Foundational Open Science Skills (FOSS)

February 17–21, 2020

University of Arizona

Tucson, AZ

Foundational Open Science Skills (FOSS) is a novel, camp-style training designed to prepare principal investigators and their lab teams, both new and established, to meet the growing expectations of funding agencies, publishers, and research institutions for scientific reproducibility and data accessibility.

Come for a week of hands-on learning​

Offered by the CyVerse Learning Institute, FOSS camp is a modular one-week intensive training that provides both ‘the big picture’ of why and how to do open science, as well as simple, step-by-step explanations of the resources available, with application and customization so that you can determine which resources are best suited for your project’s needs.

FOSS camp topics will include:​

• Cloud, HPC, and other computing technologies

• Modern data science tools, platforms, and concepts, focusing on open source resources

• Analysis rigor, reproducibility, sharing, and collaboration across institutional boundaries

• Using open science resources for managing research projects

• Metadata management skills for research discovery, integration, and reuse

• Best practices to coordinate multidisciplinary science teams, ideas, and scale analyses

• Writing, critiquing, and implementing a data management plan to meet NSF-BIO guidelines

• Creating and incubating an open science culture in your lab and with collaborators

FOSS (Open Science Basics) introduces campers to resources and “good, better, best” practices for making your science more open, reproducible, and impactful. We may also delve into Science at Scale topics, reinforcing hands-on applications of open source resources to organize your projects and personnel, enable big (and small) data analyses, and facilitate scientific reproducibility.

Come on your own or as a team

We encourage applicants to come as a team (PI plus a lab member). FOSS is geared toward helping PIs make and implement decisions on computational approaches, lab policies, collaboration, and hiring and identifying areas for future training. See the draft syllabus here.

FOSS Concierge Service

Our intention for this camp is that all accepted members constitute an annual class of CyVerse Open Science Scholars. As such we will provide year-long access to CyVerse assistance and mentoring to help you reinforce and successfully implement skills you learned at Camp. CyVerse staff will provide assistance with questions related to any of the topics covered, including setting up your open source tools, resources, workflows, documentation, and pre-publication preparations. Post-camp support will include monthly follow-up calls with CyVerse staff for a “health check” on your progress, to troubleshoot any issues you encounter in implementing FOSS in your lab/project(s), and to provide feedback on your funding proposals to help make them more competitive.

Why Apply?

• Learn where to start with the many open source tools, repositories, and platforms

• Glean through the barrage of new technologies to discover the best for you and your project

• Discover best practices for data, software, and analysis management for your lab group

• Learn how to establish sustainable policies and protocols for staff

• Establish open science practices in the lab

2020 Dates and Location

The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona

Monday, February 17, 9 am  –  Friday, February 21, 12 noon

Cost to Attend

Tuition varies by your institution type. See below for attendance fee breakdown.

Special Opportunity for NSF-BIO PIs: If you are currently funded by NSF-BIO or intend to apply for NSF-BIO funding over the next year, tuition is waived (a limited number of scholarships for U.S. citizens is available).

FOSS camp tuition does not include room, board, or transportation. Lodging options include AirBnB or hotels in the area. Local transportation options include Uber and Lyft, and well as various rental car companies, Tu-go bike sharing and SunLink modern streetcar throughout campus and nearby downtown; and free UA CatTran shuttle on campus.