Open science at Simula

Simula is committed to the ideals and practices of Open Science. By sharing our work openly - from the data sets and code to the experimental results and applications - we hope that our contributions can have a greater impact on solving more of society’s problems.

Simula’s commitment to Open Science is clearly laid out in our strategy:

Simula will actively cultivate a mindset and provide training on tools for how to conduct reproducible research and support the free dissemination of research results to the extent that is legally and financially possible.
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In practice, this has many components.

Open Access publications

Reproducibility of research is key for developing reliable, robust solutions to important problems. Whenever possible Simula also publishes the full code and data sets underlying the research results, according to the FAIR principles.

OA publishing of research articles and conference papers

all Simula researchers are encouraged to publish their research in Open Access venues and/or to make their work available via depositories/archives.
Simula researchers are encouraged to publish their research in OA venues, even when it is not required by the granting body; when that is not possible, they are asked to make their work available.
planning for OA is part of project development, and OA publication fees are included in research project budgets whenever possible (e.g., EU projects) to ensure faster and open dissemination of project results. Simula also uses internal funding to cover OA fees when there is no project funding to support it (e.g., for RCN projects).

Code repositories

Simula has made over 150 code repositories freely available through Github.

Published datasets

Whenever possible, Simula publishes the datasets from our research. These are typically published with CCBY licence or similar, allowing for personal, educational or research purposes.

At present, more than 30 datasets that are freely available: https://datasets.simula.no/

Simula SpringerBriefs on Computing

The Simula SpringerBriefs on Computing is an open access publication series that provides condensed overviews of the state-of-the-art and raises essential critical questions within Simula’s fields of expertise. While the topics and target audiences will vary across the different briefs, the intention is the same: to reach the broadest possible audience and bring interested readers up to speed quickly in an easily accessible format.

Open source software & tools

Simula also develops tools and provides training for more reproducible and reusable results and outputs.

Jupyter Notebook and Binder

Simula develops tools for more reproducible and reusable results and outputs, notably infrastructure such as Jupyter Notebook and Binder.

Open educational resources

These resources are freely available online.

CodeSchool

Simula developed a large compendium of educational resources under the CodeSchool (KodeSkolen), in order to provide the training and materials for school teachers to incorporate coding in the classroom.

The full repository of these materials is freely available online: github.com/kodeskolen

Short textbooks

Simula has produced several open access volumes of the Simula SpringerBriefs on Computing (SSBC) series that are akin to short/condensed textbooks, which are frequently used in undergraduate courses. Examples include using Python in scientific computing and differential equations in mathematical modelling. These materials are freely available for the instructors and students alike.

All SSBC volumes available here:
https://www.simula.no/research/publications/simula-springerbriefs/

Graduate level courses

Repositories and lectures from graduate-levels courses (such as the Simula Summer School in Computational Physiology https://github.com/Simula-SSCP)

Training
Simula also conducts training for both employees and external participants on how to perform open, reproducible research.

Seminars / workshops
Simula researchers frequently organise workshops and seminars that focus on the principles of open science and reproducible research; for example, best practices for scientific Python development, and how to publish papers together with the code and data.

Online resources and support
Simula has developed policies and procedures for open, ethical, and reproducible research, including our policies for data management, GDPR, Code of Ethics, and publications. E-learning modules are completed by employees to ensure that employees are both aware of and act in accordance with these policies. Simula also provides support in the form of advice and templates that can be accessed during project development phases (e.g., during proposal writing and when projects are funded), to ensure that projects are structured to facilitate open science whenever possible.