Science Park Study Group
Mission
The aim and focus of the Science Park Study Group is to:
- Help solve data analyses problems
- Transfer best practices related to Open Science and scientific programming
- Develop the professional skills of its members.
This community can thus contribute to trouble-shooting (“I encountered a bug in my script"), but also has the capacity to steward solutions for long-term, data-related problems (“how do I comply to the FAIR guidelines?”) and empowers staff and students by making data analysis skill accessible to them (“how can I do this by myself with R or Python?”).
The Science Park Study Group identifies four learning stages:
- Beginners
- Advanced beginners
- Competent practitioners
- Champions or domain experts
Not every beginner will become a champion, but they can develop into competent practitioners who know and apply a (few) method(s) well, implement good practice and as such can help new beginners.
The fact that the core members of the Amsterdam Science Park Study Group members are working in close contact with researchers, or are doing research themselves, allows them to quickly identify the current, most urgent needs among their students and colleagues, among beginners and experts.
Activities
The board members in coordination with regular contributors organise:
- Interactive coding workshops
- Regular co-working sessions for peer-to-peer assistance
- A local hub of the Software/Data Carpentry Foundation
- Social events that bring researchers together (e.g. hackatons)
The community also uses Slack to discuss and ask for help on data and code-related topics and has a website to describe its activities, promote events and offer resources (tools, links, publications).
Team
Our community is divided between board members that organise activities and regular contributors that frequently share their expertise during these activities.
Board Members
- Tijs Bliek
- Joachim Goedhart
- Anna Heintz-Buschart
- Stacy Shinneman
Regular Contributors
- Johannes de Groeve
- Huub Hoefsloot
- Evelien Jongepier
- Frans van der Kloet
Awards
The Science Park Study Group team has received two awards from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). In 2020, our community received the "Team Science Award" and in October 2021, the "NWO Open Science Fund".