“What an exciting potential future for science!” commented one of the participants in the ORION MOOC for Open Science in Life Sciences, when discussing what they had learnt from the course. The ORION MOOC course ran for six weeks from October-November 2019 and was open for anyone interested in Open Science.
The participants have spent six weeks learning about different aspects of Open Science through modules that were created by a range of contributors with specialist knowledge from across Europe. Each module aimed to inform and inspire through a variety of learning materials; participants have discovered what kind of science communication style might suit them through a Star Trek quiz, created a data management plan, discussed their preregistration perspectives on the forum, and played an Open Science scenario game. Everyone who completed all the assignments got a certificate of completion and was entered into a raffle to win a giant cuddly microbe!
Another participant, Deirdre Winrow, highlighted the practical usefulness of the MOOC:
“I signed up for this course thinking that it might be nice to get some background information on a subject which I did not know much about. I was really surprised at how much of the information I was able to apply directly to my job and how soon!”
The MOOC was a collaboration between MDC Berlin and TU Dresden and was moderated by Luiza Bengtsson, Emma Harris, and Zoe Ingram of the ORION training team at MDC Berlin and Sabine Barthold from TU Dresden.
The MOOC will run again in early 2020 and you can email orion@mdc-berlin.de now get an update when enrollment opens.