Podcast: Open Science Bites

In deze aflevering vertelt epidemioloog dr. Michiel de Boer (Universitair Medisch Centrum Groningen en voorzitter van de stuurgroep van het Netherlands Reproducibility Network) hoe reproducibility de kwaliteit van onderzoek transformeert.

Michiel deelt praktische inzichten over waarom reproduceerbaarheid en preregistratie op de lange termijn tijd kunnen besparen, over handige hulpmiddelen om je onderzoek transparanter te maken, over valkuilen bij het reproduceren van het onderzoek van anderen en over het vinden van een balans tussen institutionele eisen en efficiënte workflows.

Transcript of podcast:

[sound bite/jingle] 

(Quote Michiel): Reproducibility should be a key factor in all your research, in all your projects. Of course, costs time, but it's also shifting the time, and in the end, it can save time.

Podcast host: Welcome to Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen, highlighting best practices and challenges academics experience when being open in their teaching and research.

This episode will focus on reproducibility. 

Reproducibility is a key idea in research. It means that when researchers run the same experiment or analyze the same data again, they should get similar results. It’s closely tied to replicability, and it helps ensure that the research process is transparent, and its findings are reliable and not just a one-time fluke. 

[music break]

Michiel: My name is Michiel de Boer. I work at the Department of Primary Care and long-term care in the UMCG in Groningen. I work there as an epidemiologist or methodologist, and I'm also the chair of the steering group of the Dutch Reproducibility Network

Podcast host: What does being an ‘open’ academic mean to you and what motivates you to prioritize reproducibility?

Michiel: I think being an open academic to me means primarily that you share as much as possible to reduce research waste, that you should be transparent about what you do. And it's also, I think, important because of trustworthiness, to be trustworthy towards society, fellow scientists or researchers. 

So about four years ago, I was asked to set up a Dutch chapter of a reproducibility network, together with other people in the Netherlands. And one and a half years ago, our network launched. I've come to realize in the period in between that there was a lot that I didn't know beforehand about reproducibility, much more than I actually did know. And probably I don't know everything yet. So that was, it's been kind of a journey. And once you get involved, then, you get more interested in this, it as well. So, that sparked my interest only more I think.

Podcast host: Could you tell us about your research project where reproducibility played a key role?

Michiel: I think reproducibility should be a key factor in all your projects, but I have one that makes for quite a nice illustration. It's a project on the effects of a digital consultation tool for general practitioners. It’s a tool where general practitioners can ask clinical questions, and then specialists from the hospital can join in a platform and provide their answers or their advice.

We are doing a study on whether that can improve efficientness of referrals to the hospital And so, primarily that it can prevent so-called unnecessary referrals. And it's quite a complex project with a lot of sub-studies, and we preregistered that, and in the process of writing the protocol for the pre-registration model, that was quite difficult. We had to think a lot about how we were going to do things. And it costs quite some time. But then, when we got to do the study, we also saw that, that it actually saved time because we had a nice, detailed protocol, and in the especially in the analysis phase, where, when we saw that, that most of the tough decisions that we had to make, we already made up front. And we didn't have to make them at the end. Of course, costs a lot of time, but it's also shifting the time, and in the end it can save time.

Podcast host: How did you implement reproducible research methods in your work? What specific tools and practices did you adopt?

Michiel: In terms of implementation in every project, we try to write thorough statistical analysis plans, and that's also a bit of my work, to guide researchers in doing that, we do hopefully good sample size calculations, and we pre-register those analysis plans.

More recently, I've also been involved in writing a preprint or publishing a preprint, so we try to be transparent earlier in the process. And in a couple of projects, we've also done the statistical analysis by two independent analysts. And I think that's also nice. It's a good practice as well, and makes things at least a little bit more robust and hopefully also a bit more reproducible. 

[music/click bite]

Podcast host: What challenges did you face when being reproducible in your own research, and did you also face challenges when trying to reproduce the research of others?

Michiel: We did a project in which we collected individual patient data. So we work with patient data, mostly in the University hospital, and actually, we got data from some fellow researchers from abroad, but also from the Netherlands. But most of the research was unusable for us because of missing what we call metadata. So missing descriptors for the data, the data not being complete. Researchers not knowing anymore how things went and why the data was not complete, etc. I knew that it was going to be difficult but this was really disastrous, so we had to skip part of the project.

[typing sound]

Michiel: Challenges that I encounter myself during my work, as a methodologist, is that I work with statistical software like SPSS or Stata, and that's all behind the paywall. So in principle, it's not really FAIR then. So if you can share your code, but not everybody can use it, and it's really hard to change that, because people are used to working with the software.

Podcast host: What kind of support did you get or would you like to have gotten?

Michiel: So we've had some really good experiences with our Digital Competence Center in writing our data management plan. They provided really nice support. I actually think that most of the support that we need as researchers is in place, either within our institutions or,  in terms of tools and a lot of videos, or help, or facts or whatever. But it's sometimes hard for researchers, I think, to find their way in what is out there. And I think one thing that could really be improved is making the process a little bit more efficient for researchers. So now, for instance, in my institution, in the workflow that researchers have, they have to register their study in the portal, and they have to write a data management plan, but also a protocol for the medical ethical committee, and then we want to have a pre-registration protocol. And all these things contain overlapping information, but we have to do it in different forms, and you can partly copy it and partly not in its all extra burden and extra work. And that's what, frankly, pisses some of my colleagues off, and which is understandable, I think, so there's really room for improvement.

I think maybe one really simple solution would be if we just have everything in a portal, like the Open Science Framework, for instance, why not just provide the link to that in all our systems, and then it would just be registering one link and not writing all these or filling out all these forms that we have. But things like that could be quite easily implemented.

Podcast host: What advice would you give fellow researchers who want to make their work more reproducible?

Michiel: If you start to think about reproducibility, and you start to study a little bit of what reproducibility enhances or encompasses, then it might feel overwhelming in the beginning. You have to do all these new things, and it all costs time to learn that. So I always advise to start small, take one step at a time, start with a pre-registration or with a better data management plan than you already have, or with maybe putting up a preprint or etc, and then let it evolve from that.

Podcast host: Have you received any feedback from colleagues on your practices, or have you received feedback from them wanting to reproduce your research?

Michiel: I get a lot of feedback, especially, I think, from my role in the reproducibility network. I think all most of my colleagues are also either enthusiastic or at least open to it. And I think I also see that gradually our practices are becoming more reproducible, so that's nice.

And if you're talking about the reuse of my own data, unfortunately, I haven't encountered that, and I think that's also very common yet. So reusability or reuse of data is still very uncommon, and I also think it has to do with multiple things. So one thing is that we see that replications are far from standard yet, so for that purpose data is not often reused. I also think that if you want to use data for another purpose, some of the data that's out there is really not suited for that purpose, and it was collected for a certain research question, and that's just it. There's not much else to do with it, and that's fine as well. And then the other reason is that, yeah, I think the data that we do collect and we do have could be more FAIR yet, so I don't think it's always findable yet and accessible to people. So that's also something we have to work on still. So there's, I think, enough work to do for me and my colleagues as well.

[Jingle] 

Podcast host: This was Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen. 

Thank you very much for listening. Join us for our next episode.

Open Science Bites is produced by the University of Groningen Library, with technical support of Wim Brons.

In tegenstelling tot kwantitatief onderzoek, waar replicatie vaak eenvoudiger is, brengt kwalitatief onderzoek unieke uitdagingen met zich mee. In deze aflevering deelt dr. Sarahanne Field, universitair docent aan de Faculteit Gedrags- en Maatschappijwetenschappen, hoe zij de reproduceerbaarheid van kwalitatief onderzoek herdefinieert. Ze verkent praktische benaderingen om onderzoeksprocessen zichtbaar te maken, gaat in op uitdagingen bij het ethisch delen van transcripties en benadrukt het belang van duidelijke methodologische rapportage in kwalitatieve onderzoeken.

Transcript of podcast:

[sound bite/jingle] 

(Quote Sarahanne): You don't make your stuff open and reproducible and accessible for any other reason than that you think that’s the right thing to do. If everyone did it, we would end up in a very different place with our scientific reliability than we would be now. 

Podcast host: Welcome to Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen, highlighting best practices and challenges academics experience when being open in their teaching and research.

This episode will focus on science reform. 

Science reform refers to efforts by researchers to improve research by addressing issues like reproducibility, publication bias, and incentives. It promotes open science, better peer review, and transparency in funding and publishing. 

[music break]

Sarahanne: My name is Sarahanne Field. I'm an assistant professor at the University of Groningen in the pedagogy department. Very broadly, I work in science reform, and I would consider myself a meta-scientist.

Podcast host: What does being an ‘open’ academic mean to you, and what motivates you to prioritize reproducibility?

Sarahanne: I started working in science reform-related topics back in the end of 2013 at the end of my undergraduate, because I came across the issue of replication and thought, oh my goodness, everything we know is a lie. And so for me, that's where my academic career basically started. And I've never left. For me, being an open academic is just simply a way of life. I'm interested in opening what I do and making it clear to everyone who's interested how I got to the results I got to.

Podcast host: How do you implement reproducible research methods in your work? What specific tools and practices do you adopt?

Sarahanne: So I think thinking about how I view reproducibility for qualitative research, it's a tricky one, because it really does look different to quantitative research. So for me, the idea is not so much that people can necessarily exactly copy what I've done and find the same findings, because qualitative research is all about interpretation, and it's very subjective. But what I am interested in is allowing the possibility for other people to follow my steps and to be able to verify what I've done by following my steps, by understanding what I've done through my contextual notes. So I use reflexivity. I use positionality to essentially illuminate where I sit in the research process. And I think just having a lot of transparency and really making as much of that path through the research process visible to others. That's what I see as reproducibility for qualitative, because, this whole idea of replication in the way that it's meant for quantitative, it just doesn't apply, not in the same way. So making that path clear to others is for me, very central to how I work.

[music/soundbite]

Podcast host: Reproducibility is considered as a sign of scientific rigor in quantitative methods. What do you consider rigorous in your field, and how is rigor established in qualitative research?

Sarahanne: Yeah, so the traditional sort of ways of producing rigorous qualitative research involve things like trying to triangulation, where you use multiple different sources to triangulate on an interpretation. You use member checking, which is where you involve people, for example, you've interviewed, in the checking that the interpretation that you've produced is valid from their perspective. For example, reflexivity is another one. So reflexivity is a process by a continuous process, by which you situate yourself in the research project and understand your role as a researcher and how that might influence how things about yourself might influence your findings, so they're the sort of the three pronged approach to traditional, rigorous qualitative research. For me, beyond these things, it's a matter of really making my process transparent, really shining a light on what I have done, how I got to the findings I got to. We don't have to agree about the interpretation, but if you can follow the steps I followed, and think you know what that actually makes sense, I can see how you got there. That, for me, is exactly right.

[music/soundbite break]

Podcast host: What challenges do you face when being reproducible in your own research, and do you also face challenges when trying to reproduce the research of others?

Sarahanne: I'm still not there, understanding how you can make your research data. If you want to call that, let's just say transcripts, research material, research outputs, like interview transcripts, for instance, or focus group transcripts. That's primarily what I work with, how to make those sufficiently anonymous, but also not let them lose the context and the important kind of trappings of the co-production process. 

And so balancing those two things is very hard. But another challenge I face is understanding how I can best share the qualitative data. So say, the transcripts, what databases can I use, and how do they work with, you know, platforms to protect those data. To me, that's a bit of a quagmire already. There's so many different possibilities, and how do you go, and where do you go, and how do you ask for help? And that's tough, you know? And I've been doing qualitative research since I think 2015 or 2016, and I still don't really know.

Podcast host: What kind of support do you get or would you like to receive?

Sarahanne: It would be really nice to have a dedicated person who works with qualitative researchers to walk them through what the possibilities are for sharing qualitative data. There's a lot of different options that are possible, but how do you access them and how do you use them appropriately. How do you essentially share qualitative data with the utmost ethical process? I would really like to have access to someone who would be able to walk me through that for the first time so that I can know it for myself, so I cannot for my students. So like a consultant or something at the library, for instance, that would be able to just have access and know these platforms and these repositories, how they work, that would be great.

Podcast host: What advice would you give to fellow researchers who want to make their own qualitative research more reproducible?

Sarahanne: I would say write a method section. And I know that sounds weird, because, of course, you write a method section, but I've come across plenty of qualitative articles in the scientific literature that do not have a method section. I find that wild, because if you, for example, share your qualitative data, say you share interview transcripts, if you do not also share the process by which you got those transcripts, I have no idea of how to verify that process that you went through, because qualitative research is not all about the data at the end of the day. It's about that road you take to get there that's very important. It's valuable, and it also relates to who you are as a researcher and what you bring to the table for this particular research. So, to not have a method section is to completely miss out on explaining that road you've taken. So write a method section, a really good one with lots of detail about you and about how you follow this, this process, and how you co-produced these data. That's one big tip that I think is sometimes underestimated

[music/soundbite]

Podcast host: Have other researchers responded to your research practices or to your approach? Have you received any feedback? 

Sarahanne: No. I think partly it's just that people don't. We're not used to using, reusing, reproducing qualitative research. I think people simply just maybe don't expect to be able to try and reproduce qualitative research. 

Podcast host: Do you think policy measures could play a role in promoting greater reproducibility or other open science practices in research, beyond the efforts of individual researchers?

Sarahanne: In theory, it's a nice idea, but I think in practice, it can get a little sticky, and I personally prefer that this is a little bit more of a bottom up kind of thing that people think, Hey, this is a really good idea. I'm going to do this because I think it's important, because it aligns with my philosophy of science

I think we're getting to the point now where we're thinking, hey, this is a possibility. Hey, I can do this with my students. We can try and reproduce. I mean, that's what I do with my master's students and my bachelor students. We're the replication team, and we replicate qualitative research. So I think that's partly a generational thing, but I think the thing is too that we make our research reproducible, partly as a labor of love to their community. And that sounds so dorky, but I really mean it. You don't make your stuff open and reproducible, and accessible. You don't make it fair for any other reason that you think that that's the right thing to do, that you want, if people want to that they have the possibility of reproducing your work.

I think if everyone did it, we would end up in a very different place with our scientific reliability than we would be now. So we do it because it's the right thing to do, and I think that push should exist even if no one ever looks at the data.

[Jingle] 

Podcast host: This was Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen. 

Thank you very much for listening. Join us for our next episode.

Open Science Bites is produced by the University of Groningen Library, with technical support of Wim Brons.

Het reproduceren van onderzoek is een hoeksteen van goede wetenschap, maar het bevordert zelden een carrière, zegt Felipe Romero, universitair docent en wetenschapsfilosoof. In deze aflevering bespreekt hij waarom het reproduceren van onderzoek en wetenschappelijke resultaten ondergewaardeerd wordt, hoe het onderwerp de afgelopen jaren aan terrein heeft gewonnen, en wat er moet veranderen om deze praktijk onderdeel te maken van de dagelijkse manier van onderzoek doen.

Transcript of podcast:

[sound bite/jingle] 

(Quote Felipe): Nobody makes a career repeating what their colleagues are doing. So that doesn't give you a top publication. So that doesn't lead you to replicate your own work or to try to replicate the work of others.

Podcast host: Welcome to Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen, highlighting best practices and challenges academics experience when being open in their teaching and research.

This episode will focus on reproducibility. 

Reproducibility is a key idea in research. It means that when researchers run the same experiment or analyze the same data again, they should get similar results. It’s closely tied to replicability, and it helps ensure that the research process is transparent, and its findings are reliable and not just a one-time fluke. 

[music as break]

Felipe: I am Felipe Romero, I'm a philosopher of science working at the Faculty of Philosophy here at the University of Groningen. I work on issues related to explanations, scientific progress, scientific error and  I focus mostly on social, behavioral and biomedical science. 

Podcast host: Do you consider yourself an 'open' academic, and what does that mean to you personally?

Felipe: I would say yes, there is this line of thought in the philosophy of science that says that knowledge and scientific knowledge in particular is best pursued by collectively criticizing each other's work and that exercise of criticizing work is best done when we make it easier for others to criticize work. So that's where the openness comes in. 

Podcast host: What drew you to study science through the lens of reproducibility?

Felipe: That happened around the year 2011 when I was doing my PhD. At the time I was studying methodology and statistics, and this was the moment where many important and worrisome failures to replicate came to light, and then I thought why aren't philosophers paying attention to this? This was really fascinating for me. The published record is not trustworthy. What are the implications of these for how we do science? And at the time I thought the implications are not merely for scientists doing their work. They are also interesting philosophical questions that need attention. What does it mean to say that science progresses? What does it mean to say that science self-corrects all of these questions? I thought as a philosopher we are interested in and worth paying attention to.  

Podcast host: You study how the social organization of research affects scientific outcomes. What social or other factors most strongly influence reproducibility?

Felipe: I would say that the interest and obsession that we have with novelty, so making engaging stories about new findings that something that researchers want, that society wants and that counters against the interest in replication, because well, replication in many cases is not novel work. So nobody makes a career repeating what their colleagues are doing. So that doesn't give you a top publication. So that doesn't lead you to replicate your own work or to try to replicate the work of others. And in a more positive way, some factors that have a positive impact are material incentives, having the right conditions for replication work to happen. So those are things that matter a lot to replication becoming more mainstream. The Netherlands has had some success in that respect. There have been some funding pilots for replication projects, dedicated programs, funding schemes to encourage replication projects. And then what these pilots illustrate is that when there are resources to do this work, researchers get interested and start doing this work. 

Podcast host: Do you think it's still fair to talk about a replication crisis, or has science moved on into a new phase?

Felipe: I think the discussion is broader now and I think that's good that the focus is not only on replication, so there are more practices that people pay attention to open science practices, more broadly speaking. There are also more fields involved at the beginning. The discussions replication were focused mostly on psychology. Now the discussion has broadened way beyond that and that's positive. Perhaps in a less positive way, you can see that some people have gotten a bit tired of the topic, like having that annoying relative always bringing up the same topic again and again and again. So I wouldn't say that we are yet in a new phase. I would say that it is good that people are aware of the problem. It is good that people know about open science, but open science is more an option and something that people can decide to do rather than standard practice. So, for us to be able to talk about a new phase, I think the idea of replicability and good practices, open science should be internalized by most people in the community. And I don't think that's happening yet. And an example of this is that we are having this conversation, this is intended to bring people's attention to these issues. So, more activism and more initiatives are needed for these ideals to be internalized by more scientists.

Podcast host: What gives you hope about the future of reproducibility and open science?

Felipe: There is a saying by Max Planck that science progresses one funeral at a time, and I think that's very valid in this context. It gives hope because there's a new generation that has been trained thinking about these issues and being mindful of reproducibility concerns from day one. I think that 10 years ago, there were these discussions about whether cultural change was possible at all because scientists were used to do science in one particular way. But I think the new generation shows that cultural change is possible and it's already happening. There are many early careers scholars that really care about these practices. And the question is whether they're going to maintain those ideals once they reach positions of power, are they going to live up to their open science ideals once they have leadership positions. So that's something that is yet to see.  

Podcast host: What would you recommend to ensure that replication becomes an integral part of scientific practice?

Felipe: I think that the big picture point that I have written about is putting your money where your words are. So if you care about replication projects, if you care about open science, then you should create the conditions for this kind of science to happen. I think it's a bit naive and counterproductive to expect science to progress out of individuals, love for science or individual goodwill. So in an environment in which you can make a career doing what scientists traditionally have done for decades, but you also care about open science, you can be in a competitive disadvantage. And from a more practical perspective, so thinking here about the university context, I think adjusting many of our practices to take this into account is possible. For instance, thinking about how hiring practices promote open science, so hiring people who are already on board with good practices and good science, so that's a step in the right direction. Adjusting tenure promotion guidelines, for instance, to reward replication work to reward open science, so that's something that I also think is a step in the right direction.

Using the metrics that we care about whenever we do these evaluations, are we going to care about raw publication numbers, publication counts, or are we going to care about looking at the quality of research? So these are things that from a practical perspective at the university, we can think more about. 

Podcast host: Have other researchers responded to your research on reproducibility?

Felipe: Yes, so I think I have managed to convince some philosophers that these issues are important, that these are not mere aspects of the practice of science that we can dismiss and just think, well, you know, scientists should clean up their act and that's a problem. I have discussed to some extent how these relate to broader philosophical concerns.

Some of my work is being used in teaching, and it's good to hear colleagues in philosophy of science saying that they are telling their students to read some of my work on these topics. That has been positive.

Also from the sciences, I have had positive reactions that there is this initial fear that many philosophers of science have, which is, well, there is this humanities person coming here to criticize and pontificate and lecture us about what to do and what not to do. But I think the response hasn't been that in this case, and I think the reason is that many fields and in particular psychology, which is the field that I interact with the most, have this interest in improving what they do and a genuine concern and a genuine worry that they, in many cases, don't know what to do. So they have looked elsewhere to other fields, including philosophy, to find alternative perspectives on how to do better science. 

[Jingle] 

Podcast host: This was Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen. 

Thank you very much for listening. Join us for our next episode.

Open Science Bites is produced by the University of Groningen Library, with technical support of Wim Brons.

Alberto Godioli, universitair hoofddocent European culture and literature aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, deelt zijn visie op en ervaringen met public engagement.
Voor zijn door de NWO gefinancierede onderzoeksproject 'Humor in Court' ontwikkelt Alberto een beleidsgerichte toolkit voor rechters, een tentoonstelling en een website met toegankelijke analyses van recente humor-gerelateerde rechtszaken.

Transcript of podcast:

[Jingle/sound bite]

(Quote Alberto): It's often hard for international researchers, especially early to mid-career, to engage with the national media in the Netherlands. This is mostly due, I think, to a lack of contacts and to the fact that Dutch journalists tend to mostly contact Dutch researchers so as to avoid potential language barriers to begin with, which makes a lot of sense, of course, but this also makes it difficult or sometimes nearly impossible for international scholars and researchers to share their work with the Dutch public.

[jingle] 

Podcast host: Welcome to Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen, highlighting best practices and challenges academics experience when being open in their teaching and research.

This episode will focus on public engagement. Public engagement stands for social and public involvement. It describes the many ways in which the activities and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with a wide audience. Think of it as a meaningful dialogue between the public and science. 

[music break] 

Alberto: My name is Alberto Godioli, and I am an associate professor in European culture and literature here at the University of Groningen. And I am currently the principal investigator of a research project funded by the NWO called Humor in Court.

Podcast host: What does being an open academic mean to you? And what motivated you to engage in public engagement?

Alberto: First of all, on a general level, I think it's just vital for academics and researchers at large to open up to the general public and to work towards a relationship of trust and transparency with the public. This is, I think, especially important in times when misinformation and skepticism towards expertise are on the rise. And times in which extreme opinions about general societal issues tend to prevail over nuance and accuracy.

I think some additional motivations for public engagement, in particular, come from the specific topic of our research, which is humor and freedom of expression. So in other words, we analyze what courts of law do when they deal with jokes, memes or cartoons in the context of free speech, jurisprudence. And this is a theme that comes with a lot of potential but also with big responsibilities, let's say, for public engagement, as most people can relate to these topics. 

Podcast host: Could you please describe your example of Public Engagement and why you developed the project?

Alberto: I am currently working, and we are working as a team, on more of a cluster of interrelated Public Engagement initiatives rather than one single initiative. And they are all part of this Humor in Court project that I am coordinating.

Number one, first of all, in 2022, we created a website called ForHum - for humor and the Law, www forhum.org, so like forum, but with an h in the middle for hum, and the website features a blog with accessible analyses of recent cases, as well as an open database with all the humor-related legal cases we can find from all over the world. And this is meant as a resource for the general public on the one hand, but also for lawyers or judges who are looking for precedents and parallels for a case they might be working on. 

The second initiative is a policy-oriented toolkit for judges, but also for social media content moderators, featuring ideally some workable guidelines on how to deal with humor in free speech, jurisprudence and online moderation as well. 

Lastly, last but not least, the third initiative I'd like to mention is a travelling exhibition on cartoons and the law, which will tell the story of this complicated relationship between cartooning, censorship and law courts from the 18th century to the present. This is also something we are working on at the moment, thanks to some extra funding that we received from the University of Groningen. And it should be launched in spring 2025. 

[music/sound bite] 

Podcast host: What obstacles did you encounter? 

Alberto: So with regards to engaging with societal stakeholders, the main challenge was and still is to some extent that of finding a common language. So, in other words, finding a way to translate our research findings into concrete and workable policy points. This is vital, for example, when it comes to our Toolkit project, which aims to provide clear guidelines that can be used by judges in specific legal cases concerning humor and jokes. So we are really trying to involve our partners in every step of the process, rather than just in the stage of dissemination, let's say. 

Secondly, with regard to engaging with the general public, I will say the main obstacle for us and for me is that humor, free speech and the limits of freedom of expression are clearly highly sensitive topics. So our research in that sense is often, are always, under risk, potentially of being distorted, simplified, or instrumentalized, or politicized. So a couple of years ago, for example, a journalist from De Telegraaf, wrote a column that was based on a complete misrepresentation of our projects, which led to a long stream of online attacks, and insults, and threats and so on. So I guess in this case, the best thing that we can do is to keep calm, share links to actual sources, make our research open and accessible in such a way that the readers can decide for themselves and try and engage in a constructive dialogue with those who are willing to do so.

Podcast host: What kind of support did you get? Or what support would you have liked to get at the university?

Alberto: We have received excellent support. I will say for the University of Groningen, for all of our public engagement ideas, really, in particular, the seed fund from the Open Science program is a great way to kickstart a public engagement project. Most of the time, you don't really need, I think, a huge amount of money to achieve your goals in terms of public engagement. It's more important to start with a good idea and then have some starting budget. And I also received, and we also received as a team, some great help from the science communication team and the Faculty of Arts specifically. 

And as for support that I would like to receive, the main pending issue, in my view, or at least as far as my own experience is concerned, is that it's often hard for international researchers, especially early to mid-career, to engage with the national media in the Netherlands. So some help in that respect would definitely be useful. And this is mostly due, I think, to lack of contacts and to the fact that that Dutch journalists tend to mostly contact Dutch researchers at so as to avoid potential language barriers to begin with, which makes a lot of sense of course, but this also makes it difficult or sometimes nearly impossible for international scholars and researchers to share their work with the Dutch public, which is a pity I think. And as a result of that, many of us international researchers live in a bit of a limbo in terms of media engagement, as we aren't really in the radar of the Dutch media, but we don't necessarily have contacts with our respective national media either because we have been working abroad for too long. So this is an area where some improvements could be made, perhaps, and some additional support would be very welcome in my opinion, and could really make a difference.

Podcast host: How did your target group react? Have you ever received, for example, any responses from judges?

Alberto: When it comes to our website and the database of legal cases, we received quite a few expressions of interest and useful comments from our key stakeholders that are really the target specialized audience, let's say, such as judges and free speech organizations. 

We also organized many events which were open to the general public, and in those cases, we had some fruitful debates which really helped us shape the scope and priorities of the project. 

Podcast host: Do you have any tips for colleagues who want to get started in public engagement?

Alberto: To me, it remains the most important thing to keep in mind, and that is to always think of public engagement as a two-way street. So not only engaging with the public or with societal partners as a way to disseminate your research after the research is done, but to really think of public engagement as something that can also shape and enrich your own research and your own research plan. So it's a bit of a feedback loop. 

