Celebrate Open Science Week: September 15–21

Open Science Week (September 15–21), founded by the Allen Institute, celebrates the transformative impact of open science. It’s a time to recognize how sharing tools, data, and resources openly can accelerate scientific discovery.

What Is Open Science? 

Open Science is a set of principles and practices that promotes making scientific resources and outputs available to everyone. Sharable outputs include: 

  • Code and software
  • Lab/study protocols
  • Data sets
  • Laboratory materials such as antibodies and cell lines

By embracing open practices, researchers can increase reproducibility, reduce duplication, and foster innovation across disciplines.

Tips for Making Your Research More Open

  1. Pre-register your research
    Increase transparency and reduce bias by publicly registering your research question, hypothesis, and methodology before starting your study. 
    1. Open Science Framework is a free, open-source platform for sharing research protocols and collaborating with others.
    2. PROSPERO is a registry for systematic reviews that helps prevent duplication and promotes methodological transparency
  2. Share Your Code 
    If you've written code or developed software, release it under an open license using platforms like GitLab or GitHub. Duke provides an institutional license to GitLab. For help with GitLab or other code-sharing options, contact Research Computing or the Center for Data and Visualization Sciences. 
  3. Share Your Data
    Deposit your data in a repository using a documented, usable format with an open license. This ensures your data meets FAIR principles—Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. Explore Duke’s Guidance for Sharing Research Data on MyResearchPath, which includes a data repository finder tool.
  4. Share Your Laboratory Resources
    You can share biological materials like cell lines, plasmids, and antibodies through established biorepositories (see the PLOS list of established repositories in Sharing Materials). To make it easier to cite and find, register your materials with the RRID Portal to get a unique Research Resource Identifier (RRID) for use in publications.
  5. Use Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) 
    PIDs like DOIs, ORCIDs, and RRIDs are long-lasting digital references that help ensure your research outputs are findable, citable, and properly attributed over time. Include them in your metadata and manuscripts.
    1. Code: Use software citation principles to cite your code.
    2. Datasets: Follow dataset citation guidelines to make your data citable.
    3. Lab Materials: RRIDs come with a “Cite This” button for easy citation in your paper.

📬 Questions? Reach out to medical-librarian@duke.edu

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