# OpenCon 2018 Switzerland

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## General Information

### When?

- Conference: September 21

- Unconference: September 22

### Where?

SNSF, Wildhainweg 21, 3001 Bern

### Language

The lingua franca will be English[^note1].

[^note1]: Participants are welcome to speak their own language.

### Registration

Free[^note2].

[^note2]: Eventually small registration caution fee, refunded after participation.

### More Information and Contact

[Anna Severin](mailto:[e-mail]), [Chloé Gay-Balmaz](mailto:[e-mail]), [Joao Martins](mailto:[e-mail]) and [Luc Henry](mailto:[e-mail]).

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## What is OpenCon?

[OpenCon](http://www.opencon2017.org "OpenCon Homepage") is a platform for the next generation to learn about Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data, develop critical skills, and catalyse action toward a more open system for sharing the world’s information -- from scholarly and scientific research, to educational materials, to digital research data.

Over the years, OpenCon has inspired a number of researchers, librarians, educators and members of civil society to advocate for a more open and transparent access to scientific information. It is an event where individuals involved in projects advancing the state of open science meet to discuss best practice and share experience with others.

## Why OpenCon Switzerland?

We believe that Switzerland would greatly benefit from a similar forum in the country, and therefore we plan to organise a OpenCon satellite event in Bern. We aim to bring open science practictioners together with individuals advocating for openness in other contexts. We believe such a forum will catalyse a conversation around *open-* topics at the national level and give the opportunity for active *open-* advocates to meet and connect, within Switzerland and with the international community.

OpenCon satellite events benefit from the support of [SPARC](https://sparcopen.org "The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition") and [R2RC](http://www.righttoresearch.org "The Right to Research Coalition"), two coalitions organising the annual OpenCon. Since 2014, over 4'000 people have attended over 70 satellite events in 32 countries. Instructions on how to host OpenCon satellites are available on the [OpenCon website](http://www.opencon2017.org/satellite "Host an OpenCon Satellite Event").

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## Who Should Attend?

OpenCon is mainly targeted at the next-generation of open science advocates. They can be early career researchers - from doctoral students to young PIs - actively promoting openness in their research field, librarians promoting openness in their institutions, publishers who have a strong open access vision, policy advisors and administrators involved in setting the open science or open government agendas, and advocates for open culture from the civil society.

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## Detailed Program

Order of speakers and titles are TBC

### Friday 21 September

Trains:
Lausanne-Bern: 07:20-08:26
Zurich-Bern: 07:32-08:28
Basel-Bern: 07:28-08:24
Neuchâtel-Bern: 07:59-08:47

08:30 - Doors open and Coffee

09:00 - Welcome - Anna

- Introduction by Organisers: Anna Severin (SNSF)
- Welcome by Host: Matthias Egger (SNSF)
- Presentation OpenCon: Achintya Rao (CERN)

09:30 Keynote 1: Malvika Sharan (EMBL, Heidelberg) - My experience as an Open Science community manager

10:00 Keynote 2: Richard Neher (Universität Basel) - Using open data to track and predict infectious disease

10:30 Coffee Break

11:00 Get to know the participants

11:30 Session 1 - Luc

- Christian Gutknecht (SNSF) - Open Access ins Switzerland: The Endgame
- Sarven Capadisli (TIB, Hannover) - Autonomous Scholarly Web
- Andrea Hacker (Universität Bern) - Role of Swiss libraries in the future of Open Science

- Questions and Discussion - How do we move forward?

12:30 Lunch

13:30 Session 2 - Achyntia

- Tim Head (Wild Tree Tech) - My career as an open brain-for-hire
- Julia Gustavsen (Sophia Genetics) - Sharing code with rOpenSci
- André Golliez (OpenData.ch) - Swiss overview Open Data

- Questions and Discussion - Selfish reasons to work openly (or not)

14:30 Coffee Break

15:00 Session 3 - Joao

- Julieta Arancio - The Global Open Science Hardware Roadmap
- Stéphane Joost (EPFL) - Sharing Open Research Data: how far can we go?
- Ronald Drimmel (Turin Astrophysical Observatory) - Making Open Science good for scientists

- Questions and Discussion - Legal, technical and social limits to openness

16:00 Preparation to Unconference

16:30 Workshops

- Luc Henry (EPFL) - Design Thinking for Open Research and Education ([slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qMNS2-AtnvZPldGoBRitRq-IVrHUNUp1aedys7kOz3M/edit#slide=id.p))
- Tania Jenkins (sc|nat) - Research Culture

18:00 Closing

- Joao Martins (SNSF) - Short presentation of ScienceGeist
- Luc Henry (EPFL) - Closing and announcement for next day

18:30 Drinks at [Turnhalle](https://www.turnhalle.ch)

### Saturday 22 September

9:00 Doors open and Coffee

10:00 Warm-up and short pitches

11:00 Start of the Unconference:

* Discussions organised by participants, planned according to popularity

* Do-a-thon: day-long hands-on activity on some of the projects presented in short talks the day before.

* Tutorials (max 45 minutes): short (practical) introduction to a tool or a concept any participant wants to share with the others.

