OpenComm Network & The Method | A network of Open media makers / An Open source podcast on Open Science

[char-siuu-bao]

Confused? New to Github? Visit the GitHub help page on our site for more information!

Submission MetaData

Submission Name: The Method

Contact Lead: April CS

External Site Link (optional - primarily for projects): https://themethodpodcast.com/

Region: #NorthernAmerica

Issue Area: #OpenResearch

Issue Type: #Project

Description

The Method is an open source, peer reviewed podcast about the state of science. We are a team of scientists and science-lovers who want to improve the quality, inclusivity, and productivity of our conversations about science.

Just as an open source community can improve the quality of code, we are creating a platform for the scientific community to improve the quality of our conversations about what is working in science and what is not.

What are we working on during the do-a-thon? What kinds of support do we need?

There are so many ways to contribute! Contribute your thoughts and experiences by submitting audio, transcribe audio interviews, or recommend someone to interview for a future episode. Learn more on our GitHub page: https://github.com/the-method/podcast.

1. Contribute audio content
2. Transcribe audio
3. Recommend someone to interview or review

How can others contribute?

For contributing audio content

• Join The Method WhatsApp Group and leave a voice note OR
• Leave a voicemail with your contribution at (929) 367-7330 OR
• Email a voice memo to contact.the.method@gmail.com

For transcribing audio

• Assign an issue labelled "transcribe" to yourself OR transcribe your own audio contribution.
• Download the audio file from Soundcloud OR listen to your audio contribution.
• Transcribe using oTranscribe and include regular timestamps.
• Export your transcription in Markdown format.
• Name your transcription (4-digit episode number underscore clip number tran (eg, "010102_01tran")).
• Upload the transcription to the episode folder.

For recommending someone to interview or review

• Create an issue with the name of the recommended interviewee or reviewer in the title.
• Describe why you are making the recommendation and contact details for the interviewee or reviewer.
• Label the issue "interview".
• Under Project, assign the Project that corresponds to the appropriate episode.

[aprilcs]

We're in Einstein! We are primarily working on the OpenComm Open Media Network here, but The Method too!

[aprilcs]

I am just about to post our first interviews. If you start transcribing one, please say which one here so we don't do redundant work.

Transcribe audio

• Assign yourself a transcription by adding a comment here with the transcription.
• Download the audio file from Soundcloud.
• Transcribe using oTranscribe.
• Export your transcription in plain text or Markdown format.
• Paste your transcription as a comment here or give us a link to it.

[aprilcs]

The first interview is up! https://soundcloud.com/themethodpodcast/luis

[aprilcs]

The collaborative blog is ready! https://www.authorea.com/users/172336/articles/212843-the-opencomm-network-at-opencon-2017

[aprilcs]

The second interview is up! https://soundcloud.com/themethodpodcast/claire

[aprilcs]

Here is where you can sign up if you want to make an audio contribution: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1moHPpuwBtoAJMHQvradHBRtUy2j1Ax3fsPFZU_i6ZlY/edit?usp=sharing

[jackreid]

I will start transcribing Luis. Will post when done/stopping

[jackreid]

Did not transcribe Luis. Transcribing Claire now.

[jackreid]

PSA Luis is being edited by someone else currently.

[jackreid]

Here is the transcript from Claire's interview. Some chatter at beginning and between the two questions is not transcribed.

---

Claire: 00:22 My name is Claire Coulter and I am an instructional technologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada! Whoop! Awesome. Okay so I'm going to answer two questions. So the first question I wanted to answer: Just what does open media mean to me. So I think the answer to that question, what does open media mean to me, it means an opportunity to collaborate with our students in a more, I want to say, effective, but that's not quite, like meaningful I think is what I am looking for. A meaningful way. To give students the opportunity to be creators and have agency and to be able to, yeah, be producers. I think that, with open media, you know, you give tools to students and we'll be sort of amazed at what they create. 01:14 And those are the opportunities that I am most excited about.

