This program can only run with the active involvements of our volunteer community who share a passion for Open Research and inclusiveness in Open Science:
Mentees
Our mentees are life science researchers and bioinformaticians who are interested in contributing to Open Science projects and communities. In this program they will be supported by the organisers, mentors, experts, and other mentees in getting started with their journey as Open Life Scientists.
Our mentees will:
- gain a better understanding of Open Science and best practices
- fill gaps related to Open Science in their research
- learn to navigate their path in bioinformatics communities
- design equitable opportunities in their projects for the diverse community members
- increase their visibility as Open Life Scientist
- become Open Science ambassadors for their community
Becoming a mentee
A mentee dedicates about 2 hours per week to the program to attend cohort/mentor meetings and doing self-guided assignments.
Recruitment of the mentees will start in November. Stay tuned!
Mentors
Mentors work closely with participants to help further their Open Science skills and become ambassadors for Open Science practice, training and education in their communities. The mentors will be assigned to one or more projects (based on their availability) proposed in the program.
Our mentors are:
- contributors of one or several Open Science projects or communities
- interested in sharing the benefit they receive from the Open Science communities
- look for opportunities to gain mentoring experience
- love to share their enthusiasm about Open Science
- want to build their profile as Open Leaders
What do mentors do?
Mentors advise and inspire:
- Connect to people, programs
- Recommend resources, readings, experiences
- Feedback to consider
A mentor spend around 1 hour per week dedicated to the program, but also some time before the program to review applications.
They will meet their mentees every two weeks during the program and will attend group calls with other mentors to exchange notes and develop their mentoring skills further.
What are the benefits to be a mentor?
Our mentors will
- gain mentoring skills (active listening, effective questioning, giving feedback) via mentoring training
- learn to celebrate successes and approach challenges in mentoring
- connect with a community of mentors
- expand their knowledge on Open Science
Becoming a mentor
We are currently recruiting the mentors for the second round. Please reach out to one of the organizers if you are interested.
Our mentors
Our program is only possible thanks to our awesome mentors:
- The 20 mentors for OLS-1 (January to May 2020)
- The possible mentors for OLS-2 (September to December 2020)
Experts
Experts will be invited to join cohort calls or individual mentorship calls to share their experience and expertise during the program.
Our experts are:
- motivated Open Life Scientists
- understand and advocate the value of working openly
- look for opportunities to support or give back to the research community
- enjoy sharing their resources to facilitate others work
- develop and teach skills collaboratively in the community
- want to gain/improve leadership skills through their engagements in this program
Becoming an expert
Experts may be invited to:
- give a ~20 minute talk at one of our cohort calls, which happen every two weeks.
- be interviewed by the organisers (~15 minutes)
- invited by mentor-mentee pair to share their expert consultation on certain projects. (~30 minutes)
We are currently recruiting the experts for the second round.
Our experts
Our experts are essential for the program:
- The 37 experts for OLS-1 (January to May 2020)
- The possible experts for OLS-2 (September to December 2020)
Organizers
We are graduates, mentors, and hosts of various Mozilla Open Leaders cohorts, in which we have gained expertise in the technical and culture track.
Bérénice is a bioinformatician (post-doc in the Freiburg Galaxy Team), analyzing biological data and developing tools for data analysis, mainly via Galaxy.
Bérénice is also passionate about training, regularly giving workshops (data analysis, tool development, etc). She started and still co-leads the Galaxy Training Material project. She is a co-deputy training coordinator for ELIXIR Germany (de.NBI, and a founder of Street Science Community, an outreach program.
Malvika Sharan is the community manager of _The Turing Way- at The Alan Turing Institute. Malvika works with its community of diverse members to develop resources and ways that can make data science accessible for a wider audience. Malvika has a PhD in Bioinformatics and she worked at European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany, that helped her solidify her values as an Open Researcher and community builder. She is a co-founder of the Open Life Science program, a fellow of Software Sustainability Institute, a board member of Open Bioinformatics Foundation, and a contributing member of The Carpentries community.
Yo is a Software Sustainability Institute Fellow, founder of Code is Science, EngD student at the University of Manchester studying the effects of community and usabilty on open source software, editor for the PLOS Open Source Toolkit, board member of the Open Bioinformatics Foundation, and a software developer at the University of Cambridge, working on an open source biological data warehouse called InterMine.
We also participate in a wide range of activities in different international communities of practice in the life sciences:
- ELIXIR (European bioinformatics network)
- Galaxy
- The Carpentries
- Software Sustainability Institute (SSI)
- Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF)
- Mozilla
Our values
We have high ethical standards, including:
- Education: Educate scientists about open science
- Transparency: Emphasize transparency and the sharing of resources, material, knowledge and experiences
- Open science: Promote citizen science and decentralized access to science
- Modesty: Know you don’t know everything
- Community: Carefully listen to any concerns and questions and respond honestly
- Respect: Respect humans and all living systems
- Responsibility: Recognize the complexity and dynamics of life science and research and our responsibility towards them
Partners and sponsors
This program is made possible thanks to our partners and sponsors!
Backofen Lab
Backofen Lab in University of Freiburg is Bérénice’s current affiliation.
EMBL Bio-IT
The Bio-IT is a bioinformatics community project at EMBL, Heidelberg. Its previous and current members (Toby Hodges and Renato Alves) supported the early development of OLS and continue to serve as mentors and Experts.
de.NBI
de.NBI (the German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure) is supporting Bérénice’s involvement in OLS as part of her training work.
ELIXIR
The program organisers are associated with ELIXIR member institutes and several mentors and experts are from different ELIXIR nodes.
Freiburg Galaxy Team
Freiburg Galaxy team is supporting Bérénice’s involvement in OLS as part of her training work.
Mozilla Open Leaders
This program is developed as a part of Mozilla Open Leaders X (MOLx) chohort. Thanks to our champion Abby (Abigail Cabunoc Mayes) from Mozilla Foundation for providing support in designing this program.
Software Sustainability Institute
Software Sustainability Institute & OLS
This program will be supported by SSI fellowship offered to Malvika from 2019-2020. Yo is a SSI fellow from the previous year.
The Turing Way
Malvika is a community manager of this project. Turing Way is also collaborating organisation under the project OLS-2 for Turing that aims to build mentor-mentee relationships in the Turing community.
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg & OLS
University of Freiburg is Bérénice’s current affiliation.
University of Manchester
University of Manchester & OLS
The University of Manchester is Yo’s Ph.D. research affiliation.
Get involved
If you think you can help then please check out our contributors’ guidelines and our project board.
Please note that it’s very important to us that we maintain a positive and supportive environment for everyone who wants to participate. When you join us we ask that you follow our code of conduct in all interactions both on and offline.