Open Scholarship Knowledge Base (OSKB), a free repository of open practice education and training resources

As the adoption of open and reproducible practices grows, so too does the need for high-quality, up-to-date instruction. That’s why OSF (Open Science Framework) partnered with open advocates from the global research community to create the OSKB (Open Scholarship Knowledge Base). 

Now research educators and stakeholders can quickly point to the OSKB as a tool to support the learning, application, and training in open practices for their communities. Plus, the OSKB integrates effortlessly with virtual learning environments as more institutions shift toward remote collaboration and coursework.

Open Scholarship Knowledge Base (OSKB): A sustainable model inclusive to all disciplines

Learn more about the OSKB (a community-led initiative, which means the power to build robust collections of materials is in the hands of those closest to the work) here. Any individual or group can easily submit open scholarship learning materials to the OSKB to support their discipline or community of practice. You can contribute or author a resource, when you see any gap, or join a discipline-based OSKB subcommittee to help review, edit, and curate submissions.

Be Better than Standard Interviews 1: Jesús Fernández, Assistant Professional Researcher

I am happy to announce the release of the 1st Be Better than Standard Interviews.

This is a series of Q&A sessions to be posted every now and then. 

The session covers day-to-day concerns related to career development.

Feel free to participate into a constructive and lively space for discussion through the comments.

Tell me about yourself and the choices you have taken along your career

Hi, I’m Jesus Fernandez Bayo, currently Assistant Professional Researcher at the University of California, Davis. First, I’d like to explain what my position entails as it is not a common term everywhere (never heard of it before coming to the USA). I’m a researcher (meaning I can be PI in project) and I don’t have to teach in despite of being at an University. I’m not permanent employee with a salary from the University. This means I am “soft money” employee: I need to find funding all the time to have a salary to pay myself from project. This is quite challenging sometime. Likely, my formers PIs as postdoc they are strongly supporting my career.

About my career, I did my PhD in Granada (Spain) at the “Estación Experimental del Zaidin” (Spanish National Research Council). My general goal was to use agroindustrial vermicompost (wastes digested by earthworms) to “fix” pesticide in the soils and prevent underground water pollution. I continued my research in the environmental fate of pesticides in tropical soils as Postdoc at Supagro in Montpellier (France). After four years of postdoc, I decided to move out of studying chemical pesticides in soil. That brought me to the University of California Davis (UCD) to study Biosolarization an organic technology alternative to chemical fumigation. You can find more about this here.

I have been involved in so many different research topic related to add-value to organic wastes. One of those projects was to study Black Soldier Fly Larvae as sustainable and nutritious protein source for chicken by cultivating the larvae in almond hulls. This project got so much attraction that kind of “forced” me to start a startup thanks to my amazing team, supervisors and the opportunities open for entrepreneurs at UC Davis.

What is the difference between the You in the PhD, the the You halfway between your PhD and now, and the You now?

During the PhD I wasn’t worried about the future, I was very insecure and I remember kind of waiting for approval from my supervisor for any decision. I had a lot of lab work and not enough time to write. I was only focused on finishing the PhD. My halfway between then and now was excited about doing postdoc in different places in the world. I started to enjoy more research because I started to take more decisions. Today, I find myself less naif and more secure and independent. I enjoy writing project proposal and presenting results and I am lucky enough that I can still enjoy lab and field work in between writing.

How have you used your different experiences in the past (methods, technologies, experimental design, soft skills, networking…) along your career?

In many ways, actually, that is one of the best ways to realize that you are actually learning things. For instance, during my PhD I went to Germany (Forschungszentrum Juelich) to learn how to use radio-labelled pesticides to study their fate in the environment. That was the same technique I used for my Postdoc in France. Likewise, in France I learnt to take water samples in soil column to study pesticide leaching. I am currently using the same technique to monitor nitrate percolation in soil. In my opinion, it is extremely important to move to different labs and countries to enrich knowledge and to learn new techniques and different ways of managing projects, communicate results and understand cultures.

Order from the most to the least motivation factor: salary, work environment, career prospective, work-life balance, country/city, topic/field, challenging, comfort area.

