Fit4RRI Train the Trainers workshop in Göttingen – A summary by a non-librarian

FIT4RRI AdminFIT4RRI Project, Open Science, Report, RRI

A group sitting with two other groups in a seminar room discussing the outline of the training.

On December 5th, the University Library in Göttingen opened their doors and welcomed about 18 organizers of “Open Science and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)” trainings. The goal of the workshop was to get to know each other, learn more about didactics and exchange best practices. Fit for RRI gave out some travel stipends, and I was lucky to receive such a stipend. So here is a little summary of what we learned and what I brought back to Leiden from the training:

Librarians, escape rooms and a pressure cooker

My first thought during the introduction round was: “So many librarians, where are my fellow researchers?” I wasn’t aware how many librarians are dealing with research data 🤷‍♀️. (On my list of projects for 2020: find out who our subject librarian is and walk over to the library for a chat. Librarians are awesome people!)

After the introduction round, Helene Brinken introduced materials (find the slides here) for open science trainings. Have you ever heard about an Open Access Escape Room, where you have to break pay-walls to escape (for more information: Paper and Materials)?

This is definitely material that I will share with my colleagues at the university library in Leiden!

The following lecture was a pressure cooker course on German copyright law and how it relates to Open Access efforts.

Lunch Time is Network Time

After a delicious lunch with lots of time for networking and chatting about open hardware and how to get sensor data from commercial devices (I am always relieved when I find others struggling with the same issues…), we were ready for the interactive part of the training: First we got introduced to fundamental didactics before practising them and playing the train-the-trainer-game.

Didactics and a Game of Cards

After lunch, Angelika Thielsch gave us an introduction to “Open Teaching. How to design and give training”. My main take-away are the three dimensions of learning outcomes (cognitive, affective and psychomotor) that should guide the design of any training. Importantly: sometimes the goal is on the emotional (affective dimension) side of things. Depending on the target audience, a trainer might need to adjust the intended learning outcomes to avoid disappointment but also to redirect efforts to learning outcomes that are reachable and important for future trainings.

The last agenda item was the train the trainer card game where we had to design and present an open science course within 30 min. In a small team, we were tasked to design a 1/2 day workshop for senior academics with little time. Our solution was to break the workshop into two parts: First of all one general meeting where we invite a role model (i.e. a fellow academic with experience in open science tools and how to lead open science groups). And then individual sessions where research groups are supported on site to integrate open science pipelines into their daily work.

Our group discussing the outline of the training

Our group discussing the outline of the training

Summary

I am looking forward to discussing new ideas with my colleagues in the Netherlands and including some didactical knowledge when designing a new ReproHack session (find out more about Reproducibility Hackathons here). I even got some RRI coffee mugs to give-away at our next Hackathon! :heart_eyes_cat: