The Open Science Community Rotterdam is part of a national (Dutch) network of communities created by researchers for researchers.

All Open Science Communities in The Netherlands as of March 2020. Image by Anita Eerland, licensed under CC BY-ND 3.0

We facilitate communication among scholars by giving them platforms to connect and share information on open science practices, for example our internal chat rooms on Matrix or the website on which this blog post is hosted. We organize events, for example infosessions on open science, workshops on reproducible data analysis, and journal clubs. We provide one-on-one support to individual researchers and give tailored advice on open science practices such as preregistration and data/code sharing.

The OSC format has now spread outside The Netherlands, with communities in Ireland and Sweden. We also joined an international Community of Open Scholarship Grassroots Networks (COSGN), which recently applied for an NSF 19-501 Full-Scale implementation grant to formalize governance and coordination of the networks (see the public proposal on MetaArXiv).

As exemplified by the author list of this grant proposal, the landscape of bottom-up open science initiatives is rich and diverse. Among them is the R.I.O.T. Science Club. The R.I.O.T.S. Club is a scientific community providing training on how to do Reproducible, Interpretable, Open, and Transparent Science. The R.I.O.T.S. Club core values include: (i) the accessibility of information and learning to all, be it scientists, clinicians, or the public; (ii) striving for reproducible and easily interpretable results, analyses, and codes; and (iii) the use of FAIR as guiding principles. Originated in London thanks to Dr. Samuel Westwood, the R.I.O.T.S. Club was recently brought to Rotterdam by Lorenza Dall’Aglio and Elisabet Blok, two Ph.D. candidates at ErasmusMC. The first meeting of the Rotterdam branch of the R.I.O.T.S. Club – a talk by Prof. Henning Tiemeier entitled The 7 plagues of neuroimaging studies – was a great success, with 70 engaged attendees. Lectures, practicals, and discussions will be held monthly, with the aim to provide knowledge, tools, and community support needed to do better research and overcome together the challenges routinely faced in academia (e.g., due to the publish-or-perish culture). Past and upcoming sessions include practicals on RMarkdown and Shiny and lectures on the p-value and Bayesian statistics.

The mission, goals, and activities of OSCR and R.I.O.T.S. Club are aligned. Awareness through infosessions on open science organized by OSCR, combined with the R.I.O.T.S. practical and lecture-based approach to reproducibility, would increase, facilitate, and speed up the widespread adoption of transparent practices and reproducible workflow, which would in turn lead to better science. By joining forces, we would address the needs of the community in a more comprehensive and effective manner.

Well, you guessed it: we are excited to announce a collaboration between the Open Science Community Rotterdam and Rotterdam R.I.O.T.S. Club! Lorenza, Elisabet, and Antonio will collaborate on the organization of lectures, workshops, and journal clubs aimed at educating and supporting scholars at EUR and ErasmusMC with respect to open science and reproducibility practices. Announcements will be sent via email and advertised on the OSCR and Rotterdam R.I.O.T.S. websites and Twitter accounts. Let us know if you want to give a talk or lead a journal club!

Lorenza Dall’Aglio, Elisabet Blok, and Antonio Schettino