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Open Scholarship Starter Plan

The Open Scholarship Starter Workbook is designed to cut through that noise and decide what works for you and your research.

You can access the archived, citable version of the workbook via our Zenodo repository.

This webpage accompanies the workbook, and here you’ll find curated tools, templates, readings, and examples to support you at every stage of your open research journey.

Whether you’re just getting started or looking to strengthen your existing practices, this page brings together everything you need to build confident, responsible, and collaborative open scholarship workflows.

10 Things to Help You Get Started on Open Scholarship

  1. Start a preprint review or reading club.
  2. Start an open project workflow (e.g., via GitHub, OSF, Jupyter Notebooks).
  3. Pre-register your research project.
  4. Plan for data sharing and reuse (e.g., via a data management plan, consent forms, REB application).
  5. Annotate and explain code with comments and documentation.
  6. Dedicate time to make sure your data is well documented and well organized, complying with FAIR and Indigenous data principles.
  7. Use transparent writing tools (e.g., Markdown, Quarto, Jupyter Notebooks) to share your research process and products.
  8. Publish a preprint and invite feedback from your peers.
  9. Share your research products in an open repository (e.g., Summit, Zenodo, Dryad).
  10. Share your research with non-academic audiences (e.g., via a blog post, policy brief, public presentation, or social media).

1. Start a preprint review or reading club.

Starting a preprint reading or review club is a powerful way for students to actively engage with cutting-edge research. By discussing preprints together, you build critical appraisal skills, gain confidence in giving constructive feedback, and stay current with emerging ideas in your field. Participating in open peer review through platforms like PREreview also allows you to contribute to the scholarly community, make your insights visible, and practice transparent, collaborative science.

If you do start a preprint club, we would love to know! Please reach out to share the news and we can provide support to your initiative.

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2. Start an open project workflow (e.g., via GitHub, OSF, Jupyter Notebooks).

Adopting an open project workflow means organizing your research and collaboration with transparency, reproducibility, and accessibility at the core. Using tools like GitHub for version control, Open Science Framework (OSF) for project management, and Jupyter Notebooks for combining code, results, and narrative not only makes your work easier to share and reuse but also builds essential skills in collaborative, open research practices. This approach helps you track changes, invite contributions, build your public portfolio, and make your research more robust and credible, setting you up for success in both academic and industry environments.

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3. Pre-register your research project.

Pre-registering your research project is a way to clearly document your hypotheses, methods, and analysis plan in advance to increase transparency, reduce bias, and build credibility with reviewers and future collaborators. Pre-registration also helps you stay organized, clarify your thinking before data collection begins, and demonstrates a strong commitment to rigorous science.

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4. Plan for data sharing and reuse (e.g., via a data management plan, consent forms, REB application).

Planning for data sharing and reuse from the start of your project strengthens both your research and its long-term impact. By developing a clear data management plan, aligning consent forms with sharing intentions, and addressing data governance in your REB application you ensure that your data can be preserved, accessed, and responsibly reused. Early planning helps you protect participant privacy, meet funder and institutional requirements, and avoid delays later in the research process.

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5. Annotate and explain code with comments and documentation.

Annotating and documenting your code is an investment in the clarity, longevity, and impact of your research. Clear comments explain not just what the code does, but why specific decisions were made, making your analyses easier to verify, reproduce, and maintain. Well-documented scripts also save you time when revisiting projects months later and make collaboration smoother by helping others understand your workflow.

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6. Dedicate time to make sure your data is well documented and well organized, complying with FAIR and Indigenous data principles.

Ensure your data is well organized and documented to make it easier to use, verify, and share. Follow the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), CARE principles (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics) for Indigenous data, and OCAP® principles (Ownership, Control, Access, Possession) to respect First Nations governance. Proper data stewardship increases transparency, supports reproducibility, and demonstrates integrity and respect for the communities connected to your research.

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7. Use transparent writing tools (e.g., Markdown, Quarto, Jupyter Notebooks) to share your research process and products.

Use transparent writing tools such as Markdown, Quarto, or Jupyter Notebooks help make your methods, analyses, and results easy to reproduce and share. They allow you to use plain text editing, which can be tracked using version control systems, and they don't depend on proprietary software, making your reports interoperable. Plus, you can automate your routines and create several reports and figures with one click!

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8. Publish a preprint and invite feedback from your peers.

Preprints are ready-to-review publications deposited on dedicated servers. Posting a preprint on platforms like arXiv or bioRxiv lets you showcase your work, spark discussions, and get constructive feedback from peers and mentors before formal publication. It’s a chance to strengthen your paper, build your academic presence, and even open doors to collaborations.

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9. Share your research products in an open repository (e.g., Summit, Zenodo, Dryad).

Make your data, code, and other research outputs widely accessible by posting them in open repositories. Platforms like Summit, Zenodo, ResearchEquals and Dryad not only preserve your work for the long term but also increase transparency, reproducibility, and the impact of your research. Sharing openly invites collaboration, accelerates discovery, and highlights your contributions beyond traditional publications.

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10. Share your research with non-academic audiences (e.g., via a blog post, policy brief, public presentation, or social media).

Writing blog posts, creating policy briefs, giving public talks, or sharing insights on social media helps people beyond academia understand and use your work. It boosts your communication skills, raises the visibility of your research, and shows how your findings can make a real-world impact. It is a way to practice community engagement and open a way for dialogue.

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Six ways to make your GIS project data open and reusable

  1. Define and describe your attributes in a data dictionary or README file.
  2. Ensure that the CRS (Coordinate Reference System) of your data layers aligns, and note the CRS in a README file.
  3. Document your data lineage (data sources, data processing steps, etc.).
  4. Create and share your data in GeoPackage format instead of shapefiles where appropriate, as GeoPackage is an open standard and supports long-term access.
  5. Document how your files are related so that others can understand your data without relying on your GIS project file (.aprx or .qgs), which is often not interoperable.
  6. Mask or obscure sensitive locations in your data if disclosing them could lead to harm (e.g., looting or poaching).

 

10 WAYS TO HIGHLIGHT OPEN SCHOLARSHIP PRACTICES ON YOUR POSTER AT ANY CONFERENCE

  1. QR code to your data deposited in a trusted repository
    Deposit your dataset in repositories like FRDR, Zenodo or Open Science Framework and include a QR code linking directly to it.
  2. QR code to your open source research software
    Upload scripts to platforms such as GitHub or GitLab and include a QR code that leads to them.
  3. QR code to publication related to the poster
    If your poster is a modular output of a larger research product such as a manuscript that is openly available (a preprint or open access paper), add a QR code that links to it so attendees can access it instantly.
  4. State your license clearly
    Include a Creative Commons license (e.g., CC-BY 4.0) at the bottom of your poster to clarify reuse permissions.
  5. Highlight marginalized scholars on your references
    Be mindful when choosing the references that support your poster, and prioritize citing marginalized scholars
  6. Give credit to community members
    If you engaged in participatory research and actively involved your community on your research, include a line to highlight that and thank them.
  7. Give credit to any open data, open software and open hardware you used
    Consider having a small section to cite the open infrastructure you used in the process of your research.
  8. Include your ORCID iD
    Add your ORCID iD (from ORCID) to your poster so others can easily find your full body of work and distinguish you from researchers with similar names.
  9. Provide a clear contact and collaboration invitation
    Invite feedback and collaboration by listing your contact information, appropriate feedback platform (e.g., PREreview) or stating clearly how people can contribute to further your research.
  10. Share your poster openly
    Deposit a digital copy of your poster in an open repository such as Zenodo, Figshare, or the Summit and include a QR code linking to it.
Simon Fraser University
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