And my other tip is to always seize the opportunity to discuss your research with non-specialists. As this really helps in terms of thinking outside the box, trying to put your thoughts in order and identifying new ways in which your research can contribute to broader societal debates.

[Jingle] 

Podcast host: This was Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen. 

Thank you very much for listening.

Join us for our next episode on public engagement with Stefano Bertorini from Campus Fryslân. 

Open Science Bites is produced by the University of Groningen Library, with technical support of Wim Brons.

In deze aflevering deelt Stefano Bertorini, promovendus aan de Campus Fryslân van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, zijn visie op en ervaringen met public engagement. Voor zijn onderzoeksproject ontwikkelde Stefano workshops voor Nederlandse boeren om naar hun ervaringen te luisteren en hen te begeleiden bij het ontwikkelen van nieuwe bedrijfsmodellen in regeneratieve landbouw.

Transcript of podcast:

[Jingle/soundbite] 

(Quote Stefano): Being an open academic means more than publishing papers. In my case, it's being on the farm. It’s listening to different people inside and outside academia. And thinking together on how farm business models can be more regenerative. It's involving farmers in the research process by listening to their experiences. I will say that, in short, it is breaking down barriers between academic fields and connecting academic knowledge with the real world of the farmers.

Podcast host: Welcome to Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen, highlighting best practices and challenges academics experience when being open in their teaching and research.

This episode will focus on public engagement. Public engagement stands for social and public involvement. It describes the many ways in which the activities and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with a wide audience. Think of it as a meaningful dialogue between the public and science.

[music break] 

Stefano: My name is Stefano Bertorini, I am a PhD candidate at the University of Groningen, and I want to help farmers, the government, and other businesses to go beyond industrial agriculture. 

Podcast host: In this episode, Stefano shares his experience with public engagement and gives advice about engaging with stakeholders and the public.

Podcast host: What motivated you to engage in public engagement?

Stefano: When I was starting my PhD, the protests of the farmers for the new ecological regulations were all over the place. And in fact, industrial agriculture needs to change, but farmers have been pushed against the wall with sometimes super hard or even impossible expectations. And they are not happy, as we can see in the protest. But I remember that in a survey that I listed with them, they said one of the main things was that they felt that they were not listened to, they didn't feel listened to, and that they didn't have a say in the transition. And of course, this fostered even more resistance and reaction to change. 

At the same time, I came across a tool from the Doughnut Economics Action Lab that was designed to help organizations, startups, family businesses, or even big companies to transition to regenerative and distributive designs. I learned that the tool was a workshop, and that immediately sparked something. I saw that there was an opportunity to use this tool, this workshop, to connect with these farmers that felt that they were not heard, because I do believe that they have a lot to say, we have a lot to learn from them. And also at the same time because this was a workshop designed to help farmers, I thought that maybe this can be a nice way to give them something to take home.

Podcast host: Could you please describe your example of Public Engagement and why you developed the project?

Stefano: So we chose this approach, because workshops are like dynamic conversations, then they can help us to learn a lot and solve problems. Workshops – I saw them as a fun way to create knowledge together. And I think that this kind of deep thinking and understanding might be harder to get with other types of data collection. So and this goes, yes, it goes beyond just gathering good data. For me going in this direction was also to get, to put into practice and show a new tool, the one designed by the Doughnut Economics Action Lab, figure out with the farmers what is holding them and finally give them something tangible to take home to actually implement, even in the very early stage of my own research. But above all, I think that this approach allows me to contribute my small part for the transition.

[sound bite]

Podcast host: How did you get in touch with these farmers, and was there a lot of interest for your workshop?

Stefano: Yes, it actually was challenging at the beginning because I am not from the Netherlands. So having this first contact with the farmers was extremely challenging for me. At the beginning of last year, I offered myself to go to a farm and work in the farm just to have a little space after with the farmers to talk and get to know and actually build trust with them. Actually, it was an amazing experience. I was not able to walk the next day, but it was very nice to work on the farm. 

And after that, I was lucky to have one contact that my professor gave me, and we have some meetings to explain and say Hey, can you help me? And the first meeting was like wow, this - we don't see how this can be useful for farmers. So in the next meeting, it was okay, let's go even more, more friendly and more simple. Explain little by little the benefits. And yeah, that was how, when it worked, and now … yeah, I have the first workshop the first of February. And the second workshop is on the third of March. So yeah, that is great. But yeah, it was a very, it was a learning process to get to pass from the world of academia to actually have something tangible and nice and unbreakable, that people just like, are willing to do and engage.

Podcast host: What obstacles did you encounter? 

Stefano: Also something important there is to build trust with them to build trust and say, Yeah, I came with all my papers. I will come with all my papers that you have to sign of all the things that we have to do when we do research, but at the same time, be nice and build that trust and actually it's very important to us so well in my case is a little bit different, because I really want to help in the transition, but we really need to transfer that to them and make them believe you that actually you are on the their side and that trust is an obstacle but at the same time it's a challenge we need to overcome. 

The next barrier definitely was the fact of the language. We are doing the workshops in Dutch, because my co-author of the future paper is Dutch and he's going to do the workshops. And that is great. I was very lucky to have the opportunity to have this coauthor. And when I say yeah, the workshops are in Dutch, like the eyes of the people and their faces change. It's like okay, yeah, let's go. And that's a huge thing, it’s important. But yeah, I think that it's an obstacle, but there are solutions, as the ones I have and so yeah, it was okay. 

I really feel that the fact that I am not from the Netherlands, I am actually from Peru, the fact that I am from a totally different country actually adds a different fresh perspective. I am used to a totally different type of agriculture in Peru, more rural, not at all industrialized. So it's interesting to bring these new ideas.

Podcast host: What kind of support did you get? Or what support would you have liked to get at the university?

Stefano: My supervisor has been very, very nice with me. They helped me a lot to make something that is feasible to do interesting, and actually that can have an impact. I think that the public engagement Seed Fund of the RUG has been great, because actually it allowed me to scale my initial ideas in a way that actually can have a quick impact. And that was very nice. And finally I will say that outside academia, there is a great community of farmers that already exist and there is a lot going on in the Netherlands in regenerative farming if you look, and yeah the energy of those groups are amazing. We have, I think, a lot to learn from them.

Podcast host: Do you have any tips for colleagues who want to get started in public engagement?

Stefano: So the first thing I will say is that this idea of public engagement is a matter of mindset. Because doing more practical research as those that are related to public engagement, offer opportunities for data collection that really other research methods do not offer. So I really think that is something interesting to consider. 

And my second I don't know if it's a recommendation but keep an eye out for the competition's offered by the RUG and probably other organization's because I think like the fact of participating in those things, or design a proposal for those things actually can have a big impact on your own research because this can - as it happened to me - give you new ideas of how to design your your research. And open new doors that you maybe didn't know that you were there. And also competing for, and also I think it's nice to participate in the competition for the opportunity to actually scale up your projects and actually, even if possible, have a quick impact before you even have a full written paper and I think that's nice.

[Jingle] 

Podcast host: This was Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen. 

Thank you very much for listening.

Join us for our next episode.

Open Science Bites is produced by the University of Groningen Library, with technical support of Wim Brons.

In deze aflevering delen Laura Postma, kinderarts, en Loes van Hoogdalem en Noor Saathof, twee verpleegkundestudenten, hun ervaringen met patiëntenparticipatie. Voor haar onderzoeksproject heeft Laura twaalf verpleegkundestudenten betrokken bij het analyseren en interpreteren van kwalitatieve interviewdata van jonge patiënten. Samen met twee van deze studenten, Loes en Noor, kijkt ze terug op haar ervaringen.

Transcript of podcast:

[Jingle/sound bite]

(Quote Loes): Being in a room full of doctors or nurses can be so scary. And you know, you see the point of view from the patient, and also you can give your opinion about it. It's very beautiful.

(Quote Laura): I want to involve the young people and children that I'm doing research for, and not only as a participant, but also as a researcher.

Podcast host: Welcome to Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen, highlighting best practices and challenges academics experience when being open in their teaching and research.

This episode will focus on public engagement. Public engagement stands for social and public involvement. It describes the many ways in which the activities and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with a wide audience. Think of it as a meaningful dialogue between the public and science.

[music as break]

Loes and Noor (student guests): My name is Loes Hoogthalen; I'm Noor Saathoff, and we joined this program, because Laura introduced it at our school.

Laura: I'm Laura Postma. When I performed this project, I was a medicine student and now I'm a doctor. 

Podcast host: In this episode, Laura, a paediatrician, and Loes and Noor, two nurse apprentices, share their experience with patient engagement.

Medical data is almost always interpreted for and by adult researchers, even when it comes to data derived from young people or children. For this project, twelve practically trained young people to become nurses were actively involved in analyzing and interpreting qualitative interview data, providing valuable perspectives to the research team.

Podcast host: What does being an open academic mean to you, Laura?

Laura: Well, it means that, for me, that the research that you're doing is open to the ones you're doing it for. So for me, I'm a pediatrician, a researcher. So that means that I want to involve the young people and children that I'm doing research for, and not only as a participant, but also as a researcher.

So I think it's important to know what is important for them to study and what are their questions that they think need to be studied. And also. to involve them in the research itself. So involve them in, um, the data analysis and implementations of your results.

