NPRE research scientist Madicken Munk is one of a handful of researchers selected to receive funding from NASA for its new open science initiatives.
NASA is awarding a total of $6.5 million to U.S. institutions for education and training in open science. The promise of open science is that NASA research and data should be more collaborative, accessible, inclusive, and transparent for everyone from the scientist and student to the city manager and citizen.
The agency’s Open-Source Science Initiative (OSSI) is promoting change in the openness and speed of access to scientific information by supporting new training opportunities. To kickoff the initiative, NASA is investing in a 5-year Transform to Open Science (TOPS) project, which helps researchers engaged with NASA and beyond to put open science into practice.
Munk’s proposal was entitled “Bringing Together Open Science and Research Software,” with a plan to develop four modules of training material on how to navigate a research software community as a user, and the best practices for crediting, engaging with, and working with the research software development community.
“We will use these research software training modules in concert with the TOPST curriculum on principles of Open Science to educate and train researchers through a series of 6 summer schools with 60 learners each,” Munk said in her proposal. “Summer schools will use inclusive methods of instruction and have earmarked funding for accessibility needs to facilitate inclusion of learners of varying needs. Learners from these schools will be fluent in navigating research software for their research and will be able to generate high-quality open science deliverables.
“They will be able to meaningfully contribute to the research software community as a user of the software, with open science publications that cite and credit software. They will be able to help other users navigate issues, and they will help foster a positive community in their research software networks. Together these curricula will help researchers contribute to both sustainable science and sustainable software.”
Munk said she plans to start developing the research software modules this summer. “Then I will host summer schools over the course of the next three years,” she said, adding that UIUC graduate and undergraduate students will also help assist in the organization of the summer school.
“There will likely be two per summer, but I might shift it to one for the first year, and then two or three the next two years.”