ICOPS takes part in Open Life Science 5!

On July 20th 2022, the International Committee on Open Phytolith Science participated in the graduation ceremony of cohort 5 of the Open Life Science (OLS-5) program youtube link with the event. Our project called the ‘International Committee on Open Phytolith Science: An Open Science Community Building and Training Initiative for the Phytolith Community’ aimed to train ICOPS committee members in the use of GitHub and open science practices.

Within this program, we focused on the construction of an action plan, the generation of the online infrastructure, including a GitHub repository and the Open Phytoliths Community website, as well as the use of different community building tools such as Open canvas and Roadmap for the training and inclusion of the different members of the phytolith community at a global level.

Within our committee, we held discussions on governance, as well as reflections on different aspects of open research. One of the most necessary tasks of this committee is to conduct surveys and meetings that allow us to know the local reality of researchers, as well as what encourages them or not to work within the “open data” and more broadly the open research movement.

We want to thank the OLS-5 organizers and all those who participated in the cohort 5. Special thanks to our mentors, Malvika Sharan and Gracielle Higino for their constant support and for sharing their ideas and experiences to develop our project. During our training at OLS5 we developed our motto:

To build a shared vision for the adoption and implementation of open science among phytolith researchers globally.

Written by Gabi Musaubach, with translation help from Celine Kerfant and Emma Karoune.