Podcast host: What motivated you to engage in public engagement?

Laura: In medicine, we call it patient and public involvement because it's more about the patients. First I thought research is all I started with what is important for the patients, but after a while I figured out that most of the time researchers decide what to study and it's not the patients that decide what to study.

So I figured out that in medicine adults are involved more in what they think is important to study about, and children or young people aren't.

[chatter sound]

Podcast host: How did you get students involved and willing to participate?

Laura: I contacted different schools because I wanted the young people to have more interest in medicine in the first place. And I know nurses have an interest in medicine. Um, and then, um, I came to the school and I told about the project and what the project was like and that it was a great opportunity for them to learn from us and that I could learn from them and that I would make sure that it was a fun activity for them as well. And yeah, luckily it worked because I got a group of 12 students. So they were all very interested.

Noor: I really wanted to participate because she had such a nice idea about involving young people. And I think nowadays sometimes young people are a little bit forgotten. And also because it was about young people and children. And so Our ideas, um, would really complement, uh, young people's ideas as well.

Podcast host: Why did you as an aspiring nurse decide to participate in this?

Loes: It looks very good on your cv, of course. It's, uh, nice because you also have some experience in the UMCG in the hospital. And I think because both of us really wanted to work in the UMCG and a lot of the people in my class, it's like a step forward. 

Podcast host: Laura, did you see a different approach by the young people in analyzing the data?

Laura: From the analysis with, young people I did. There were differences as well, because I analyzed the, the data in a different way, first of all, they were very more creative in doing the analysis, and they used more categories. So I learned from that a lot as well.

Podcast host: Laura, what kind of support did you get or would you like to have gotten at the UG/UMCG and/or outside?

Laura: I received the public engagement encouragement fund of the University of Groningen and I gained around 5000 euros to make the project work. And that made a lot of a difference because then I could arrange a nice location and we could have dinner together because,  we couldn't do it during the daytimes because the students are in school, of course. So, um, I was very happy with the support.

Podcast host: Do you have any tips for colleagues who want to get started with PE?

Laura: I think in general, just ask your target group. If it is in medicine, just ask your patients if they want to be involved in your research. Your plan can be fluid because the nice thing about this is that you can collaborate with them and ask what are your ideas to make this work.

Podcast host: And what have you learned or gained from the project, Noor and Loes?

Loes: I think the thing that was central was that we got to share our opinions about what we thought was important. I think that is the most beautiful thing we learned because It really gave us an opportunity to just, you know, say what we think and not always look at our professional state. But also maybe, you know, you can just look at it as a 16 year old girl at the time just thinking, wow…if I was 15 and I had this disease, maybe I would think of it like that.

So you get like a very good insight in what it's like to be, uh, as well, a sick girl at a convention with all kinds of doctors. That was one of the causes we discussed, uh, of course, that the privacy, no name. But you know, you could really get into the girl that Laura had an interview with. And that was very, yeah, it was a beautiful insight because it's so different for people like that.

Noor: Yeah. And I think if I look back at it right now, I think at the beginning of the research, I will be a little bit held back about giving my opinion. And then there was a turning point where I was like, no, if my opinion is never wrong, so I can give my opinion.

Podcast host: Did you receive any feedback, and how do you look back on your experience?

Laura: my colleagues were all always asking, what exactly are you doing? What is is this topic? Because in medicine, you're used to studying an illness or rike comparing medicine together with each other. And I was always like the, a little bit the weird one because I was doing something totally different. And at the time I had the feeling that I had to explain myself over and over again.

And now in like five years. I think they are more like Oh, can you tell me more about your project now? Because I have to involve patients myself now because like funding agencies are asking to involve patients and I know you were doing that. So please, can you tell me about it? How, how do I need to do this?

Noor: I think the best feedback we can give anyone is just get a lot of different people to participate. Like, it doesn't matter if they're high educated or not or anything, just if you think that they fit in your research, just trying to get them in your research. Because it doesn't, in the end, it doesn't really matter who the person is because we have all our own opinions and all our own thoughts. So I think that's the most important thing.

I think that I've learned that it's really important also to listen to my patients or to the people who I work with, because they have a lot to say, even though they does not say a lot. Just let them tell you what they need to tell you.

Loes: Yeah, and also, being in a room full of doctors or nurses can be so scary. And you know you see the point of view from the patient and also you can give your opinion about it. It's very beautiful. 

[Jingle] 

Podcast host: This was Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen. 

Thank you very much for listening.

Join us for our next episode. 

Open Science Bites is produced by the University of Groningen Library, with technical support of Wim Brons.

In deze aflevering benadrukt Bettina van Hoven, universitair hoofddocent culturele geografie aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, het belang van relaties en samenwerking in onderzoek. Voor het project Being and Becoming Disabled werkte ze nauw samen met mensen met een beperking als co-onderzoekers, waarbij ze zich richtte op de toegankelijkheid in de stedelijke ruimte, zoals in Groningen, met als doel om maatschappelijke perspectieven te verschuiven.

Transcript of podcast:

[jingle/sound bite]

(Quote Bettina): If we are serious about making visible the lives of marginalized groups, I think we have to also be prepared to stretch the boundaries of what researchers maybe are supposed to be. 

Podcast host: Welcome to Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen, highlighting best practices and challenges academics experience when being open in their teaching and research.

This episode will focus on public engagement. Public engagement stands for social and public involvement. It describes the many ways in which the activities and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with a wide audience. Think of it as a meaningful dialogue between the public and science.

[music break]

Bettina: My name is Bettina van Hoven. I'm a cultural geographer, and I currently work at the University College Groningen, which is a liberal arts and sciences program. 

Podcast host: In this episode, Bettina shares her experiences working with people with disabilities as co-researchers. 

Podcast host: What does being an ‘open’ academic mean to you?

Bettina: So that is kind of a weird question for me because I don't know what a closed academic is. My way of being an academic is through relationships. I really like connecting with people at all different levels. So maybe that makes me an open academic, but in my perspective, it's just an academic.

Podcast host: What motivated you to engage in public engagement?

Bettina: So my involvement in public engagement goes back a long time, when I did my PhD in around 1996. I've worked with qualitative research methods already since my PhD. So that is now more than 20 years ago. And so it was never unusual to connect with people.

It always involved asking people what they found important and then following their leads. So for me, science has never been different and being an academic has never been other than that. Nothing really motivated me except for the world as I saw it and all the opportunities and interesting stories to be found there.

Podcast host: Can you tell us about your example of public engagement and how you developed the project?

Bettina: The project we are currently doing, it's called being and becoming disabled. And we're working with people with disabilities as co-researchers. And what that means is that we work quite closely with people with disabilities in all phases of the research. So starting from “What should we research at all?”

So we have a general umbrella topic, which is accessibility and inclusion in urban spaces, but they really define from their own everyday lives, what we should focus on and also how. So initially we started with an art space project, which was in collaboration with students at Minerva Art Academy and students at the university. And we put them together in small teams so that they could, explore together their favorite places or their difficult places, or getting to these places. And they recorded it visually. So it meant that it gave us the opportunity to have very close insights into people's everyday lives. 

So, emotion for instance, is an important part in this project, not just because as a researcher, when you go along with, um, marginalized groups. And in this case, wheelchair researchers, you experience a lot of things that you had never thought about before. For instance, how long you have to wait for a shared taxi, that maybe it doesn't show up, maybe it will drop off five other people before you get somewhere. And so you realize that maybe society doesn't think that people in wheelchairs have anything important to go to where they have to be on time. And so this is really annoying and sometimes infuriating. And it's really valuable, I think, as a researcher, to be a part of that.

[intermezzo music/soundbite]

Podcast host: What were important aspects to consider when developing the project?

Bettina: I think there were a few really important aspects that made this work and one really important aspect is students. Students bring something very unique to research projects. And that is, with all due respect, naiveness, because senior researchers are sometimes closed off, and you see a lot of things that cannot work and are too difficult and take too much time. And maybe this will go wrong. And students just, you know. And, of course, things can also go wrong, actually, and they should go wrong, because sometimes that's when they learn the most, by making mistakes.

I think another important aspect is that I have a permanent contract, and so I don't rely like colleagues with short-term contracts, on having to publish a lot in a very short time. So I can do slow research, and in my experience, this kind of research really benefits from relationship building, and it takes a lot of time. You have to have time to make mistakes and for things to go wrong and, and to try different approaches. There has to be time for experiments that may or may not lead to a publication. 

Podcast host: What obstacles did you encounter?

Bettina: I think they are pretty universal for all kinds of research is time and funding.

So I mentioned earlier the significance of relationship building, and you need people for that and time. And so that is that is also a challenge in the project.

Another challenge was perceptions of what is research and what is good research. And, you know, how can you measure impact according to, I don't know, like citation index and so forth. I think that. Times have changed a bit since I started. So now there's more attention for research that is a little bit more in the margin or crossing boundaries.

And you can also see that in the NWO funding, for example, that there's more opportunities, but in the past, those were definitely obstacles.

Podcast host: Do you have any tips for colleagues who want to get started in public engagement?

Bettina: I think one important tip that I would give is to make mistakes, and to maybe even build them into your project planning. So, sometimes if you plan too rigorously, then it can be very disappointing and very disillusioning. But if you're prepared to be flexible and to have like plan B, C, D, maybe through F or G, then it, it's a lot easier because I think working with local communities, especially because they are not the same lives as we have, it's difficult to anticipate how this will go.

