ODIN: Open Data In Neurophysiology: Advancements, Solutions & Challenges

TL;DR

The paper discusses the importance of open data in neuroscience, sharing insights from the ODIN symposium to promote transparency, collaboration, and transformative research in the field.

Contribution

It introduces the ODIN initiative, emphasizing the need for open data practices and community efforts to advance neuroscience research.

Findings

Open data practices can accelerate neuroscience discoveries.

Community organization is crucial for adopting open science in neuroscience.

Plans are outlined to expand open data initiatives in the field.

Abstract

Across the life sciences, an ongoing effort over the last 50 years has made data and methods more reproducible and transparent. This openness has led to transformative insights and vastly accelerated scientific progress. For example, structural biology and genomics have undertaken systematic collection and publication of protein sequences and structures over the past half-century, and these data have led to scientific breakthroughs that were unthinkable when data collection first began. We believe that neuroscience is poised to follow the same path, and that principles of open data and open science will transform our understanding of the nervous system in ways that are impossible to predict at the moment. To this end, new social structures along with active and open scientific communities are essential to facilitate and expand the still limited adoption of open science practices in our field. Unified by shared values of openness, we set out to organize a symposium for Open Data in Neuroscience (ODIN) to strengthen our community and facilitate transformative neuroscience research at large. In this report, we share what we learned during this first ODIN event. We also lay out plans for how to grow this movement, document emerging conversations, and propose a path toward a better and more transparent science of tomorrow.