How this course works

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Image by Mark Fisher / CC BY-SA

Welcome to Open Science: An Introduction

How to Begin

Go start a blog! The only two places (websites) you'll need to visit to regularly are:

This course <---sign up for the course, and bookmark this page
Your blog <---if you don't already have one, you'll want to go sign up for one (it's free)

As you explore the modules, you'll be logging your journey by writing in a blog or other document that others can view, allowing them to give you feedback and assuring the community that you've completed the tasks. If you don't have a blog, it's easy (and free) to start one over at Wordpress, Blogger, or Tumblr.

Complete a Task

The basic workflow for tasks is like this:

Browse the content listed in one of the modules. It will usually be a mix of articles, videos, and in some cases, websites for you to visit. It's not always necessary to check out the whole list, but the more you view, the better prepared you'll be to craft a response.
Write a blog post that includes completion of the task. In some cases, the task is to critique a piece of work or summarize a big idea, which fit nicely into blog posts. In other cases, you'll visit a website (repository, database, etc) and do something there, which you'll write up a description of in your blog.
Paste a link to your blog post in the Disqus comment area below. This is how other people will be able to check out your work, congratulate you on a job well done, and/or make suggestions to improve things. You have the option of logging in with a FB or Twitter account, so making a Disqus account is not necessary. Leave constructive feedback only, please! :)
Earn a Badge! You'll submit links to your blog post responses and when approved, we'll throw you a badge that describes your achievement. They're badges made to the Mozilla Open Badges spec, so you can share them anywhere!
Read someone else's work. We're all working on this together, and taking a minute to review and reply to someone's blog post is easy! Reply on their blog, then post a comment in Disqus, letting them know that you've seen their work and made thoughtful comments. There may even be a badge waiting for folks who reply thoughtfully to others often!

Social Media

Communication on the web is a big part of what glues together the ideas and the people working on opening up Science. For those wondering what we're all talking about, here's a stream of tweets tagged with "#openscience". You may recognize some of frequent discussants in this stream as also being on the course guest list. We'll be referring to this hashtag as we move through the modules, so take a gander at the tweets below when you have a chance. Thanks to Tim Gaudette for getting this set up!

Be a Part of the Community

There are many knowledgeable people who have contributed to this course, and who would love for you to support the expansion of Open Science. One way you can do that is by being an active participant. Reply to the blog posts and challenges of others! Share a link to this course with a friend! Or just see what's going on. The point is that you're interested in things that are Open, and that you're taking a look at how we're exploring Open Science together.