Programme of Events

Below is the programme of all events, virtual and in-person. View all recorded events on the NUI Galway Kaltura page.

Opening Virtual Keynote: Registered Reports 2.0: Introducing the Peer Community in Registered Reports

In this keynote, Chris Chambers introduced a new platform for supporting Registered Reports called the Peer Community in Registered Reports (PCI RR).

Registered Reports are a form of empirical publication, offered by over 300 journals, in which study proposals are peer reviewed and pre-accepted before research is undertaken. By deciding which articles are published based on the question, theory, and methods, Registered Reports offer a remedy for a range of reporting and publication biases.

PCI RR is a non-profit, non-commercial platform that coordinates the peer-reviews of RR preprints. Once the submissions are accepted following peer review (or, in PCI terms, “recommended”), the revised manuscript is posted at the preprint server where the preprint is hosted, and the peer reviews and recommendation of the preprint are posted at the PCI website. PCI RR is also joined by a growing fleet of “PCI RR-friendly” journals that agree to endorse the recommendations of PCI RR without further review, giving the authors the power to choose which journal, if any, will publish their manuscript. By reclaiming control of the peer review process from publishers, PCI RR (and the wider suite of PCIs in different fields) offer a promising avenue for ensuring that Registered Reports are made as open, accessible, and rigorous as possible, while also moving toward a future in which journals themselves become obsolete. 

For background, see this blog from University of Sussex: Registered Reports free for authors and readers.

Watch Registered Reports 2.0 >

Open Qual? A panel discussion about what qualitative research has to offer Open Scholarship

This panel discussion discussed the role of open science in qualitative research and what qualitative research has to offer the open science movement. Featuring a mix of speakers with different disciplinary backgrounds and experience in open scholarship, the aim  was to have an open discussion on the need for, merits of, and disadvantages of open qualitative research.

The panel discussion was faciliated by Dr Ann-Marie Creaven, lecturer in psychology at the University of Limerick. 

Watch Open Qual >

Open Government data: an opportunity for public value creation

In the European Commission’s Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) rankings Ireland was ranked fifth for 2021 and has scored well in the digital public services category, particularly in open data. In the EU Open Data Maturity Report Ireland ranked 2nd and has clearly followed an ambitious open data publication strategy that includes open data reuse policies.

Our panel discussion included what does an open data ecosystem look like and to what extent does open public data enable the creation of public value. This was discussed within the context of open data that is accessible to all, in relation to digital literacy, and its impact on citizen centric processes and services. The panel also discussed Ireland’s success as leaders in open government data, and what does the future of open government data look like.

The panel was moderated by Dr Ann O'Brien.

Watch Open Government Data >

Replacing Academic Journals

In this talk Björn Brembs made the case of why and how the current academic publishing ecosystem needs to change.

The idea is not new, after all, the internet is from 1990, but journals are from 1664. What is new is a proposal that specifies how a modernization from 17th century paper journals to a 21st century infrastructure can happen despite the current lock-in situation.

Björn presented a proposal by ten experts, arguing that the lock-in requires support from outside. The experts have identified anti-trust/procurement regulators and funding agencies as potential facilitators for breaking the lock-in. In the face of new technical and social developments, regulators are now free to abolish the long-standing single-source exemption from procurement rules that was the basis for library-publisher negotiations. Funding agencies may modernize their eligibility criteria for fundable institutions to include modern infrastructure (servicing not just texts, but also data and code), thereby instructing and incentivizing institutional modernization and redirection of funds from antiquated paper journals towards a modern information infrastructure. This infrastructure is proposed to be governed by the scholarly community and to operate analogous to the same, tried and tested way other, non-digital infrastructures operate: institutions decide how much service is performed in-house and how much is awarded to external providers after a bidding process.

Ownership involves socially recognized economic rights, first and foremost the exclusive control over that property, with the self-efficacy it affords. The inability to exert such control over crucial components of their scholarly infrastructure in the face of a generally recognized need for action for over three decades now, evinces the dramatic erosion of real ownership rights for the scholarly community over said infrastructure. Thus, this proposal is motivated also by the now very urgent need to restore such ownership to the scholarly community.

