Course in open science: "Investment in your future research career"

Since 2022, Stockholm University has had a policy on open science. It states that, as far as possible, the university's research results and research data must be published under an open license and that data and results must be freely available. Several research funders require open access publishing, and open access is also becoming increasingly common internationally.

One way to support researchers at the university is the course Open Science for PhD students, 5 ECTS. The course is offered within the framework of the Doctoral School in the Humanities. Doctoral students at the Faculty of Humanities have priority for the course – but subject to availability, doctoral students at other faculties and higher education institutions are also admitted.

The course has been designed to provide doctoral students with basic skills in good research data management and open publication pathways. The overall goal is to improve the doctoral students' knowledge of good practices in scientific communication. Teaching takes place both at the university and digitally.

Apply by 15 December to spring semester 2024

The next course is offered in the spring semester 2024. The application period opens on 15 November and ends on 15 December. To apply for the course, the supervisor is required to write a letter in which he/she justifies why the doctoral student should take the course.

Highly appreciated course

Beyza Björkman Nylén

Beyza Björkman Nylén is a professor of English, a member of the reference group for open science at the university and is responsible for the doctoral course, which is given together with the University Library. She teaches the course together with Maria Almbro, Lisa Olsson and Sofie Wennström from the library. Beyza Björkman Nylén says that the course given in the spring semester of 2021 was highly appreciated with a large group participating with great interest.

"After the course, all the doctoral students agreed that it is no longer possible to be a doctoral student and plan your research future without knowledge of open science.”

Why should you take the course as a doctoral student?

“You should take the course because open science is important for ethical and democratic reasons. As a doctoral student, there is a responsibility that lies with the researcher to make their research transparent, accessible and reusable as much as possible. Research that is fully or partly publicly funded should, as far as possible, be openly available (according to the university's policy) and as a researcher you must know what this means.”

Beyza Björkman Nylén and the other teachers on the course would like to see that there also should be help for supervisors so they can help their doctoral students about open science.

Important to learn the FAIR principles

Matti Marttinen Larsson
Photo: Max Hesselbrandt

Matti Marttinen Larsson took the course in the spring semester of 2021. At the time, he was a doctoral student at the Department of Romance Studies and Classics, and is currently a postdoc at the Department of Linguistics.
“The most important thing I learned during the course was the FAIR principles*. It was very instructive and useful to learn what they mean and how to reflect on and work in accordance with them during the course of a research project, especially in connection with developing a data management plan and publishing data and code.”

In linguistics, according to Matti Marttinen Larsson, it is becoming increasingly common for journals to request that articles should be published with open data and code to the extent possible.
"It has been very helpful to have the knowledge from the course and the FAIR principles with me when I make data and code available when my research is reviewed and published.”

What is your advice to other doctoral students who are considering taking the course?

"The course is a fun and very effective way to assimilate the knowledge that is increasingly required to be able to publish your research. Therefore, it can be very useful to take this course.”

He believes that the knowledge conveyed can be useful both during the course of the doctoral project and in future research projects.

"My view is that open science is the foundation for future research. Being well acquainted with the fundamentals and principles of open science can be an important investment in your future research career.”
 

*FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. The FAIR principles mean that research data must be findable, there must be information on how to access it, it must be compatible with other data, and it must be possible to reuse.
Read more on FAIR

Doctoral School in the Humanities

Apply for the course no later than 15 December