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".