18:30 Official end of the event

## Abstracts and Speakers' bio

First name in alphabetical order

### Achintya Rao (CERN) - What is OpenCon?

Achintya Rao is a science writer for CERN, the European laboratory for particle physics in Geneva, Switzerland, and is pursuing a PhD in science communication from the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK. He is interested in open practices across all stages of the research process and has helped build the CERN Open Data portal.

- Twitter: [@RaoOfPhysics](https://twitter.com/RaoOfPhysics)

### Andrea Hacker (Universität Bern) - Shifting Gears: The Role of Swiss Libraries in the Future of Open Science

Scholarly communication and the development of open science are currently undergoing a crucial shift: Now that open access is widely recognized and practiced, researchers, libraries and publishers vie for control over digital research infrastructure. New demands for open data and open access compliance from funding instruments add to the complexity of this competition. This talk will sketch out how Switzerland’s university libraries can contribute open alternatives to prorietary, closed products.

Andrea Hacker joined Bern University’s open science team in March 2018 after eight years of open access work as head of the publications office of Heidelberg University’s Cluster of Excellence «Asia and Europe in a Global Context». She received her doctorate in Slavic Languages and Literatures from UCLA and taught at institutions in the USA, the Republic of Ireland, Germany and Russia.

- Twitter: [@ahacker](https://twitter.com/ahacker)

### Christian Gutknecht (SNSF) - Open Access ins Switzerland: The Endgame

The high-level goals are set. According to the [Swiss National Strategy on Open Access](https://www.swissuniversities.ch/fileadmin/swissuniversities/Dokumente/Hochschulpolitik/Open_Access/Open_Access_strategy_final_e.pdf), all scholarly publications funded by public money must be freely accessible on the internet by 2024. The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) even wants to reach [100% OA by 2020](http://www.snf.ch/en/theSNSF/research-policies/open-access/Pages/default.aspx) for all publications that results out of SNSF funded projects. How can these goals be put into practice?

Christian is an Open Access Activist since 2008. He worked as repository manager at the University of Zurich (ZORA) and the University of Bern (BORIS). Currently working at the SNSF. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7265-1692

- Twitter: [@chgutknecht](https://twitter.com/chgutknecht)

### Hannes Gassert (OpenData.ch) - Swiss overview Open Data

- Twitter: [@hannesgassert](https://twitter.com/hannesgassert)

### Juan-Pablo Lovato (UVEK) - Building a data ecosystem: the open government side

Opendata.swiss is where everyone can find Swiss open government data. Making data open is only partially an “IT matter”: While data are the main product, we also have to deal with legal, organizational and cultural challenges. It is a journey in discovering the potential of our data and making this potential available to anyone, but at the same ensuring that requirements in data protection and quality are met. Where do you start?

Juan-Pablo manages the Swiss open government data project for the Swiss Federal Archives and as such he supports federal offices, cantons, communes as well as state-owned companies in making their data openly available.

### Julia Gustavsen (Sophia Genetics) - Code Curation

- Twitter: [@JuliaGustavsen](https://twitter.com/JuliaGustavsen)

### Julieta Arancio (CONICET) - The Global Open Science Hardware Roadmap

The ability to use, study, replicate, and improve scientific instrumentation is a central part of experimental science, and plays a crucial role in education, research and action that are all critical to achieving scientific and development goals. However, these activities are currently restricted by proprietary instrumentation, which is difficult and expensive to obtain and maintain, since it cannot be fully inspected, evaluated, or customized. This situation is fundamentally detrimental to the production of knowledge in the global South and the potential for diverse actors to create equitable and sustainable solutions to local and international problems. Open Science Hardware (OScH) is one solution to promoting global access to hardware for science by freely sharing designs and protocols for instrumentation. The Global Open Science Hardware Roadmap is a collaborative community initiative involving 100 contributors from 30 countries that describes what is required for OScH to become ubiquitous by 2025.

Julieta Arancio is a PhD candidate at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, studying the Open Hardware movement in Latin America. With a background in Environmental Science, her work is developed at CENIT - a research center on innovation studies - and also at local spaces where she leads community science projects.

- Twitter: [@Cassandreces](https://twitter.com/Cassandreces)

### Luc Henry (EPFL) - Design Thinking for Open Research and Education ([slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qMNS2-AtnvZPldGoBRitRq-IVrHUNUp1aedys7kOz3M/edit#slide=id.p))

- Twitter: [@heluc](https://twitter.com/heluc)

### Malvika Sharan (EMBL, Heidelberg) - My experience as an in-house advocate

Science in the 21st century is becoming increasingly collaborative and open in nature. Consequently, the advancement of a research field should be measured not only by scientific output but also by the level of participation of its community members. Hence, a successful community should be able to promote equal participation from its community members independent of the factors such as geographic location, gender, ethnicity and social background. In my talk I will explore inclusiveness as one of the key features of open source community and share some of the lessons learned while adopting them in my work as a community manager.