You need to be prepared. learn weird stuff. Sorry, this is maybe a strange thing to say. I don't know a different word for it, but skills that you didn't previously possess. So in our project with the wheelchair users, in order to be able to do the research when we want to go in the city. And we want to be there for some hours. It also means that we have to be prepared to help them to drink and eat. And, sometimes, even help maybe with the toilet visit. And so that is outside of what you would expect for a data collection moment. But if we are serious about making visible the lives of marginalized groups, I think we have to also be prepared to stretch the boundaries of what researchers maybe are supposed to be.

Podcast host: What feedback did you receive on the project?

Bettina: We held a few exhibitions, that we did in collaboration with the co-researchers and the students at Minerva Art Academy. And so the visitors to those exhibitions, they were very touched, I think.

When you are there as a visitor, then it kind of reaches you, and you wonder about your own role in the city and what it could be like for someone in a wheelchair. So I think that this kind of way of sharing knowledge, encourages people also sometimes to change how they are in the city, to maybe park their bike somewhere else.

Podcast host: What outcomes from your project would you like to share?

Bettina: Groningen has very many historic buildings, and that means that there's a lot of narrow entrances, a lot of steps or small step-ups, doors that don't open easily, so that is very challenging, um, for our co-researchers. The most important part is how they are made to feel when they're inside the shop. So if someone is really helpful and friendly and interested and looks at them, then it can counteract a lot of the physical inaccessibility. And that's a difficult challenge because obviously we want for people to get into buildings as much as possible. But I think it's important to realize that it, what happens in the building sometimes is more important in terms of a feeling of belonging.

Our co-researchers also don't claim that the whole city has to be reconstructed so they can go everywhere. They realize the challenges, but they would like to know that they are seen.
And that is, I think, how many people also feel. So you are not really seen, only seen as a wheelchair, but through the research, often they found that people became interested in them, in their lives.

So it meant that they started to feel like a researcher. And one of our co researchers, Leon, said that when he now entered a shop, he felt differently. So he wasn't the disabled person, but he was the researcher. And so I think there was a really interesting transformation that we were able to facilitate with the research.

[Jingle] 

Podcast host: This was Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen. 

Thank you very much for listening.

Join us for our next episode.

Open Science Bites is produced by the University of Groningen Library, with technical support of Wim Brons.

Anoek Sluiter-Oerlemans, Assistant Professor Youth Studies bij de Faculteit Gedrags- & Maatschappijwetenschappen, deelt haar visie op en ervaringen met open onderwijs. Anoek besloot onlangs om open onderwijsmaterialen te gaan gebruiken. Ze betrok studenten bij het co-creëren van lesmateriaal voor een cursus over onderzoeksmethoden voor de MA-programma's Youth, Society and Policy en Deafblindness.

Transcript of podcast:

[sound bite/people chatting sound]

(Quote Anoek): I think open education should be available to everyone in terms of the materials that you use, but also I think students will be more engaged or involved or motivated to work on assignments that are not just disposable assignments that they receive a grade and then they end up in a drawer and you never look at them again, but if they can contribute to the knowledge base and contribute to other people's learning experiences. 

[jingle] 

Podcast host: Welcome to Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen, highlighting best practices and challenges academics experience when being open in their teaching and research.

This episode will focus on open educational resources. In a nutshell, open educational resources are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain. In other words, they are free to use for anyone. 

In this episode, Anoek Sluiter-Oerlemans, Assistant Professor in Youth Studies at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, shares her views and experiences with open education. 

Anoek recently decided to start implementing open educational resources. She involved students in co-creating teaching materials for a course on research methods for the MA programmes in Youth, Society and Policy and Deafblindness.

Anoek: This academic year, I started to take the first few steps in also using open pedagogy and open educational practices more. So I was already using open-access materials, and now I have also started working with a student, creating open educational resources.

I just took the first few steps, so I haven't been around to actually publishing the material just yet. But when I was working on redesigning a course for this academic year, I was thinking about what kind of materials do I want to include in this course. What kind of articles do they need to read, for example. So there were already some Open Access articles in this course. And I was thinking maybe I could improve it a little bit further. And then my attention was drawn to a workshop from the University Library about redesigning your course with open educational resources. So that came at the exact right time while I was doing this work, and I decided to sign up and then a whole new world opened for me because I was only thinking about open-access materials, but actually, you can do a lot more. Have students also work on co-creating materials, and they had a lot of inspiring examples. And that's when I decided to that I wanted to include that as well in my course. 

[student chatter break sound] 

Podcast host: What are the benefits of getting started with open educational material? According to Anoek, the process of co-creating open educational materials together with students brought extra motivation to the classroom and a different learning experience. 

Anoek: It motivated the students in a different way. And they were very active, actively involved, so they worked in group settings. And I think because they know that this is going to form a basis for an open educational resource that they have to maybe take an extra step to really make something accurate and fun to read. I asked them to consider a little bit of a layman's audience for their project or knowledge chapter. So this was something different from what they were used to. So that also created a different learning experience, I think, for them. So, that was I think the main benefits for me. 

Podcast host: And from the teacher’s perspective, using open educational resources also provides an opportunity to learn from and be inspired by peers all over the world. 

Anoek: Because I used other people’s course guides or materials to be inspired. I think that's really also an advantage of having access to these open educational resources. Just to be able to take a look at another teacher's kitchen, so to say, see how they, how they do this kind of things. And as a relatively new teacher myself, that was really helpful. So, just see how could you do this? How could you approach this? This is also why I want to pay it forward a little bit and publish my course guide and my plan, hopefully to inspire other teachers as well.

Podcast host: Does Anoek have any tips for fellow academics who are also interested in experimenting with open educational resources? 

Anoek: I think maybe attending such a workshop was, for me, a really good starting point because you have a lot of information. They share the slides. Probably they share the slides regardless of whether or not you attend these workshops, with perhaps then it should be somewhere available that teachers can find it easily. But yeah, that for me, the workshop was pretty helpful, and then going from there. Just do it doesn't cost a lot of extra time. It opens up a whole new opportunity for assignments to consider or materials to consider. It can be very helpful for the teachers as well. 

[jingle] 

Podcast host: Anoek mentioned she is new to the world of open educational resources. What challenges did she encounter when working with open educational resources?

Anoek: The students were really on board with it. So or at the very least, they weren't opposed to the idea. So yeah, they were quite enthusiastic about it. So and there, they all approved of the publication. Some prefer to be anonymous, others prefer to have full credit with their name. So I gave them that option and also gave the option to reconsider at any time and contact me about it. So no, so far, not many obstacles. Perhaps the most important obstacle is just finding the time now to prepare everything for publication with everything else going on.

Podcast host: Anoek also tries to be open in the way she approaches her research.

Anoek: It started with publishing open access. And this is something that I strive to do throughout my entire career. But the thing the focus is now more and more also on sharing: sharing your datasets, sharing your syntax set, sharing or pre-registering your plan, so you can then follow up with okay, we've collected the data now, and we conducted the experiment, for example, and this was our plan, so we're going to stick to the plan and what comes out of that. 

So in all honesty, I think there's room for improvement in me being an open academic. And when I started doing research, doing my PhD, it wasn't really a big issue at that point to publish open access or pre-register your research. And I think in the years following that, it became more of a topic, and actually, looking back at it I'm, I'm thinking, why wasn't this an issue? Before, because it makes so much sense to be open, to publish your research so that everyone is able to read about it, and be accountable. 

[Jingle] 

Podcast host: This was Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen. Thank you very much for listening. 

Join us for our next episode on open educational resources with Sander van Lanen from the Faculty of Spatial Sciences. 

Open Science Bites is produced by the University of Groningen Library, with technical support of Wim Brons.

Sander van Lanen, universitair docent culturele geografie aan de Faculteit Ruimtelijke Wetenschappen, ontwikkelde het open tekstboek 'Introduction to academic research' door reeds open beschikbare teksten te hergebruiken. In deze aflevering deelt Sander zijn ervaringen met het maken van open onderwijsmateriaal. Ook staat hij stil bij het doel van open onderwijs en de voordelen ervan voor studenten. Is het een middel om aansluiting te vinden bij de maatschappij of om studenten voor te bereiden op de arbeidsmarkt?

Transcript of podcast:

[Jingle/sound bite] 

(Quote Sander): It's important to think about why we are doing open education. Is it because it's a new buzzword? Is it because it adds something for students? Is it because of the way, as a university, we want to relate to the society that we are a part of? Is it a way we want to connect our students to the future work field or to the wider world?

[jingle] 

Podcast host: Welcome to Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen, highlighting best practices and challenges academics experience when being open in their teaching and research.

This episode will focus on open educational resources. In a nutshell, open educational resources are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain. In other words, they are free to use for anyone. 

[typing sound] 

Podcast host: In this episode, Sander van Lanen, assistant professor in cultural geography at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences, shares his views on and experiences with open education. 

Podcast host: So, what does being an open academic mean? 

Sander: I teach and do research mainly around issues of urban inequality, urban social exclusion and spatial justice. I've always been interested in one way or another in sharing my work with people outside of university. I never want it to be the academic that only publishes in academic journals and academic books. 