Claire: 01:26 So, what does OpenCon mean to me? I think that before I came here I was sort of told by a few colleagues that, you know, that this is going to be this amazing, exciting, transformative experience. And it's not that I doubted them, but it made me think of when someone tells you a movie is going to be really amazing and then you go and see it and you can only be maybe disappointed. In this case I am happy to report that the opposite is true. It has been basically everything that I was told that it would be and more. I feel like it has been such an inspiring, humbling, thought-provoking experience. I just feel like on a minute-by-minute basis I am experiencing heart-on-fire, mind-blown all at the same time. Just because I've got so many ideas that I am going to take home with me, but also just hearing the conversations and meeting the other participants and hearing their stories has just been so impactful for me in ways that I don't even know that I could put into words 02:25

Interviewer: And yet you did!

Claire: singing And yet I did! Feelings! Nothing more than feelings! speaking I'm a terrible singer, I'm sorry. Apologize.

Interviewer: That's going in, just so you know.

Claire: No!

[jackreid]

Starting to transcribe Gary's now.

[jackreid]

Nvm. Gary's is being transcribed, but not by me.

[lfmedinac]

I am going to transcribe Luis (i.e. myself :) ) the Spanish language part of the interview.

[lfmedinac]

Transcription of the Spanish part of the interview with Luis.

La pregunta es,que es para mi medios abiertos, por la traducción de "open" creo que hay dos perspectivas: una es lo que ya conocemos (aunque hay que difundirlo más) como las cuatro libertades del software libre o que los medios se puedan remezclar, que se puedan reutilizar; hay que insistir más en estas definiciones porque muchas personas no las conocen, pero creo que los que ya estamos un poco en esta movida ya las conocemos pero hay otra a la que yo quisiera apuntar que me parece más importante porque es menos operativa y es un poco más de la ética de trabajo y es que abierto significa crear equipos multidisciplinarios y significa también ser abierto sobre las capacidades que tiene cada uno, ¿qué significa esto? por ejemplo si yo quiero crear un medio, dibujar un comic, puedo estar un poco temeroso de mis habilidades, de que no sé dibujar y tener una mente más abierta en eso. No preocuparme y de verdad promover la cultura del "hágalo usted mismo" (DIY) y la cultura ameteur y no preocuparme por hacer las cosas superprofesionales, sino que - bueno, si las quiero hacer profesionalmente y no tengo las capacidades, es la excusa para colaborar - es la excusa para aprender, yo creo que uno puede aprender de todo y creo que toda persona es un artista o puede dibujar, puede hacer música, podés hacer muchas cosas, es simplemente tener la intención, aprender de otros o simplemente empezar a hacerlo. Es de hacer. Eso sería mi respuesta.

[aprilcs]

Third interview! https://soundcloud.com/themethodpodcast/jack

[aprilcs]

Fourth interview! https://soundcloud.com/themethodpodcast/laurent

[jackreid]

Transcribing Jack's right now.

[LaurentGatto]

Here's Gary transcription - I did miss a few things; it would be good it somebody could check quickly, thanks.

Hi, I'm Gary McDowell, I'm the executive directory of Future of Research which is a non-profit that aims to champion, engage and empower early career researchers with evidence-based resources about the scientific enterprise. 

Open media to me is the concept of having resources and materials that are available to anyone not only to look at but also to contribute to. 

I think one of the things is trying to [...] all the people that tend to be most focused on open are early career researchers who tend to be people most passionate about it and I think in that, as of most issues that early career researchers are worried about, power dynamic that comes into this, it's more difficult for them to make themselves heard about these issues, and that's where it plays into [high-level advances?] because there needs to be buy-in form people at the top in order to get a lot of change going at larger institutions or system-wide levels.

