Welcome & What is Open Science?
Welcome! This is the first door of our Open Science Advent Calendar: every day in December we highlight a different tool, service, or resource related to research data management and Open Science, mostly at Bielefeld University, but also more generally. The aim is to provide inspiration, lower barriers, and show where you can find support to make your research more open and sustainable.
On the first day, we want to start with an introduction to Open Science, which is a movement that aims to make all stages of the research process more transparent, accessible, and collaborative. At its core, it aims to ensure that knowledge is shared as widely as possible, whether through open access publications, open research data, open methods, or open theory. While the specific focus may vary across disciplines, its overall purpose is universal: to increase the visibility, reproducibility, and reusability of research. Practicing Open Science means not only publishing results, but also sharing the underlying data, code, and workflows that make research traceable, reproducible, and trustworthy.
Today’s resource is a short YouTube video introduction to Open Science by The Royal Society, which provides an accessible overview of the key principles and why they matter for researchers regardless of their field. It is a practical entry point to reflect on how you can integrate Open Science practices into your own work.