Malvika is a computational biologist at the [European Molecular Biology Laboratory](https://www.embl.org/), Heidelberg, Germany, where she coordinates the [Bio-IT project](https://bio-it.embl.de/), a community-driven platform for bioinformaticians. She organizes training activities and events for EMBL, [de.NBI/ELIXIR Germany](https://www.denbi.de/) and other open source communities such as [The Carpentries](https://www.carpentries.org/). She promotes diversity and open access through her work as a community outreach coordinator.

- Twitter: [@malvikasharan](https://twitter.com/MalvikaSharan)
- GitHub: [@malvikasharan](https://github.com/malvikasharan)

### Matthias Egger (SNSF) - Welcome Address

- Twitter: [@eggersnsf](https://twitter.com/eggersnsf)

### Richard Neher (Universität Basel) - Using open data to track and predict infectious disease

As pathogens replicate and spread, their genomes accumulate mutations. Such sequence data are increasingly used to track the spread of pathogens which in turn can inform public health public health interventions. Historically, however, sequencing and analysis has lagged months-to-years behind sample collection. We have developed automated analysis pipelines process openly available sequence data. The results are visualized in an interactive web application nextstrain.org. Intuitive and interpretable visualizations like nextstrain are key to turn data into actionable results that public health officials can build upon.

[Richard Neher](https://neherlab.org) earned a PhD in Physics from the University of Munich. He
joined the Biozentrum of the University of Basel as an associate
professor in 2017.

- Twitter: [@richardneher](https://twitter.com/richardneher)
- GitHub: [@neherlab](https://github.com/neherlab)

### Ronald Drimmel (Turin Astrophysical Observatory) - Making Open Science good for scientists

Just as the open access movement is forcing the scientific community to reconsider the traditional review/publication process, open data policies are highlighting the inadequacies of how scientific productivity is measured, especially in the context of large science projects. The open science paradigm can be better for both science and scientists, but institutes adopting open data policies must also recognize that doing science is often more than just doing research and publishing papers. Without such changes the (old) arguments for not sharing data to protect the careers of (young) scientists will continue to have weight.

Ronald Drimmel is a research astronomer of the Astrophysical Observatory of Turin (INAF), and a contributing member of the [Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium](http://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/data-processing) that has recently released the largest stellar catalogue based on data from the Gaia mission of the European Space agency. He is the author of a recent blog post for Scientific American, [The Price of Open Science](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-price-of-open-science/).

- Twitter: [@rdrimmel](https://twitter.com/rdrimmel)

### Sarven Capadisli (TIB, Hannover) - Autonomous Scholarly Web

In this talk we will discuss the realisation of a social scholarly information space that is completely driven by autonomous and interoperable open Web standards. What are the effects and artefacts of such paradigm? How is it different than the plethora of existing services and platforms? Why would a researcher-centric approach to scholarly communication be desirable?

[Sarven Capadisli](http://csarven.ca/) is currently writing his PhD thesis with University of Bonn, and researches with TIB, Hannover. His research involves the [Linked Research](https://linkedresearch.org/) initiative and [dokieli](https://dokie.li/) (a clientside editor for decentralised article publishing, annotations and social interactions).

- Twitter: [@csarven](https://twitter.com/csarven)
- GitHub: [@csarven](https://github.com/csarven)

### Stéphane Joost - The limits of Open Research Data

Stéphane Joost will share the unexpected challenges he and his colleagues faced when publishing research data and how they overcame them.

Stéphane Joost is a quantitative geographer, specialized in the analysis of the relationships between living organisms and their environment. He uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial statistics for the analysis of genetic and health data (molecular ecology, spatial epidemiology).

- Twitter: [@stephanejoost](https://twitter.com/stephanejoost)

### Tania Jenkins (sc|nat) - Reseach Culture Workshop

The #WeScientists2035 workshops use speculative design scenarios to encourage novel thinking about what an idealised research culture would look like in 27 years time - with the aim to implement small changes today. The focus of the workshops at OpenCon will be open science, open data, research integrity and publication culture, which are all fundamental pillars of research culture.

Tania is a scientist turned science-communicator turned science policy advisor. She has been active in the public engagement of science for the last five years. At SCNAT she develops and leads research culture workshops that aim to create grass-roots change in the science community.

- Twitter: [@Tania_Jenkins](https://twitter.com/Tania_Jenkins)

### Tim Head (Wild Tree Tech) - My Career as an Open Brain-for-hire

Tim Head will talk about why he thinks he can have more impact on the progress of science by not being a professional academic. Being a brain-for-hire has its own challenges but brings several benefits compared to life as a post-doc.

Tim has a PhD in experimental particle physics, after years as a pro-academic he retired from "the sport" to start his own data engineering consulting company in 2016. Since then he has contributed to several open-source software projects used by researchers, built private tools based on open tools and datasets and helped create mybinder.org a service that let's anyone run any GitHub repository for free.

- Twitter: [@betatim](https://twitter.com/betatim)
- GitHub: [@betatim](https://github.com/betatim)

## Organisers

### Anna Severin (SNSF)

### Chloé Gay-Balmaz (Universität Bern)

### Joao Martin (SNSF)

### Luc Henry (EPFL)