I really enjoy OpenCon because there is sort of two facets in which I'm interested about open science. The first is practising open science myself, and that has been the case in both when I was a bench researcher but also in what I'm doing now. Part of the whole premise is to make academia more transparent and putting data out there, making it openly available, open for critique. I have a bunch of data right now on postdoc salaries in the US and we have put the raw data up on the website. There are caveats to it such as discussing the issues that come with it and we are letting people play around with it and come up with things as we going on to analyse. We have already had some cool people sharing code and excellent plots of distributions or salaries, which is really awesome. [..] doing that ourselves and that being part of our missing, but than also in a sort of more in our theme of trying to help early career researchers practising science that they want to practise and in the way they want to, we are thinking how to enable people to practice open science and act as a group that can try and push for that as part of the policies that we are trying to implement. And so trying to figure out how a lot of the same issues come up again in all these different themes of open science: struggling for independence, trying to find what kind of job you want, regardless whether it's academia or not, these things all have the same kind of issues coming up for early career researchers. It's great to work in this area which I feel passionate about personally but also really is key to other things we are working on. It has really been great being here, it's really engaging meeting people that are trying to do things. Everyone has that shared sense of trying to do things and a lot of frustration in trying to do them. There's a group of us actually are [...] peer support group who are working on a couple of issues with the National Institute of Health right now and funding early career researchers and we are on these committees with a lot of senior people and so the junior people are getting together and having these calls and supporting each other and having venting a little and trying to discuss the issues we are facing and how to overcome them. [...] It's really empowering when you are feeling frustrated to come to things like this and see other people.  

[LaurentGatto]

Here's my transcription:

My name Laurent, I am a researcher at the University of Cambridge and I'm an open advocate.

For me, open media means several things, and actually I'll draw from my experience as a researcher. For me open media relates both to the content and also the channel. I would like both to be free to access, re-mix, adapt, re-use to people that are interested in it and that access it, whether it's online or not.

There are two main types of issues. One is the technology. Not really the technology that I have access to, but what technology should I use to make sure that people are interested in my content get access to it, from a technology point of view but also, as I said before, open and freely. The more difficult challenge, I think, is a matter of communication; how can I make sure that I get my message across in an understandable way, and my message remains short and to the point, so that it's understandable to a technical audience if it's a research paper, and that is equally, or even more so applicable to the public. How can I get message across? That's really difficult.

A quick reflection on OpenCon. It's my first time at OpenCon; I've been involved in satellite meetings that we organise in Cambridge. My feeling at this stage, and I'm sure I'll need more time to digest everything, but I was really impressed by breath and the scale of all these initiatives. And it's incredible, humbling and refreshing to see that there are many issues in the world related to open, and it puts my own efforts and my own requirements more into perspective. It's important to act locally, it's important to act globally, but it's also important to appreciate that there are many different types of issues that need to be tackles through more openness and maybe more careful, more reflection about openness around the world.

[jackreid]

Here is Jack's transcription. Did not transcribe some verbal utterances and some chatter at the beginning of each question.

---

Interviewer: 00:33 So start by introductng yourself, who you are and how'd you'd like to known for the podcast.

Jack: 00:38 Howdy! I am Jack Reid. I was born and raised in Austin, Texas. Currently a graduate student at MIT in two departments, the aeronautics and astronautics department and the technology and policy program. 00:50

Interviewer: 00:51 So what does open media mean to you? You can state the question.

Jack: 00:56 Open media, it means a lot of things. There's some personal, unique things to me that it means, in that this summer, for instance, I had a job at a company that maintains what is effectively an academic library. This is a big selling point to me working there, because I have this perennial fear that I am going to end up in a job without access to an academic library. And, I mean, it would be one thing to lose access to, you know, aerospace and systems engineering journals, but, honestly, one of the main things that I like to use journal subscriptions for is whenever I see a headline with, you know, "Wine cures cancer!" or something. The first line will usually be something like, "Researchers in New Jersey have found that wine prevents cancer," and it goes on to try and sell you on the fact that if you just drink more wine, you'll be perfectly healthy. I typically like to then go to Google Scholar or some other search method, you can find the actual article. I am not a biologist. I am not in nutrition, but I can still read the abstract and conclusion and maybe skim through the methods. And I'll see, "Oh! They gave ten rats their body mass in wine and one fewer than they expected got cancer." And, it's not like the researchers are overselling` their research. Commonly, in the conclusion it will say something like, "Hey, this is an interesting correlation that we found and we should more research with a larger sample size and a more representative sample." But then I know, exactly how seriously to take these results at this time. And this is for relatively trivial things, like if wine and chocolate are good for you. I can only imagine what it would be like if I had some serious health concern that I would actively need to learn more about to understand what was effecting my life. So, yeah, while there are many more broad societal impacts of open access and open media, this is a personal thing to me. 02:55

Interviewer: 03:09 What are the challenges in communicating with other people about open media?

