Welcome to Mozilla Science Lab's Open Data Primers!

Hello! Thanks for dropping by.

You're reading an online handbook of Open Data Training Primers developed by the Mozilla Science Lab and their community members.

How to Use this Handbook and What to Expect

These primers are designed for you to read at your own pace and pick and choose the topics you want to read concerning open data. We would sincerely appreciate your feedback. If you have experience to share, see below under "Help us grow and improve this book!".

Here's what's in the book:

• In the first section, we'll define open data and discuss it's value, successes and challenges.
• In Section 2, we'll walk through what's needed to make your data open and usable by others.
• In Section 3, we'll talk about where and how to share your data, of if you even should.
• In Section 4, we'll provide tips on how to find data that has been made available by others.
• Finally, in Section 5, we'll discuss what you need to know and do to reuse other people's data.

How to Connect, and Get Help!

If you'd like to connect with experienced community members or other newcomers like you, to network and compare notes, please reach out!

You can join our Chat room on Gitter mozillascience/open-data-training, a web-based chat client that's associated with the Open Data Training repository. Sign-up using your GitHub ID to join! The Gitter chatroom is open 24 hours a day, and it's a great place to ask questions, share news and ideas, and just hang out with other folks interested in open data. (If you've never used GitHub before, that's OK! You can learn all about it in Section 3 of our Study Group Orientation!)

We hold regular Community Calls to share and discuss new resources, materials and ideas for open science, and to network and connect! Check our Events page for details about the next call.

Finally, if you have a question or problem, you can file a GitHub issue in this Open Data Primers repository, or ping us on the Gitter Chat. This is basically a comment or question that we'll see and respond to. (Again, it's OK if you're not familar with GitHub and GitHub issues-- it is explained in Section 3 of our Study Group Orientation.)

Help us grow and improve this book!

Check out our issues (a list of items that need help or fixing), to see what you can do to improve or add to these materials. We'd love your help!

Original Authors

• Stephanie Wright, Open Data Training Lead, Mozilla Science Lab
• Zannah Marsh, Instructional Designer, Mozilla Science Lab
• Christie Bahlai, Mozilla Fellow for Science 2015-16, Assistant Professor, Kent State University
• Danielle Robinson, Mozilla Fellow for Science 2016-17, Scientific and Partnerships Director, Code for Science and Society

Huge thanks to contributors from 2016 Global Sprint who aren't noted in GitHub because we were working in the Google Docs!

• Amel Ghouila
• Dhafer Laouini
• Fatma Guerfali
• John Kratz
• Alexander Morley
• Matthew Marcello
• Natalie Foo
• Katie Fortney
• Stephanie Simms
• Siwar-BLK
• zbouslama

See also the list of contributors who participated in this project.

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.