Open Research Conversations: Autumn-Winter 2024/25
Our lunchtime Open Research Conversations are free, online and open to all. Each focuses on a specific aspect of open research and features talks from 2-3 speakers followed by questions and discussion. Book your place below:
Wednesday 23rd October 2024, 12-1pm
Beyond open access: Democratising knowledge through accessible research outputs
While making journal and monograph publications open access is an important step in the democratisation of knowledge, the question remains: to what extent are these outputs, created in the often arcane discourses through which we communicate as researchers, genuinely accessible to the broader public?
In this Open Research Conversation, we explore the work of colleagues who have gone beyond merely making their research publications open, instead pursuing the open dissemination of research in ways that are genuinely accessible beyond the university or research institute.
Three speakers from the University of Sheffield’s research community - Monika Fratczak (Sociological Studies), Susan Oman (Centre for Machine Intelligence), and Andy Tattersall (School of Medicine and Population Health) - will explore the importance of outputs including blog posts, animations and podcasts in the open communication of research.
Book your place here (Eventbrite link)
Wednesday 4th December, 1-2pm
Opening up practice-based research
Practice-based research - including in many arts, humanities and social sciences areas such as sociology, music, theatre and dance - focuses as much on the processes by which outputs are created as on the research outputs themselves. These outputs, moreover, are diverse and occupy a range of media and forms.
However, practice-based research processes and outputs have historically been viewed as less easy to capture and make openly available than those issuing from more quantitative, STEM-focused fields, in part due to the limitations of existing repository infrastructure.
In this Conversation, we hear from researchers and professionals working to address this imbalance, including the SPARKLE ('Sustaining Practice Assets for Research, Knowledge, Learning and Engagement') and PRVoices projects. Speakers include Scott McGlaughlin (School of Music, University of Leeds) and Gregory Sporton (Design, Creative and Digital Industries, University of Westminster).
Book your place here (Eventbrite link)
Wednesday 22nd January, 12-1pm
Everyday researchers: Exploring citizen science
Often overlooked in broader discussions around open research, citizen science involves a different kind of openness to that which we associate with such practices as the open dissemination of outputs.
In this context, ‘open research’ instead means the potential for members of the wider public to contribute to the collection and analysis of data - to become, in other words, members of an inclusive and distributed research team.
In this Open Research Conversation, we’ll hear from researchers with experience of facilitating and leading citizen science projects, exploring the challenges, benefits and unique opportunities such methodologies offer. Speakers will include Jill Edmondson (leader of the citizen science project Measure Your Harvest) and Andrea Jimenez, who will explore her work establishing the Metropolitan Water Observatory, an action-research and citizen science platform for water and data justice.
Book your place here (Eventbrite link)
Wednesday 12th February, 12-1pm
Spotlight on Data Journals
Data journals offer researchers an opportunity to increase the impact of their openly available data by further documenting a dataset and highlighting the possibilities for its exploration and reuse.
In this Open Research Conversation, we’ll explore the phenomenon of data journals from a number of different perspectives and disciplinary contexts. Vanessa Higgins (University of Manchester) will explore her role as editorial board member for the Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences, while University of Sheffield researchers Tecla Bonci (Mechanical Engineering) and Jacob MacDonald (Urban Studies and Planning) discuss their own experiences of publishing in data journals.
Key areas of discussion will include the significance of data journals in Humanities and Social Science as well as STEM disciplines, the aspects and use cases of a dataset that publication in a data journal allows academic authors to showcase, and the impacts that can result in terms of visibility, transparency and collaboration.