  1. topic/field
  2. work-life balance
  3. country/city
  4. salary
  5. challenging
  6. work environment,
  7. career prospective
  8. comfort area.

When is a project or task too risky to be realistically obtainable?

With enough resources (funding, team, equipment and time) almost any project is realistically obtainable. If some of those pillars is unbalance it will be a challenge to achieve your goals. Outside of that, I think ethical issues could be the hardest part to make a project real.

Any advice for managing pressure?

Breathe. Slow down to plan. Going step by step, setting small goals. Delegating tasks to colleagues. Of course, being able of refusing tasks when you feel overwhelmed

Choose one challenging situation and how you overcame it

My current situation is quite challenging. I do not have a permanent position or visa and we are living one of the most unpredictable times in recent history. To manage this pressure I focus on every goal that I achieve. I try to do short-term goals but also work on projects/ideas that could help me for the future. For instance, I invest time outside of work in the startup. At the same time, I force myself to stop working and take time for me and my close ones to keep a healthy work-life balance.

How do you deal with procrastination?

This is one of my biggest issues. Fixing deadlines and weekly goals. I have a calendar that I use to block time to specific projects (writing, reading…in a weekly basis). But at the end, a hard deadline and pressure is the best way to fight procrastination. I also try to have a flexible schedule, meaning that if I find myself that I am procrastinating too much, I try to recover that time later that day.

In your opinion, what makes a good team leader?

A balanced person. That person must communicate well, understand the needs of the team, above all, it must be part of the team and not above the team

How do you handle your public speaking nerves?

I’m not a communicator by nature, I’m aware of it and to overcome that I do practice a lot.

Advantages and disadvantages of working in the two most different environments that you have experienced? (industry vs academics, research centers vs universities, policy vs entrepreneur…)

In my case it would be academy vs entrepreneurship. Advantages of the academy are: interaction with a lot of people, many opportunities to learn new things and I’d say more financial security. The disadvantage is that you share your time with a lot of bureaucracy.
As entrepreneur, I have enjoyed the possibility of making an idea true to really help society. You focus mainly in one project. If it works, you can make money! (but I’m far from that step). The disadvantages may be that you need to learn many field you may have not learnt on your research career: finances, legal, marketing…Finally, depending how and where you develop your business, you can face a lot of financial risk and insecurity.

What would you do differently if you could go back in time knowing what you know now?

My career hasn’t been perfect but I do not regret any of my decisions in general. I think one of the issues that have limited or influenced my career is that my goal has always been to find a quality job in Spain. Unfortunately, the opportunities and working conditions are so low that the competition is extremely high. I have been trying more than 10 years to go back home….
If have to say something more specific, I think, I would have planned my career goals and fill some gaps on my CV to achieve a most permanent position in the academy

Springer Nature makes key textbooks free

Only until July!

Springer Nature, one of the greatest scientific publishers, allows downloading for free more than 400 books (approx. 8 GB) from all fields of knowledge. You can find all of them in this Excel sheet:

https://resource-cms.springernature.com/springer-cms/rest/v1/content/17858272/data/v5

These are complete books, written in English, some of them quite technical. They are in PDF (or ePub) and have no digital rights management (DRM), just a watermark outside the reading area. Thus, the books can be converted to any reading device, such as a tablet or e-book reader, using a software such as Calibre, which can convert PDF or ePub files to Amazon’s Kindle format.

How to download a book?

1: Find the book you are interested in in the excel sheet above. TIP: Use the drop down menu of the column “English Package Name” to filter by subject e.g. Behavioral Science, Biomedical and Life Sciences or Computer Science.

2: Once you found a book, follow the link in the column “OpenURL” of the excel sheet. Then click the download button.

Keep safe keep learning!

