Exploring NASA-TOPS in Community: Open Tools and Resources

Last week, we began a series of articles summarizing our group learning on Open Science from the Open Science 101 (OS101) course, part of NASA’s Transform to Open Science (TOPS) initiative. This time, we present some records on open tools and resources, including notes from our rich synchronous exchange.

A Very Diverse System of Actors and Tools

Module 2 of OS101 introduces us to a basic toolbox for Open Science and demonstrates how these tools can positively impact a collaborative project. These resources can generate different final products, which, if aligned with Open Science practices, will be supported by a data management plan, code, and results based on the same principles.

With good planning, it is possible and advantageous to share data, codes, and results not only at the end of the research but also at various prior stages. Each of these materials should ideally be assigned a DOI (Digital Object Identifier), which allows the material to be cited permanently and facilitates the reproducibility of a method and the accessibility of content according to open scientific practices.

DOIs provide visibility to products beyond articles (which are the most valued products in traditional science) and credit various types of contributions that are registered as authorship of the digital object. We also saw that communities are part of the support for research. Our community members went further, recalling the importance of open reviews and how peer reviewers are essential to the production of knowledge; the difference under an Open Science framework is giving visibility to the work of reviewing.

DOIs provide visibility to products beyond articles (which are the most valued products in traditional science) and credit various types of contributions that are registered as authorship of the digital object. We also saw that communities are part of the support for research. Our community members went further, recalling the importance of open reviews and how peer reviewers are essential to the production of knowledge; the difference under an Open Science framework is giving visibility to the work of reviewing.

There are multiple platforms and tools to help us on the journey of “ FAIRificación” (in Spanish): repositories like Zenodo, Zotero, and GitHub help others access materials and participate in a project, review it, receive credit, see if help is needed, and maintain backups. On the other hand, mechanisms like preprints encourage us to disseminate research results more quickly, with community review and, often, free access. Similarly, protocols (methods and registered computational workflows) allow us to build on previous work much more easily.

All this sounds great, but under certain socioeconomic conditions, we do not always have access to computational platforms or the option to use more powerful ones in our research. In Latin America, institutions do not always have experts in open data management to support projects. A culture of collaboration offers some support to those navigating the journey of Open Science.

Who Practices Open Science?

Open Science does not come “from the top down.” People and communities collaboratively design and share tools, creating and sustaining transformative practices. During our call, we shared our approaches to Open Science and observed that being in non-marginalized countries does not necessarily mean being familiar with available tools and practices.

In Module 2, we learned that finding and contextualizing open materials within a certain vocabulary or convention helps researchers from different places access the products using the “common language” of metadata. With the available documentation, they can reuse and replicate methods. This is fascinating, but our community wonders: will there be enough training, standards, and infrastructure to implement open practices on a large scale?

In Latin America, managing and protecting information is part of our existence and resistance. We provided examples of regional open data policies (from Argentina, Mexico, Brazil) where open government meets Open Science. Once again, a collaborative agenda between different actors (in this case, scientists and public authorities) is essential. This collaboration also helps us understand our communities better and direct public policies more effectively.

We collectively observed that the guidelines for science, including Open Science, can be adapted to each regional context. Firstly, because research groups in more privileged countries are not always aware of open tools and resources. Official incentives for implementing open principles are not always present, highlighting the importance of regulations on the topic, which are fortunately becoming more common. Secondly, we must value regional efforts and progress. From Latin America, we show that it is important and necessary to place our local priorities, needs, and interests within the framework of Open Science, mobilizing resources from communities and governments to disseminate fairer and more responsible practices.

Do you want to reuse any of our content? Please, be our guest!

These were the materials we used in the second meeting of our study group (in Spanish):

• Presentation
• Shared document
• Recording

Our materials are available for free under this CC BY 4.0 license. You can reuse or edit any material that appears here. We only ask that you include a reference to this website or the material citation when available. For further information, please contact us at formacion@metadocencia.org.

Regarding the meetings

Between January and March 2024, 6 meetings are being held to explore the contents of the Open Science 101 course, which is part of the NASA TOPS initiative.

Ver detalles de los encuentros (in Spanish)

Acknowledgments

This publication was made possible thanks to a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7386372) grants from NASA 80NSSC23K0854 (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8215455), 80NSSC23K0857 (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8250978), and 80NSSC23K0861 (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8212072), and the DAF2021-239366 grant and grant DOI https://doi.org/10.37921/522107izqogv from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF, a fund advised by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (Funder DOI 10.13039/100014989) and the “Open Cloud Collaborative Project for Latin America and Africa (the Catalyst Project)” grant from the same funder (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8431422).

Did you like this publication? You can freely reuse it under a CC BY 4.0 license, just remember to cite it.

Here is the citation we recommend for reference:

Melissa Black, Nicolás Palopoli (2024). “Exploring NASA-TOPS in community: Open Tools and Resources”. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13328485