Watch Replacing Academic Journals > 

Scholactivism and Openness: building relationships with civil society

Values of inclusion, participation, and mutual respect have much to offer critical research in the humanities and social sciences.

Our panel discussed traditions of 'scholactivism' (a portmanteau of scholarship and activism), and how the language and values of Open Scholarship can support research that is embedded in working with organisations for social change. Contemporary work around the 'gig economy', media literacy, and other issues will be discussed.

Watch Scholactivism and Openness >

Creating Our Future - seeking the Irish public's ideas for what research should explore to make Ireland better for all

Dónal Browne's talk explained the end-to-end journey for how Science Foundation Ireland and Havas led a Government of Ireland campaign to gather over 18,000 ideas from the Irish public.

Challenges needed to address included how to mitigate bias; how to market open engagement with research; and how to enable meaningful change. From campaign design to delivery; from idea collection to analysis; from idea synthesis to recommendations; this talk focussed on the meandering journey of how to run an inclusive public campaign to encourage open innovation and research.

View the recording and hear how they collected ideas from the astronauts at the International Space Station to the fisherman in Killybegs!

Watch Creating our Future >

Digital Pathways to Alternative Futures

Members of the Irish Universities Association ‘Enhancing Digital Teaching and Learning’ project team hosted a panel discussion with academic and student partners outlining how digital pathways explored throughout the course of the project have used an open practice approach to ensure a more sustainable, inclusive future in Irish higher education.

The Enhancing Digital Teaching and Learning in Irish Universities Project is a three-year project, now extended to September 2022, funded through the Higher Education Authority’s Innovation and Transformation Programme. It is aimed at enhancing the digital attributes and educational experiences of Irish university students through enabling the mainstreamed and integrated use of digital technologies across the teaching and learning process.

Watch Digital Pathways to Alternative Futures >

Achieving Citizen Empowerment in a Time of Covid; Inside Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality

Dr. Mary-Clare O’Sullivan was Secretary to the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality 2019-2021. Over a 20-year civil service career based mainly in the Department of the Taoiseach, her other roles have included head of the Economic Policy Unit and head of the International Unit. She is currently head of the Britain and Northern Ireland Unit. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Trinity College and a Masters of Economic Science (Policy Analysis) from the Institute of Public Administration.

Watch Achieving Citizen Empowerment in a Time of Covid >

In Person! Sprinting into Open Education Workshop 

Is it possible to create a high-quality textbook in 90 minutes? Probably not. What we'll do in this morning session is engage in a compressed version of a method called a 'book sprint' to create an open textbook or educational resource using Pressbooks, the open publishing software that is the engine of Open Press at NUI Galway. A Library-led project in partnership with the NUI Galway Students’ Union, The Open Press provides staff and students at NUI Galway the opportunity to create affordable, equitable, customizable and pedagogically sound open textbooks and open educational resources. The aim of the session will be to get a hands-on sense of how the creation process works in practice - and if we're very lucky, a (re)-usable open textbook!
 
This workshop provides an opportunity to work with the Pressbooks software in a fun environment with the facilitation of experienced members of the NUI Galway OER Pilot Project. The morning will be divided into two parts: the first focusing on understanding the essentials of open textbooks and educational resources, including:

•    What’s ‘open’ about an ‘open educational resource’?
•    Open licenses and how to use them
•    How to find and reuse openly published content
•    Logging in and starting a new book in Pressbooks

Part 1 will provide the grounding for part 2, where workshops participants will get together in groups and engage in a structured mini-sprint (with suggested book titles and participant roles) to do the best possible 90 minute job of putting together an open book with Pressbooks. Teams will have the opportunity to show off their work at the end. You may find yourself wanting to do a proper book sprint at the end of the session – and even have encountered the right partners to do so in the room!
The workshop will be introduced by SU VP Education Clodagh McGivern and overall facilitation conducted by OER Pilot Project team person Kris Meen.

