The main goal was to raise awareness of best practices in research data management and sharing, in line with current European requirements for the openness of research results. The activity was conducted within the framework of citizen science and was intended primarily for researchers and Ph.D. students not directly involved in the project, but with the potential to become future collaborators or partners in similar research initiatives.
The workshop addressed three key aspects of open science:
• Protecting research data on Zenodo: Participants learned about the possibilities of depositing data already during the peer-review process, including how to set access permissions and embargo periods. Emphasis was placed on proper data versioning and long-term availability in a trusted repository.
• Publishing in open access journals: The discussion focused on selecting appropriate journals from the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) and on the importance of the CC BY license, which is most commonly required for research funded from public sources. The need to carefully check publishing conditions in so-called hybrid journals was also highlighted.
• Green and gold open access routes: Using concrete examples, participants explored the differences between the green route (depositing articles in repositories) and the gold route (publishing in open-access journals). Legal aspects and conditions for uploading the final version of a paper to institutional or subject-specific repositories were discussed in detail.
This educational activity helped strengthen the competencies of researchers in data policy, open access publishing, and responsible dissemination of research outputs. We plan to organize similar workshops in the future as a tool for promoting open science both within our research centre and across the wider academic community.