As part of our theory of change strategy, the Center for Open Science (COS) offers researchers tools and services to make research better, more efficient, and more reproducible. It is important to create engagement with research communities as researchers are more likely to adopt reproducible practices when they are backed by community leadership and support. Groups, institutions, and funders partner with COS to provide their researchers with open infrastructure, methods, and training.
The STEM Education Hub is a place for educators, researchers, librarians, policymakers, and anyone in need of educational resources in STEM to learn, discover, share, and engage. Community building for the hub is supported through the following initiatives.
- Open Scholarship Knowledge Base (OSKB)
A growing community with a library of open education resources, the OSKB saw almost 500 unique resources added in 2021.
- Unconference on Open Scholarship Practices in Education Research
The 2021 Unconference featured participant-led sessions analyzing the current state of open scholarship practice and interactive hackathons seeking solutions to identified problems with over 500 attending and 28 virtual sessions.
- Open Scholarship Survey (OSS)
The OSS is a standard, modular survey to assess open scholarship attitudes, perceptions, and behavior of researchers. Topics assessed include sharing data, materials, and code; preregistration; preprints and open access; replication, reproduction, and robustness; reporting null results; and perceived criteria for hiring, promotion, grants, and awards.
- Educational Training and Webinars
COS continuously produces educational training to support the advancement of open science practices in the educational researcher community.
- STEM Education Hub at Academic Conferences
To engage the community and broaden awareness, presentations about the STEM Education Hub were included in several major academic conferences.
By advancing these initiatives and the organization of resources through the OSKB, the STEM Education Hub supports grassroots efforts to change the research culture in education research toward greater openness, rigor, and reproducibility.
"The STEM Education Hub connects researchers with resources to engage with open science practices for the first time," said Marcy Reedy, COS Community Manager. "We help build communities through unconferences—where the participants set the agenda—and through knowledge sharing in the Open Scholarship Knowledge Base."
Sign-up for our monthly newsletter to learn more about the STEM Education Hub, including webinar announcements, OSKB development, and event invitations. If you would like to get more involved with the OSKB, we welcome you to join our monthly OSKB Community Call.