The workshop is an In Person Event and will be held at NUI Galway, on the first floor in the Hardiman Research Building (same entrance as NUIG Library), in the Bridge Room.

Virtual Open Science Workshop: Applying Open Science Principles to your own Research

You can become a more visible, effective, and impactful researcher by sharing your research data and publications openly!

In this online workshop, you will learn the objectives, main concepts, and benefits of Open Science principles along with practices for open data management and open data sharing. You will also discover ways to apply these principles to your daily research and adapt existing routines.

This workshop will help you grasp the key principles of Open Science, with answers to questions like: How can researchers effectively store, manage, and share research data? What kinds of open access publishing are most effective while keeping your rights? How can open science contribute to the visibility and impact of research?

Finally, you will apply Open Science principles to your own research to increase the visibility and impact of your research.

Open Scholarship Prize 2022 - The Final

Final of the Open Scholarship Prize 2022 competition, hosted by the Atlantic Technological University for the West and North-West of Ireland.
Research students/teams from Ireland and beyond were invited to submit their research in progress or findings for consideration for the second Open Scholarship Research Prize. The Prize recognises the substantial contribution that Open Scholarship makes to the betterment of science and society. Researchers improve society and research generally through making research more accessible, transparent are reproducible. 

The Open Scholarship Prize 2022 was hosted by the Atlantic Technological University (ATU) in partnership with the Open Scholarship Community Galway (OSCG) and NUI Galway. The Prize jury was chaired by Dr Cóilín Minto.

The Open Scholarship Prize 2022 winners:

2. Prize: PaPOR TRaIL providing educational resources for Open Research for undegraduate and Master’s students https://open.ucc.ie/browse/all/cpd/courses/papor-trail-principles-and-practices-of-open-research-003cpd 
3. Prize: Archiving the 8th presented by Clare Lanigan @dri_ireland. An inter-generational Open resource.  https://dri.ie/archiving-reproductive-health 

Watch Open Scholarship Prize 2022 >

Preregistration: A complete beginners guide

Preregistration is an Open Scholarship practice that involves specifying and justifying the decisions made in designing a study and recording this information in an online database prior to data collection. While initially developed to counteract questionable research practices in quantitative studies with a focus on hypothesis testing, some argue for the value in increasing the transparency of research practices in other forms of quantitative and qualitative research. In this session, we will go over the basics of preregistration. We will be focusing on answering the following questions:

•    What are the defining features of a preregistration?
•    What are the benefits of preregistration?
•    How are preregistrations registered on the Open Science Framework?
•    What are the barriers to preregistration?

We will also have participants do a dummy preregistration in the session so that you can practice doing one and receive feedback. All are welcome to this session, and early-career researchers are particularly encouraged to attend. 

This workshop will be in person, delivered in the PC Suite in the Psychology Building (across from the Hardiman Library). We advise you to bring your own device if possible.

About the Facilitators:

Dr Ciara Egan is a lecturer in Clinical Neuroscience within the School of Psychology at NUIG. Her research focuses on the cognitive neuroscience using electrophysiology and eye-tracking techniques. She is a keen proponent of Open Science, including preregistration and data/script sharing.

Dr Chris Noone is a Lecturer in the School of Psychology at NUI Galway, Ireland. His research focuses on behaviour in relation to health, particularly in the context of health within the LGBT+ community. Chris is a committee member for the European Health Psychology Society Open Science Special Interest Group and an Open Science Catalyst with the Berkley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences. He is also a research associate with Evidence Synthesis Ireland and Cochrane Ireland.

Open Doors: Social Event at Sult, NUI Galway

We want to celebrate the closing of OSW22 with a social gathering of Open supporters.

Please join us at Sult, the Student Union's bar on campus of NUI Galway (Students' Union, Áras na Mac Léinn, NUI Galway). Please register so we can ensure there is a space reserved for all. Everyone welcome!