Courses

Courses, workshops and webinars bring the information about open science, assessment of science and its visibility, open access, citizen science and related topics in a Slovak or English language. They are intended for researchers, citizen scientists, students, librarians, and information specialists in Slovakia. All courses, webinars and workshops are free of charge.

COURSE: Open Science in Practice

Participants will get expertise on open access and open science and be ready to implement them in practice. They learn about the process of scholarly communication, the historical circumstances that led to the emergence of the open access movement, and the evolution of the scientific publishing system to its current form. They also learn about current trends in online research visibility, open access publishing principles, data management (FAIR principles), and open educational resources (OERs).

The course has a modular structure, and it is divided into four separate modules. Each learning module is independent, allowing students to select only a specific module or modules to become experts in a specific area of open science.

Target groups (all modules): libraries, scientific and research institutions, universities, funders, policy makers or publishing houses.

Module 1: Open Science Basics

Participants gain a detailed insight into open science and open access philosophy. They become familiar with the history, terminology and principles of open access and open science. They also get an overview of intellectual property rights and public licences. Participants are able to demonstrate the impact of openness on professional and scholarly communication. Graduates acquire the skills necessary for quality research support, specifically suitable for positions in the field of scientific publishing, research information support, library services or in general—for anyone interested in an open science phenomenon.
After successful completion of the final exam, graduates receive an accredited certificate of completion.

Target groups: researchers, librarians, information specialists, academic community.

Module 2: Open Science Infrastructure

This module focuses on repositories and open access publishing platorms. By the end of the course, you will understand how to publish your work openly and be aware of the advantages and disadvantages. You will get an insight into how digital repositories are built and what is needed to plan and realise such a project successfully. Partcipants become familiar with publishing open access content in repositories and on websites. They learn about digital publishing systems and have an opportunity to experience one of them in practce. After successful completion of the final exam, graduates receive an accredited certficate of completion.

Target groups: researchers, librarians, information specialists, academic community.

Module 3: Building Open Science Culture

At the end of this course, you will be able to recognize and define Open Science policies and mandates at different levels. We provide an overview of the processes related to policy development and how to ensure its effectiveness. You will also become familiar with the National Open Science Strategy developments and related projects. We will share with you how educators innovate their teaching with open educational resources and discuss the challenges and opportunities they face in terms of sharing educational resources. Last but not least, we will show you how to bring science closer to citizens and prepare a citizen science project.

The purpose of this module is to prepare participants for the systematic implementation of Open Science within their environment. After successful completion of the final exam, graduates receive an accredited certificate of completion.

Target groups: researchers, librarians, information specialists, academic community.

Module 4: Open Research Data

This module introduces all aspects of open data, and you will get familiar with the latest developments and their significance. You will understand the different types of data, what the FAIR principles are and will be able to ensure that your data meet them (make data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable). Next,
you will experience e-tools for research data management, and finally, we will look at the future of data management and data publishing. The module is designed to enable anyone to get started with discovering and using open data and understand the skills and processes required to make it work for you and your organisation.
After successful completion of the final exam, graduates receive an accredited certificate of completion.

Target groups: researchers, librarians, information specialists, academic community.

COURSE: Electronic Information Resources—Publishing Consultant

The course covers the creation, usage, evaluation, and management of electronic information resources (EIRs) for research and the academic community. It also focuses on scientific journals and related metrics and introduces various approaches to research assessment. Participants gain an overview of electronic
information resources. They learn the best search strategies, citation techniques and how to work with citation managers. You will become familiar with unique identifiers and the scientific article writing process and learn to select the right research journal. We will present the challenges of the peer review process, scientific and publishing ethics, and copyright issues. Finally, the course will provide participants with an overview of open science, research assessment, e-science, research data management, and the future of libraries in the digital age.

Target groups: researchers, librarians, academic community.