OpenFest 2024
Our most recent OpenFest took place in September 2024. View details of the events below:
OpenFest 2024: Tuesday 10th September - Thursday 12th September 2024
Co-delivered by the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, OpenFest is our flagship celebration and exploration of open research, providing an opportunity to explore current issues, share experiences, and consider how open research can be applied in your discipline.
Details of our OpenFest 2024 programme, which is now concluded, can be found below.
Recordings of events can be viewed here
Open Research @ Sheffield Day 1 - talks and presentations at the University of Sheffield
Tuesday 10th September, in person with hybrid capability
Our two Open Research @ Sheffield days brought together researchers and research-related staff from the universities of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam to explore current practice, share ideas, and build connections.
This event included a series of talks and presentations that explored current practice and/or areas of development or potential in open research, from sharing the outputs of practice-based research to developing training around reproducible research software. We also showcased some of the successful projects from the recent Unleash Your Data & Software funding competition, as well as exploring the new TUoS Research Culture Strategy & Action Plan. The event culminated in the launch of the University of Sheffield's new Office for Open Research and Scholarship.
View the full programme here.
OpenFest Online Symposium - Towards an Open Research Culture: Establishing, Embedding and Facilitating the Culture/s and Practice/s of Open Research
Wednesday 11 September 2024, Online
To what extent, and in what ways, is the future of research culture open? What practices are and will be central in establishing and embedding a culture of research openness? What factors impede efforts to achieve an open research culture, and how best can researchers and other professionals address these? Our online symposium aimed to create space for colleagues across the UK and internationally to explore these and related ideas.
The symposium included sessions on 'Open research: Geographies, Disparities, In/equalities'; 'Progress towards Openness: Contexts & Conflicts', 'Towards a Culture of Open Research Dissemination' and 'Open Research, Academic Labour and Equity - panel discussion'.
Keynote speaker: Simine Vazire (Professor of Psychology, University of Melbourne)
Where are the self-correcting mechanisms in science?
We often hear the self-correcting mechanisms in science invoked as a reason to trust science, but it is not always clear what these mechanisms are. Some quality control mechanisms, such as peer review for journals, or vetting for textbooks or for public dissemination, have recently been found not to provide much of a safeguard against invalid claims. Instead, I argue that we should look for visible signs of a scientific community's commitment to self-correction. These signs include transparency in the research and peer review process, investment in error detection and quality control, and an emphasis on calibration rather than popularization. We should trust scientific claims more to the extent that they were produced by communities that have these hallmarks of credibility. Fields that are more transparent, rigorous, and calibrated should earn more trust. Meta-science can provide scientists and the public with valuable information in assessing the credibility of scientific fields.
View the full programme here.
Open Research @ Sheffield Day 2 - open research workshops at Sheffield Hallam University
Thursday 12th September 2024, in person, Sheffield Hallam University
This event included workshops on 'Open ALL OERs- Making educational resources open and reusable' and 'Promoting Open Research via different communication channels', as well as the opportunity to build networks and connections between TUoS and Sheffield Hallam.
View the full programme here.