How we’re setting Academia in Motion: by fostering inclusion and enabling data reuse and sharing
‘I’m setting Academia in Motion by fostering inclusive practices and enabling data reuse and sharing, with both researchers and students.’ With these words Naomi Truan, Assistant Professor of German Sociolinguistics at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, highlights how she is helping to support the culture change towards Leiden University as an open knowledge community.
Naomi is passionate about open science. She publishes preprints, shares her data, and makes teaching materials available for others to reuse.
Why does open science matter to you?
‘I practice open science not only to be more visible or because I am required to do so by funders. I do it because it fosters inclusion on many levels. Giving access to data (and data that has been prepared to be analyzed or quoted) is inclusive. You let people who aren’t yet researchers, or who aren’t familiar with your research methods, see how you handle things in a very concrete way. And if it’s well done, people can reuse that data and achieve results quicker or more efficiently because they are not bound to do the same work. It’s a practice of saying: I’m okay with doing work that others then will not have to redo.’
How do you apply open science in the classroom?
‘I share my slides and teaching materials with other lecturers. When students collect original data as part of a seminar, we try to make the data reusable by sharing it openly. I invite students to take part in the research process and see for themselves what it is like to be a researcher in the making. This is often their first experience of what it means to do science. My students tell me that they are really happy to contribute to something. It makes the process more tangible to them because they’re not only writing an essay at the end of the semester.’
Are there also benefits for you?
‘It leads to recognition. I’ve been contacted many times based on my data. I see that it makes a difference in how people perceive our discipline and how I’m evaluated in my field. I know that many data sets have been reused for new projects. I also received the Open Science Research Data Award for data reuse from the French government – and I’m using data from others. It’s a give and take, as in a circular economy.’
Do you have tips for colleagues who want to get started with open science?
‘It’s okay to set boundaries about how open you want to be. It can be scary to put things online, especially for early-career researchers, but open doesn’t need to mean everything open, right now. For instance, I don’t release teaching materials beforehand because students may skip valuable steps in the learning process if we do not go through the materials together. I also don’t publish preprints for every single paper. If I’m a bit unsure how it will be received, I wait for the first batch of reviews.’
To learn more about Naomi’s engagement with open science, see her academic blog as well as her co-authored papers on open data and open education. On the Leiden Language Blog you can also read more about her work to embed research methods skills in classes for bachelor’s and master’s students.
How we're setting Academia in Motion at Leiden University
This interview is part of a series highlighting the various actions colleagues are taking to support culture change at Leiden University. Together we are becoming an open knowledge community, closely connected to society, that recognises and rewards everyone’s contribution to our strategic goals. Curious? Visit the Academia in Motion website.