So on the one hand, I really liked this idea that you open up education, maybe also to people or groups of people that do not have formal access to the university. Although I'm also sometimes a bit sceptical and not necessarily of open education, per se, but maybe of the drive to make as many education as open as possible. Because what I sometimes fear is that, if everyone starts creating in-class information, in-class assignments, in-class learning materials, and everyone is going to share it online and open to the public in whatever way. I’m sometimes afraid you're going to get an information overload, so to say, so that so many people are going to share maybe interesting things, that is going to be a hard task to go through it and see what is of quality and what is not. 

Podcast host: Sander developed the open textbook ‘Introduction to academic research’ for a bachelor’s course he was teaching. He composed this textbook by selecting and reusing texts that were openly available. 

Sander: I was teaching a course called ‘Introduction to academic research’, which is basically about learning students how to write academically. And we were using a book of methods before and what basically happened was a book with 27 chapters out of which we used five, and so I thought the book was not really suitable, so I wanted something else.

I started looking what I could do, and I could find books with relevant chapters, but then they were either the same problem, so three out of 17 chapters were irrelevant, and then the book is 80 euros. So you can't really do that to the students. And then, around the time I was searching, I participated in this open educational resources workshop, and then I started thinking, hey, if there are open educational resources available, I can pick and choose, and I can still create one. So I started looking, and I think out of three different books, I could take four chapters and compile these together into a book. The only thing I changed was to make them consistent in style, and put them up as a book for students to read.

Podcast host: What kind of obstacles did Sander encounter when creating this textbook?

Sander: I think the main obstacle was that it did take me more time than I expected. I quite quickly told myself that the first year I would only copy the text of the existing textbooks, and I would only make adjustments to make the style coherent. I think in the end, how much time in total, it's hard to say. I think I would spend two, two and a half days searching for chapters, then another maybe day to read several options. And then maybe half a day editing and finalising things. But I think then a second time it goes way, way quicker. I suppose with almost everything that you do new, there is a time investment the first time you do it, and then it becomes less after.

Podcast host: What are the arguments for using open educational resources?

Sander: I mainly teach nowadays in the Master Society, Sustainability and Planning, which has a very society-oriented perspective. So in there, I think it wouldn't be too hard to convince people, at least of the benefits of sharing knowledge of trying to have students work on projects that engender change. In the course that is going to start next week, for example, students do a small research project every year and we always try to include societal partners with this -  organisations that operate in neighborhoods (the course is called Revitalizing Neighborhoods), or the municipality and we have students at least present or we invite people for the municipality or neighbour organizations to the presentation because we think that the findings might be useful. And one of the reasons also is that we do this in this course is that the lectural to my work believes that students will be more motivated if something happens with their assignment, so that they don't just do it for us. So I think that would be another motivation. 

So yeah, I think there is a motivation of, on one hand, motivating students, maybe giving some perhaps inherent drive might help for at least a part of the student population. And the other one is, I think, within our faculty, the idea of being a Knowledge Hub in the region and working together with provinces, municipalities, etc., is valued strongly, so that might help to convince.

Podcast host: Does Sander have any tips for fellow academics who are also interested in experimenting with open educational resources? 

Sander: I think it's important to consider why you are doing it and how it contributes to it. And second, I think there is really good support available. I would not have been able to do this without Mira Zhuk, who helped me with the open textbook. It's fascinating to see what's out there that you've never even thought of yourself. And there's just a huge wealth of assessment methods, assignments that you can use, and people are willingly sharing. That for me was impossible to explore without that support.

Podcast host: What could the university do to improve the support that it provides on open education? 

Sander: One thing that I would like, I suppose, is, perhaps to think about ways in which the use of open [...] if we want to move to open education, the way the use of open education can be rewarded or recognised in one way or another. I think one of the things that I was looking into when I  created the open textbook was to see if I could add it to Pure to your list of publications as an academic, and it cannot because Pure is only for research outputs and not for educational outputs.

And I suppose also on an institutional level, it's important to think about why are we doing open education, is it because it's a new buzzword? Is it because it adds something for students? Is it because of the way as a university we want to relate to the society that we are a part of? Is it a way we want to connect our students to the future work field or to the wider world?

[Jingle] 

Sander: Maybe all courses should have a statement on why or why not they decided to do open educational resources. I think, related to my earlier scepticism, I don't think more is necessarily better when it comes to open educational resources. I think it's worthwhile for everyone to consider to what extent open education can be a benefit to the course, and there might be good reasons for some courses to say 'no here open education doesn't necessarily make it better, and therefore we make an informed decision to not use it'. And I think that in terms of strategy, it is a whole different approach to say, as much openness as we can, or at least for everything we should consider, we should make an informed decision whether open education is desirable or not and then act on that. 

[Jingle] 

Podcast host: This was Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen. 

Thank you very much for listening.

Join us for our next episode on open educational resources with Rashid Gabdulhakov from the Faculty of Arts. 

Open Science Bites is produced by the University of Groningen Library, with technical support of Wim Brons.

Rashid Gabdulhakov, universitair docent aan het Centre for Media and Journalism Studies van de Faculteit der Letteren, ontwikkelde twee volledig open online cursussen in samenwerking met IWPR, het Institute for War and Peace Reporting. De cursussen zijn bedoeld om niet-westerse wetenschappers wegwijs te maken in het westerse systeem van academische kennisproductie. Rashid deelt zijn ervaringen met open onderwijsmateriaal en hij staat ook stil bij hoe inclusief en divers het proces van kennisproductie is.

Transcript of podcast:

[Jingle/sound bite] 

(Quote Rashid): We have to understand, [you know], who makes it again into the classroom, through literature or physically as a teacher or student who is included in the process of knowledge creation, knowledge production, and whose voices are ever excluded.

[jingle] 

Podcast host: Welcome to Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen, highlighting best practices and challenges academics experience when being open in their teaching and research.

This episode will focus on open educational resources. In a nutshell, open educational resources are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain. In other words, they are free to use for anyone. 

[jingle] 

Podcast host: In this episode, Rashid Gabdulhakov, assistant professor at the Centre for Media and Journalism Studies at the Faculty of Arts, shares his views on and experiences with open education.

To develop two fully open online courses, Rashid collaborated with the IWPR, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

Rashid: I come from Uzbekistan, the Central Asian country, and together we came up with a couple of courses during the pandemic. We created two free online courses, eight weeks long each, with some assignments that help people comprehend the information. One of the courses focused on relying on online artefacts in research. The idea was to demonstrate how online artefacts can be used to produce new knowledge and to engage in exciting studies. The second course focused on how to navigate exactly the Western system of knowledge production based on my own experience, because I received my PhD at the Erasmus University here in the Netherlands, based on my own experience of publishing in Western academia. I shared some of the tips. The idea was to help scholars beyond the West or in my beloved region of Central Asia, get involved and produce more knowledge. Of course, this was done with the understanding that there are barriers, so you have to know English, most of the information we produce is in the English language. Most of the journals are unfortunately located in the West as well, for the field of media especially, but at least to help people who want to participate, who have agency already, to help them navigate the system. 

[jingle] 

Podcast host: So if you’re interested in experimenting with open educational resources, where do you start? 

Rashid: So first, ask yourself some questions. [Yeah.] To whom is this course beneficial? Who is your audience? Who will mediate the course as well, on whose platform will it exist? Making a course, of course, is one level. Another level is reaching your audience. How are people going to find out that this course even exists? As a media scholar, I always think in these terms, but of publicity, but you really need this outreach as well. And in my case, in my experience, CABAR.asia and IWPR also came in really actively in spreading this across social media platforms, and making this media campaign for the course that attracted quite a few students. Yeah, let's call them students, but quite a few people who followed the course and went through it. It also helps that at the end, you receive a certificate. I mean, it's not a university level certificate. It doesn't guarantee you any credits anywhere, but it's still a reward that you went through the course. 

[jingle/typing sound] 

Podcast host: What challenges did Rashid encounter when creating the online courses?

Rashid: The major obstacle was that you have to be very precise in your video material when you're recorded. Because in class, you can build upon some common discussion, make a bit of small chat, warm up the group you, are deprived of that opportunity in a video class, of course, so you have to be to the point automatically and very precise. Another challenge was, of course, that you don't see the audience, so there is no feedback, and you just hope that you are inclusive enough that it will land with a variety of audiences. Finally, the third challenge was technology because you have to be a bit of technologically savvy to produce this video material. And it took a bit of learning myself. So I started, did a bit of research, just short what to know, how to best position myself, what equipment I should purchase, a bit of equipment, microphone, some bloggers light. My wife would make fun of me for that, of course. We had a kid, actually, in September, right amid the recording of these online courses. So with a child at home, that was another challenge. So I had to do it. You know, while the light is still shining, but also when the kid is sleeping or is taking a walk outside.

[jingle]

Rashid: We are so overworked. You constantly are either teaching or researching, and it's a cycle, and there is very little time for a family, even in academia. Yeah, it's quite an open discussion that these problems are present. And when you engage in something extra, of course, as rewarding as it is, it requires a bit of time. So I think it's a matter of balancing. Yeah, you have to make sure you understand how much you can do and be at peace with that. So while we might have these great ideas and strive for making a change, we also need to be easy on ourselves and try to come up with something that we can manage at the end of the day to make sure that we complete it after all, and we're also satisfied. So ideally, I would do a course in multiple languages and maybe several courses, but I was able to produce two in this period of time, and I'm at peace with that.