Alexgand made a python script to download them all: https://github.com/alexgand/springer_free_books

Source: https://group.springernature.com/gp/group/media/press-releases/freely-accessible-textbook-initiative-for-educators-and-students/17858180?utm_medium=social&utm_content=organic&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=SpringerNature_&sf232256230=1

EU Prize for Women Innovators until 21st of April

EU Prize for Women Innovators is a SWFS Recognition Prize for entrepreneurs with the framework Horizon 2020 (EU). Deadline date for applicants :21 April 2020 17:00:00 (Brussels)

This award scheme (single-stage) recognises the role of women in bringing about game-changing innovations to market, and celebrates the outstanding achievements of women running innovative companies. The EU Prize for Women Innovators will be awarded to up to four women innovators in total (three women in the main prize category, and one Rising Innovator at the beginning of her career) who have created the largest impact on the innovation ecosystem by transforming ideas into new and advanced products and/or services for the benefit of European citizens

1. Eligible countries:described in the Rules of Contest.
2. Eligibility and exclusion criteria: described in the Rules of Contest.

The response of open access science to the coronavirus

Two open science platforms: Frontiers and Figshare are doing their part in the fight against the virus.

“The Frontiers community is mobilizing to help mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, Frontiers have launched our Coronavirus Knowledge Hub – here you will find the outputs of several new initiatives intended to coordinate and support the efforts of our community, as we confront the public-health, economic and societal effects of the rapidly spreading disease.

As part of this initiative, Frontiers is assembling many of the world’s leading coronavirus scientists and epidemiologists to participate in the Research Topic: ‘Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Pathophysiology, Epidemiology, Clinical Management and Public Health Response’. This article collection will highlight how interdisciplinary research can provide insights into the COVID-19 epidemic, addressing knowledge gaps and generating evidence for its improved management and control.

Coronavirus Knowledge Hub
A trusted source for the latest science on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19

Frontiers has also waived Article Processing Charges (APCs) and established a priority peer-review process for manuscripts submitted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This will further help ensure robust scientific research becomes openly available as soon as possible, for other researchers to build on and to enable evidence-based decision-making for public authorities worldwide.

As we pull together as a community – calmly, responsibly, and resolutely – during this COVID-19 outbreak, Frontiers is keen to hear from you. Please do not hesitate to send your ideas for new research directions, stakeholder engagement and initiatives around coronavirus and the current global health crisis. Making science open has never been more essential to global well-being and Frontiers thank you for your contribution and dedication”

Figshare is also committed to continuing to provide a platform to share the latest research on an international scale. As such, Figshare will continue to supply and maintain our normal service during the Covid-19 pandemic. We are also in a unique position to help the research community during this time so the team has been working on some new initiatives to aid the rapid dissemination of research in any form, be it preprints, datasets, presentations, or software.
The significance of sharing research is vitally important, now more than ever, which is why we want to help in any way we can. To allow researchers to publish any COVID-19 related research, we’re launching a free portal at https://COVID19.figshare.com/.

All researchers will need to do is create an account on Figshare and upload content with COVID-19 as one of the keywords on their metadata form and we’ll pull it into the COVID-19 Open Research Portal.

Please note, if your institution uses Figshare as a data or institutional repository, please continue to use that platform to store and share your COVID-19 research. COVID-19 research stored in institutional Figshare platforms will also be aggregated into https://COVID19.figshare.com.

If you’d like to learn more about the https://COVID19.figshare.com portal or have any questions, please visit the Figshare blog, here or reach out at support@figshare.com.

The beauty of life […] find your smile when you are about to cry

The beauty of life, the beauty of helping each other, especially in difficult times, find your smile when you are about to cry.

A poem by Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw, 1979.

We plant a seed that will one day grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations
that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation
in realising that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning,
a step along the way,

VIII International Symposium SRUK/CERU – interested talks relevant to the day-to-day life of any researcher

On 12th of March, the Organizing Committee, being its primary concern the health and wellbeing of everyone, has decided to postpone the International Symposium until the WHO declares that the risk related to COVID-19 has disappeared. As soon as we know the new date, we will publish it, in order for you to have greater certainty about your travel schedule and plans.

Date to be confirmed!!! The VIII International Symposium SRUK/CERU (new date different from 10-12 of July) to be hold in Oxford! With its theme Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (A. C. Clark), we will look into how science has evolved in a way that was very difficult to imagine in a not so distant past. More details to follow, here and on SRUK social media.

Speakers on Leadership, Science Policy, Science Divulgación (youtuber, )
Grant proposals, Resilience for researchers wellbeing, Time Management… Be ready to develop soft and hard skills and meet other colleagues to share goals and maximise opportunities and benefits.