Welcome to the 2017 Working Open Workshop repository!

This is a repo to collect all materials and resources related to Mozilla Science Lab's Working Open Workshops held in 2017. You are invited to fork this repo and use our materials-- please let us know what you do with them and how it goes!

What is the Working Open Workshop?

The Working Open Workshop (or WOW) is a set of trainings created by Mozilla Science Lab to help up-and-coming leaders of open science and open research projects make the most effective open projects possible, and build active communities of contributors around them. Specifically, WOW prepares project leads for a strong launch of their open source projects (in this case, "project" includes code and non-code projects).

What happens at WOW?

The core WOW experience is 2 days of small, invite-only workshops and work sessions led by Mozilla staff and Fellows. In these workshops, we’ll cover the essentials of preparing an open project, bringing on contributors, developing your mentorship skills, using collaboration tools such as Git and GitHub, and growing an active community around an open project.

Our approach is hands-on, and project-based. The WOW agenda includes lots of time for participants to make real, meaningful progress on their projects, and to network and collaborate across projects and disciplines.

It also usually includes a community event/mixer for project leads, potential contributors, citizen scientists, study group participants, local like-minded organizations, and really anyone who’s curious about open research.

The first WOW was held in Berlin in early February 2016. The second will be held in Montréal in March 2017.

Life After WOW: The Open Leadership Mentors

WOW was designed as a springboard for a group we're calling the Open Leadership Mentors. Members of the Open Leadership Mentors (with the support, advice, and encouragement of Mozilla staff and previously trained mentors) work together to create projects, share resources, and build active, regional communities of open source practitioners.

How can I get involved with WOW, or contribute to this repo?

Visit MSL's website for information about upcoming WOW events near you! Check out our contribute.md to learn how to help us with WOW materials.

What is "open" research?

Whether you're studying the human genome, black holes, deep sea ecology, medieval music, or alternative energy sources, research is a practice and process of learning, and creating knowledge. Researchers always build on (or transform) an existing understanding of the world. A researcher working open shares insights or discoveries freely, makes her data available on the web, or makes the details of a new experimental technique or tool public so others can use and reuse it. By working open, she empowers fellow researchers and furthers our collective knowledge... knowledge that can be used to solve problems, save lives, and inspire and amaze us all. The more data, knowledge, methods, tools and skills made widely and openly available to all, the better.

Oh, by the way, what's Mozilla Science Lab??

At Mozilla Science Lab we help researchers (anyone from students to established scientists to citizen scientists) and those who support them (developers, librarians, publishers, etc) to work openly and do better research, more research, and make that research more useful by sharing it widely.

We provide leadership training (such as this Workshop), learning materials and formats (such as Mozilla Study Groups), platforms for sharing and showcasing open Science projects (such as MSL Projects), and support for leaders in open science (through the Mozilla Fellows for Science and the Open Leaders program).