Podcast host: How could universities alleviate these challenges or support academics experimenting with open educational resources? 

Rashid: So this question exactly what for a university can do to support is first maybe to instigate an inclusive conversation. So we can understand the needs, what is needed to begin with? What do people want to do and what is a barrier? So what prevents them in the way from doing there is a time is it technology is it what is it so we need to identify the desires ideas, we need to identify the barriers and then there will be a better understanding of how the university and in what manner, can facilitate the creation of open access knowledge. 

I think it's it has to do with two levels. On the one level, you need to give people time. Time is the most scarce resource for academics. You need to give people time. And second, you need to give people the ability to acquire these tools, to acquire a variety of tools. Some theoretical, practical, learn from each other in the process.

[sound bite]

Podcast host: What motivates Rashid in being open with his research and teaching? Rashid had no doubts that diversity and inclusion are his main drivers. 

Rashid: Being an open academic means struggling to me, struggling with the system. Because I see that there are quite a few issues in the knowledge production system. They have to do with different types of barriers, linguistic, gender, national, ethnic. So if you value open access, that means that you have to fight with the system in a way. And so to me, this is what it means, and it can be done, of course, at the individual level, but it's much easier when there is collaboration with colleagues or when there is institutional support. 

We have to understand, you know, who makes it again into the classroom, through literature or physically as a teacher or student who is included in the process of knowledge creation, knowledge production, and whose voices are ever excluded. So to me this touches upon both, again, issues of gender, ethnicity, nationality, health issues, how accessible are our universities, but also whose literature are we bringing in to define concepts? What I notice, for instance, in my own experience, is that in the media field, a lot of the theoretical concepts are produced in the West. So a lot of the theory, a lot of conceptualisation is produced in the West. And these theories are then contextualised in the so-called Global South. To me, that creates a limit. First of all, it's an unfair system. Second of all, we are limited to the system where these cookie-cutter approaches may not necessarily fit the reality elsewhere. So what I would encourage to do is to produce theories also beyond the Western world and to consider how this, how people beyond the West can regain agency or gain agency in conceptualising and in also producing theories that we hear at Western institutions can then also rely upon, so that the system is not just one sided, it's more fair, and in all reality, it's more logical, it's more adequate and it brings us closer to truth, which is the main aim of science anyways. 

[Jingle] 

Podcast host: This was Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen. 

Thank you very much for listening. Join us for our next episode on reproducibility. 

Thank you very much for listening. Join us for our next episode for advice from our open education specialists on how to get started with open education material.

Open Science Bites is produced by the University of Groningen Library, with technical support of Wim Brons.

Mira Buist-Zhuk is academisch informatiespecialist bij de Universiteitsbibliotheek Groningen en gespecialiseerd in open leermaterialen. In deze aflevering deelt ze tips en adviezen voor docenten om aan de slag te gaan met open educational resources. Beluister de aflevering en leer hoe je open educational resources kunt gebruiken, creëren, delen en er je voordeel mee kunt doen.

Transcript of podcast:

[Jingle/sound bite]

(Quote Mira): And so, of course, as enthusiastic as we are about our teachers using and reusing OER, we also realise it takes time. So what we're trying to do with our support service is to alleviate this burden, or try to make it as low-threshold as possible for teachers to engage with the topic of open education.

[jingle] 

Podcast host: Welcome to Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen, highlighting best practices and challenges academics experience when being open in their teaching and research.

This episode will focus on open educational resources. In a nutshell, open educational resources are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain. In other words, they are free to use for anyone. 

[background music] 

Podcast host: In this episode, Mira Buist-Zhuk, specialist on open education at the University of Groningen Library, shares some tips and advice for teaching staff on how to get started with open educational resources.

Podcast host: Why should teachers engage in open education?

Mira: Open Educational Resources are freely accessible and freely available. They reduce the costs, save resources on so many levels; for students, for teachers, for institutions, but also for society in general. Very importantly, they allow for more flexibility and customization in your teaching, because they are adaptable, and you can change them to fit your teaching and your learning goals and the needs of your students, rather than changing your teaching to fit the materials you have. This is the academic freedom you need. They allow for more innovation and variety in the classroom. And because they are free from complicated copyright restrictions and structures, they also allow for more flexibility. They're more inclusive and take into account the needs of your students, facilitate blended learning, but also help ensure lifelong learning and access to materials that your students will have for the rest of their lives. Not just your students, but the society in general. 

Podcast host: Can you tell something about different approaches to open educational resources?

Mira: You can reuse existing materials. You can adapt them as they are if you see that they are perfectly fine and you don't need to change anything. Or you can adapt or customize them, localize them, add some examples relevant to your course, translate them into the local language, add subtitles, add exercises or reflection moments, for instance. You can also remix several resources, several resources created by others, plus some sections of your own, for instance, to create a nice remixed reader or textbook. You can always create your own material. For instance, you found a niche that is not yet covered in your subject area, you can always create your own open educational resource and share it out into the world. You can release already existing materials that you already have created, and you can share them under an open license with the rest of the world. 

[sound bite/jiggle]

Mira: You can also involve students as co-creators of knowledge so you can engage in open pedagogy, which means that you engage students into Creating Reusable materials that have added value beyond the classroom. This way the students are activated and instead of passive consumers of knowledge, they also become active creators and co-creators of this knowledge. This gives more sense and meaning and purpose to their learning process. They feel more engaged, and this is a way more meaningful way to learn.

Podcast host: As a teacher, how can I reuse existing open educational resources? On a practical level, how do I do that? 

Mira: Well, first of all, we recommend you to start with your end goal in mind, what are the learning goals of your course? What are the learning objectives of your students? Then you can consider how OER can support you in this, what problems or needs it could resolve, and how it would fit into the design of your course. And then you will figure out what kind of OER you need to support these learning objectives. Then, of course, the next step to take is to go to an OER platform or repository and search, search for, the resources out there. Do pay attention to the licensing terms. They will determine what you can do and what you cannot do with this material. And if you find a suitable OER that's wonderful. And now you need to evaluate it. Does it correspond to the quality criteria? Is it a good reflection of the field? Is it not biased? Is it inclusive enough? Does it fit the course and the teaching goals you have with your course? Is it accessible, and is it usable for all your students? And is the license just free? Or is it truly open? Does it contain open permissions to reuse it? If you've evaluated it and found something that truly corresponds to the needs of your course, then go ahead and integrate it into your course.

Podcast host: Suppose I have created open educational material and I want to share it with the world, how do I do it?

Mira: You can do so yourself, or you can do so by asking us at the OER support point. The go-to place here is the SURF Sharekit repository, the Netherlands-wide platform implemented by SURF and supported by most higher education establishments in the Netherlands. We have an institutional license and facilitate sharing via this online platform. And we can help you with sharing your materials via this platform. 

Of course, besides Sharekit, we also use other international platforms where you can showcase your educational resources, and we will happily help you upload your resources and make them available to learners and teachers from all over the world.

Podcast host: In previous episodes, both Anoek Sluiter-Oerlemans and Sander van Lanen mentioned that they were inspired by attending a workshop about ‘redesigning your course with open educational resources’. Can you tell a bit more about this course?

Mira: Together with the specialists, didactic specialists from ESI, education support and innovation, and information specialists from the University Library, we developed a workshop on redesigning your course with OER and we give it a few times per year. The main goal of this workshop is to acquaint teachers with OER, with open licenses, with copyright, show the teachers where and how to look for open educational resources, the why behind that? Why should they engage with them, so we try to give them a wide variety of reasons, and many of them resonate with the teachers. We also introduce open practices and strategies for integrating OER in the course design, showcase examples of OER from our University and beyond. And also show where and how to look for open educational resources, where to find them. What are the cool platforms, collections and places where you can go and find some suitable materials.

Podcast host: What support can teachers expect from you and your team?

Mira: We provide all sorts of support, ranging from giving presentations and workshops on the topic of OER open education, open licenses, to providing individual consultations by information by didactic specialists, indeed. We also will provide guidelines and recommendations, we create information materials on the subject. We provide licensing and corporate advice, but also publishing advice. And we can also assist a teacher or any other interested person in assisting in locating and evaluating open educational resources, help you choose and apply a CC license to the material you've created. But we can also go deeper and provide you with feedback and suggestions for redesigning your courses with OER with open practices and with open pedagogical practices. We can also assist with creation of open textbooks with open educational videos with knowledge clips, or any other types of OER. And, very importantly, we help you with sharing open educational resources in university and national international contexts via online repositories.

And so, of course, as enthusiastic as we are about our teachers using and reusing OER, we also realize it takes time. It takes time to learn about them, it takes time to find them. So what we're trying to do with our support service is to alleviate this burden, or try to make it as low-thresholdy as possible for teachers to engage with the topic of open education. We try to provide the services to help them do that and will minimize the time it takes to learn about it, but also to find the suitable resources.

[Jingle] 

Podcast host: This was Open Science Bites - The Open Science Podcast of the University of Groningen. 

Thank you very much for listening. Join us for our next season on public engagement.

Open Science Bites is produced by the University of Groningen Library, with technical support of Wim Brons.