NSF Award
2332598
Many people think that scientists, private companies, and governments should share their activities with the public. The activities involved with this sharing are called “open work.” Working openly helps people learn from each other, keep track of what other people are doing, and check each other’s work. Not much is known about the best ways for people to work openly. To learn more about how open work can contribute to the Nation’s interests, the Interdisciplinary Open Practices Workshop (IOP Workshop) brings together researchers from different fields of science, private companies, and government. Workshop participants work together to figure out what is known and to plan projects to determine what is not known about open practices and how they can be used. This project produces a final report that provides information to scientists, leaders, and workers about the benefits of open work and how open work can benefit the progress of science and technology.<br/> <br/>The goals of the IOP Workshop are to learn which open practices work better than others and under what circumstances those practices work best. In the workshop, researchers present information about how open work happens in different fields: open science, open source software, open government, open education, open source intelligence, and others. Presentations by open work experts and students and working group discussions demonstrate current trends and explore new research topics. Experts also discuss new science on open work (also called “open organizing”). This new science shows how people who work openly can make decisions about how transparent they want to be and decide who will be permitted to make decisions in their groups. These decisions include determining how people from different backgrounds will be included and how easy it should be for other people to reproduce their work. Finally, researchers share datasets with each other to spark new ideas and collaborations.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
