Sustainable Open Science and Equity in Open Knowledge in Turkey: The 7th National Open Science Conference and OpenAIRE Advance Workshop
The 7th National Open Science Conference (AB2019) and OpenAIRE Advance Workshop which aims to raise awareness of open access, open science, open data, and OpenAIRE services; to support open science policy, strategy, legislation, infrastructure, and services in Turkey being compatible with European Union (EU); to share information about the activities carried out and planned by the Council of Higher Education (CoHE) and The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK); and to evaluate the present situation with all stakeholders, was held on 19 and20 November 2019 at E.U. Ataturk Culture Center, Konak, Izmir, hosted by İzmir Institute of Technology in collaboration with Hacettepe University, CoHE, and TUBITAK.
There were about 450 attendees; a broad range of stakeholders: University rectors, academics, researchers, publishers, librarians, journal editors, research office employees, and representatives of the funding organizations, etc. One hundred and ten people also followed the conference via the web. In this event, it was remarkable that the attendees were from very different sectors.
“Sustainable Open Science and Equity in Open Knowledge” was the main theme of the 7th Open Science Conference and OpenAIRE Advance Workshop where experts and respected speakers in the field were invited.
Opening speeches were made by Gultekin Gurdal, IZTECH Library Director and OpenAIRE NOAD, Prof. Dr. Yusuf Baran, IZTECH Rector, and Prof. Dr. Naci Gundogan, Executive Board Member of the CoHE & Chairman of the CoHE Open Science Committee.
Gultekin Gurdal, Library Director at IZTECH and OpenAIRE NOAD in Turkey, said that it was the time for action. He gave information about the OpenAIRE Advance Project and emphasized that Open Science was a revolution.
Prof. Dr. Yusuf Baran, IZTECH Rector, emphasized that information must be spread openly and equally to all over the world in order to ensure justice in the world.
Prof. Dr. Naci Gundogan, Executive Board Member of the CoHE & Chairman of the CoHE Open Science Committee, gave information about open science studies in Turkey and announced that “Research Data and Open Data Turkey Task Force" sub-working group would be established.
After that, two sessions and a panel were held. The chair of the first session was Prof. Dr. Sezer Sener Komsuoglu - Advisor to the President of the CoHE and a member of the Research and Innovation Committee of EUA - and presenters were the first session were as follows:
Prof. Jean-Pierre Finance, Chair of EUA's Expert Group on Open Science, gave a presentation on “Challenges and Ways Forward for European Universities in the Transition Towards Open Science”. He emphasized that transitioning to open science was a shared responsibility and required a concerted approach uniting the main actors.
Paola Masuzzo, Data Scientist, Independent Researcher, Open Knowledge Evangelist, The Institute for Globally Distributed Open Research and Education (IGDORE), gave a presentation on “Open Science: More to it than Meets the Eye". She drew attention to the fact that we should start caring more about mental health (happiness factor) and less about the impact factor. She said that “We need to start recognizing elements such as good mentoring, leadership, diversity, and inclusion work and to support for mental health. All of the things that make academia better and help our students and researchers.We cannot let papers, JIFs, and money be the only currency in science.”
Dr. Paolo Budroni, The European Commission and the Austrian Presidency of the Council, gave a presentation on "Towards the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC): Reflections on a Local Basis for Domestic Infrastructures". He said that the EOSC would provide 1.7m EU researchers an environment with free, open services for data storage, management, analysis and, re-use across disciplines.
Assoc. Prof. Eva M. Méndez Rodríguez, Chair of the EU Open Science Policy Platform, gave a presentation on "Designing Open Science Policies". She emphasized that Open Science was a cultural change and policy made it required, incentive made it rewarding, communities made it normative, user interface/experience made it easy, and infrastructure made it possible.
Marina Angelaki, Research Associate at the National Documentation Centre (EKT) and coordinator of the OpenAIRE Advance Policy Task Force, gave a presentation on "Designing Open Science Policies". She explained the reason for the focus of OpenAIRE policies was based on the belief that infrastructure and policies are two mutually reinforcing elements of Open Science.
The second session’s chair was Prof. Dr. Sirin Tekinay - Sabancı University, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences - and presenters in the second session were:
Prof. Dr. Alper Baba, Vice Rector, IZTECH, gave a presentation on "Groundwater Resources in Turkey, Its Quality, Influencing Factors and Importance of Open Data in Planning”. He talked about the importance of data analysis and its relationship with water resources.
Yasemin Turkyılmaz – Van Der Velden, Data Steward, Delft Technical University, gave a presentation on “Open Science Studies in Holland and Delft Technical University”. She gave information about the team of the Research Data Services of the TU Delft and their studies on RDM.
Prof. Dr. Altug Ozpineci, Middle East Technical University (METU) and TUBITAK Open Science Committee member, gave a speech on “Open Science and METU”. He gave information about open science studies in METU and explained his view on open science from a physicist’s perspective.
Dr. Guleda Dogan, Hacettepe University, gave a speech on "Institutional Repositories and Current Status”. She shared the current status of institutional repositories in Turkey according to the results of the data she collected visiting several universities.
Murat Kucukgirgin, Chair of Open Innovation Association, gave a speech on “Open Innovation and Hack’n Break”. He noted that innovation is very important and reminded a quote by Frank Zappa “A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.”
The 7th National Open Science Conference and OpenAIRE Advance Workshop concluded with a panel discussion on “Sustainable Open Science”. The moderator of the panel was Prof. Dr. Abdullah Atalar - Bilkent University Rector, and participants were Prof. Dr. Yusuf Baran - IZTECH Rector, Prof. Dr. Murat Askar - Izmir University of Economics Rector, Prof. Dr. Sebnem Burnaz - Istanbul Technical University, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Prof. Dr. Yaşar Tonta - Hacettepe University, Department of Information Management and Ilkay Holt - Consultant, Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR).
On the first day of the conference, on 19 November 2019, three important workshops were held on “Research Data Management, Open Licenses, and OpenAIRE Data Services”, “OpenAIRE Services and Practice of IZTECH” and “DSpace Workshop” with the experts in the field. Detailed information about both OpenAIRE and OpenAIRE Content Provider Dashboard was given.
The conference language was Turkish and English. Simultaneous translation was provided at the conference.
Promotional documents related to OpenAIRE, Zenodo, and FAIR Principles were put into the conference bag and distributed to all participants.
The 7th National Open Science Conference and OpenAIRE Advance Workshop were a great success with informative presentations and fruitful discussions. It would make a valuable contribution to further studies on open science in Turkey.
According to survey results, 85% of participants think that the conference was successful and %80 of them think that it met their expectations.
Link to the Conference Web Site and Programme: http://ab2019.acikbilim.org/
Detailed information, presentations and videos: https://libguides.iyte.edu.tr/OSandOpeAIREAdvance
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