Jack: 03:14 A lot of it, at least as my institution, comes down to ownership and restrictions. Many authors can view it as limiting their freedom to choose where they publish. Other people feel like if you publish something openly that means that you are giving up ownership of it, as if you are putting it in the public domain. So, yeah, that's the main thing is clarifying and helping to addressing their concerns and helping to show them that open isn't necessarily about giving up ownership. In many cases, it's actually about preserving their rights, because commonly in the current setup, they give up all of their rights, including ownership, over copyright to other parties. And they don't have any rights over their own work to even share it with colleagues or friends or family members. Open is actually a step in the right direction, as far as giving them more rights while still getting it out to the public. 04:21

Interviewer: 04:27 Reflect on your experience at OpenCon

Jack: 04:32 I did not know what to expect when I came to OpenCon. This is my first OpenCon. I have immensely enjoyed it both personally and it has also been highly productive for me to take back to the conversation that is going on at MIT around open access. I have a lot of great questions back at MIT, aspects of how MIT does things that I did not realize were worth questioning, because I just assumed that was how everybody did it. As well as potential ideas and suggestions for how to move forward in the future. 05:07

[aprilcs]

Fifth interview! https://soundcloud.com/themethodpodcast/ricardo

[lfmedinac]

I am transcribing Luis interview in English.

[lfmedinac]

This is part of the interview with Luis in English language. I am not finished yet but I will continue later or maybe someone can take it from here ( I left it at 2:21)

Luis interview in English

Luis english part:

What does open media mean to me? Well, I guess that I have two perspectives for open media: the first one follows this kind of rule of "what open is?" as described... I come from the software world (though long time ago), that is that complies with this kind of "free" liberties: that you can remix it, you can use it and you can distribute it. To me that is quite clear, maybe there are a lot of persons that don't know this ethics, but I think that for most of the people is solid ground. But, the thing I'm interested more about open is that a lot of people can just put their hands on it, even though they don't have the qualifications. For example: yesterday we were discussing about doing comics and maybe you are afraid of your drawing skills, and that holds you back from starting doing some media project. You feel that is like a closed field, because you don't have the skills. Then for me is about open up this kind of things, you just go for it if you want to do it or collaborate with another person. That would be the "openness" for me.

What are the challenges i communication about open issues? I can speak just about my country Colombia, we have a lot of problems. Maybe in Latin America we have this tradition in Open Access and that could be right but there is also a lot of bureaucracy and working in a University... I will put just a plain example: four years ago I had a radio show on the radio station of my University (Universidad Nacional de Colombia) that was about Do it yourself culture, free culture, and open access...

(not finished)

[aprilcs]

Sixth interview! https://soundcloud.com/themethodpodcast/rachael

[jackreid]

Edited soundfiles are being uploaded here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BF6qrY4gTeGr82ykP-ex85VyOssQU_Qq

Edits in the format Name_edited_1 have just had chatter, silence, etc removed. No in-question edits (such as removing verbal utterances) have been done.

jack_edited_1 Introduction - 0:00 What is open media - 0:11 How to communicate open media - 2:12 OpenCon - 3:20

claire_edited_1 Introduction - 0:00 What does open media mean to me - 0:08 What is OpenCon - 0:39 Singing - 1:38

gary_edited_1 Introduction - 0:00 Repeat of his name without static - 0:15 What is open media mean to me - 0:17 How to communicate open media - 0:31 OpenCon - 1:12

luis_edited_1 What does open media mean to me - 0:00 Challenges with communicating - 1:23 Examples of open media - 3:31 OpenCon - 5:11 Introduction - 6:22 Spanish what does open media mean to me - 6:34

sam_edited_1 Introduction - 0:00 Challenges with communication science - 1:05 OpenCon - 1:44

rachel_edited_1 Introduction - 0:00 Interest in open media - 0:34 OpenCon - 1:10

[aprilcs]

Seventh interview! https://soundcloud.com/themethodpodcast/sam1 and https://soundcloud.com/themethodpodcast/sam2.

[CCoulter11]

A bit more from Luis -

Luis: What open media mean to me? Well I guess that, I have, like, 2 perspectives on open media. The first one is that follow this kind of rule of what open is, I describe that I come from the software world a long time ago. It complies with this kind of free liberities or something that you can remix it, and you can use it, and you can distribute it. To me it's okay, but I think that it is quite clear maybe there are a lot of persons that don't know like this ethics that my feeling that most people is like, is solid ground, but the think I am interested more about open is like that a lot of people that they can just put their hands on it even though they don't have qualification. So to open in that sense, for example yesterday we were discussing about doing comics. Maybe you are afraid of your drawing skills and that holds you back to start doing some media project and for me you feel like that is a closed feeling cause you don't have the skills. So for me it's about open up this kind of thing and you just go for it if you want to do it, or collaborate with another person, so ....(see Luis's self transcription)

2:17 ...there was about do it yourself culture, free culture, and open access was like a mix, and I tried to put it in Creative Commons in the one licesnse, I don't know exactly which one. Of course I would love BY, just BY license, but I tried to look University experience using Creative Commons and there were a couple of experiences from the library and from the, ahh, and an imprint from the Univeristy Human Science faculty that they use these Creative Commons . Of course the most closest one that know there advantage was and so on. And I showed this like evidence to the I don't know to the policy makers of the University. Look, I just want to do the same thing, but with audio, and then we can just post a link and people can load the podcast, becusae it was broadcasted in FM but I just wanted to create an archive. And it took them 2 year, 2 years, with the whole evidence, just to tell me "yes". To give like a, green light, it took them 2 years. And I guess that when you have this kind of lawyers and policy makers they are really afraid of doing the things open so I think that that will be like a problem and I don't know...we have to like...[?] like the people get to know this things better. 3:52 . Examples is open media and others that we should know about. I remember yesterday I was talking to, it was not you, it was another person, taht right now, there is this NGO in Colombia, it is "Charisma" and they are like very very close to the Creative Commons chapter, because the chair of this NGO was the lawyer that like 10 years ago adapted the CC license from the America legal framework to the Colombian one, that they are very different. And they I think that they won this grant from I don't know, if it was from Creative Commons or something, to do this collaborative podcast between a lot of Latin American countries they just send their contributions about local histories in their own countries about making thing, I think it was like vuela libre, like fly free or something it was called because it was like sending letters between each other. And, it was great, they just put together this podcast sometimes the some quality was not good, because it was recorded on Skype I guess. But the idea was really good. And I think that right now in Colombia also like the scene the scene the independent publishers are looking also in open media very much because they just love books, I love books for example, but they realize that this kind of hybrid approach and having the .pdf, and that people can't download the .pdf and maybe they will engage with the piece, with the book, and they will buy the physical one so it's like the way to go. I think it's kind of that direction.

5:43 How was my experience in OpenCon? This is my first time, here in OpenCon. I really enjoy it. And there a lot of approaches that has been very interesting. I have to admit there are some things that are, are quite different from my personality. For example, this is not a critique, but I find this very amusing, this consistently tweeting all the time, I"m not like that, so something I feel kind of pressure, like you have to tweet this, and I'm like, leave me alone. But I think that depends on every person. And, but ....

[CCoulter11]

I am starting on Rachel.....

[CCoulter11]

Rachael:

Rachael

...

Starts at 0:30

Hello my name is Rachael Ainsworth I'm a research associate at radial astronomy at the University of Manchester in the UK. I am also an open science champion in my department where I advocate and give presentations and organize events for open science and astronomy. And, finally I am part of the current cohort of Mozilla open leaders where I am working on a project to compile an open science how to kit for astronomers to enable them to open up their research workflow from proposal to publication.

April: perfect and so tell us a little about your thoughts about open media or what your interest is, what brought you to think about that.

RA: Right so I had actually never heard of open media before. I am interested in becoming more of an, a better science communicator. I have been asked to write blog posts. Um, I've been asked to vlog. These things don't really come natural to me, naturally to me. And so I was really interested in the session. This unconference so that I could learn more about how to get better at science communicating and how to learn from other and get inspired by others what their doing in my field. And to be honest I had no idea what open media was, but there seems be open everything these days.

April. It's so true. So finally, reflect a little bit on your experience at OpenCon. Your thoughts and feelings about you experience here.

RA: Right. So I came to OpenCon to be inspired and network with other pioneers in the open movement. Um, I gained a lot through our workshop yesterday, the regional workshops, I was part of the European workshop. How might we, [I love that I have to look at it], how might we help individuals shape the culture around the university. In this workshop we established personas, we discussed their pains and gains and tried to brainstorm solutions to their challenges. And, I was part of the group that worked on a persona of a researcher in her 30s, who is a bit discouraged by the toxic culture of academia and is seeking allies um to promote open research practices within academia to make it a less, sort of, closed and stressful environment. Um, what did we do then? We, we then focused our discussion more about how to more effectively manage time as a researcher because one of the barriers I feel researchers perceive to practising openly is that they feel it might take a lot more time and effort without reaping much reward so we brainstormed ways to effectively combat ah time wasting or how to effectively use their time while also practicing openly. Because in the long run practicing openly actually makes you more efficient in your science um because if its automated or fully reproducible you should be able to replicate it much better in the future. Um, and we, sort of concluded that a how to kit, or templates would actually really help solve this problem. If you provide a resource that tells a research or a scientist how to do something, that should make it much quicker for them to do it, much easier, which then feels back to my Mozilla open leadership project. Ah so I was really excited about that because I was able to make connections and gain collaborators on this project and take it in to the future which I'm really excited about.

April: Awesome, perfect. Thank you.

[CCoulter11]

On to Sam.

[CCoulter11]

Sam1

0:06

Hi! So I'm Sam Hindle and I am professional researcher at the University of California at San Francisco. Um, but I'm also an ASAPBio ambassador, so ASAPbio is um a scientist driven initiative to promote the use of preprints in biology. So what brought me to OpenCon is that I am very passionate about science communication and improving how science is communicated...both to our peers and also to the public in general. And I'm very passionate about this because I am actually involved in various science communication projects at UCSF um including iBiology which is um an online um science seminar series um which is completely open for anyone to look at. Um and I'm also in a science podcast um that came out of UCSF called Carry... um and so that's why I came along to the unconferencing session to help others get involved in science communication.
April: Awesome. So tell us a little bit about the challenges of communicating open as you've experience them. Especially with radio and podcasting.

SH: Um. I think the biggest challenge is managing to reach the public. Um, We try really hard when we're communicating the science that's um happening in the lab at UCSF and surrounding universities. We try really hard to, um, to kind of talk about the science in the ways that the public can understand. Um, and but we are still not always reaching the public, and so I think the biggest challenge is um how to reach out to the public and make them aware of um what we are trying to do and how we are trying to help bridge the gap between the bench and the public.

[CCoulter11]

Sam 2

Um so I think the greatest thing has been I've been exposed to lots of different projects that are out there and meeting like-minded individuals to broaden our network. Um but in particular um I've really enjoyed the third day of OpenCon which has been the do-a-thon. It's given us an opportunity to kind of tackle some of the things we've been wanting to do for a while with AsapBIO and that is to try and create resources that um can basically support other um .... of preprints um and hosting events like at their own institutions em and so we wanted to give....(can I start again, ok ok)

So we basically wanted to create resources that wouldhelp support em preprint advocates in hosting events to inform other people at their institutions about what preprints are and what the benefits are. Um, we know it can be a little bit scary sometimes to kind of start one of these events yourself and so we wanted to create a database of other kind of stakeholders that are involved in preprint advocacy. Um so you can go to that database and find someone who's local in your area who you can reach out and ask them if they would be happy to help you with an event. And so we've kind of managed to actually get something concrete done today at the do a thon and like come up with a list of people we can contact and hopefully they will be interested in being added to our database. So we're really excited about that.

April: Awesome, thanks Sam!

[aprilcs]

Version 0.1 of our collaborative podcast episode on Open Media, Communication, and OpenCon is here: https://soundcloud.com/themethodpodcast/01-what-is-open-media-opencomm-open-media-network-do-a-thon.

[lfmedinac]

Dear all: here are some pics I made of the process (particularly the "coated" recording booth). Sorry for the delay. Feel free the use them