Adopting Principled Education

Implementing fairer teaching and mentoring practices

In this page, we describe easy ways to adopt principled teaching and mentoring practices. That is, (a) integrating open and reproducible science tenets into your teaching workflow; (b) striving to teach science (or scholarship) as a process of knowledge acquisition rather than a collection of scientific evidence, as doing so does not yield scientific literacy; (c) share publicly your teaching and mentoring (and Lab) materials so that other educators can make use of your excellent work, which also foster social justice through the democratization of scientific educational resources and pedagogies; (d) recognize that Higher Education is a profoundly unequal, non-inclusive and non-diverse environment due to a plethora of societal constraints, which also shapes academia itself, and which we as educators should try to address in class (whatever the subject taught) by integrating course content with topics of representation, diversity, equity, and inclusion. See below for 7 ways FORRT tips.

What is Principled Education?

Principled education in open science is a framework we propose for teaching science and research as a transparent, inclusive, and evolving process. It emphasizes open sharing of materials, critical thinking, and addressing inequities to make science more accessible and just.

Core Commitments of Principled Education

A. Integrating open and reproducible science tenets into one’s teaching workflow.
B. Teaching science as a process of cumulative discovery, not just a static set of facts, to foster true scientific understanding.
C. Sharing teaching, mentoring, and research materials publicly so others can use them, helping to promote social justice by making educational resources more accessible to everyone.
D. Acknowledging that higher education is often inequitable and non-inclusive, and as educators, we should address this by integrating topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion into our courses.

FORRT tips- how you can adopt Principled Education:

  1. Evaluate your current teaching and mentorship practices regarding open science principles.
  2. Add literature or assignments to your syllabus that teach open science concepts.
  3. Create, re-use and share open teaching materials.
  4. Help students and mentees learn more about open science practices.
  5. Create opportunities for students and mentees to engage in open science projects.
  6. Make your research more open, such as by openly sharing your research process and/or materials.
  7. Embed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in your teaching and mentorship practices.
  8. Become an advocate for principled education at your own institution/professional society.

Principled education in open science

Figure 1. An illustration of the core commitments of Principled Education and FORRT tips on how to adopt Principled Education.

Please note, the following materials are offered only as examples of freely accessible educational materials; they are suggestions rather than endorsements, and in many cases there is no affiliation or relationship with the creators. Inclusion here does not imply methodological endorsement, organizational affiliation, or vetting for pedagogical quality.lease evaluate the fit, accessibility, and licensing of each resource according to your needs.

1. Evaluate your current teaching and mentorship practices

A great first step is to reflect on your own current teaching and mentoring practices, and the extent to which they communicate the basic tenets of open and reproducible science.

How ?

  • FORRT has developed the FORRT’s Clusters Page that provides a framework that can be used to help educators make sense of the different key themes of open and reproducible science for independent evaluation of one’s own practices.

2. Add literature or assignments to your syllabus that teach open science concepts.

Including sources in your syllabus that discuss open and transparent research can enrich students’ education by helping them think about research more critically. This can be a great addition to research methods courses or any other course that requires students to evaluate or synthesize knowledge.

How ?

3. Create, re-use and share open educational materials

Open educational resources allow community members to make contributions and continuously improve the materials. For example, they can enhance their documentation, add media (transcripts, voice, video), translate materials, improve accessibility, and much more. Educators can then reuse and adapt these materials for their own courses, thus reducing the need to produce high-quality materials on their own and saving time better used for teaching and mentoring.

How ?

  • Explore existing instances of principled education:

    • FORRT Pedagogies aims to collect and catalogue exemplary instances of principled education - i.e., successful instances of teaching or mentoring of open and reproducible principles, and detailed examples of the processes by which ideals in teaching, mentoring, and openness of these materials come to materialize.

  • Explore existing open educational resources, and submit your own resources so that others can adopt them easily into their teaching.

    • FORRT hosts approximately 800+ curated educational resources on Open and Reproducible topics on their database.
    • The OSKB shares open scholarship resources created and curated by the community.
    • Jaclyn Siegel’s document compiles a curated list of accessible and affordable resources tailored for graduate students.
    • ARIADNE is a resource navigator with many (open-access) resources needed throughout the whole research cycle.

  • Adopt existing open-access textbooks into your teaching, as well as submit open-access textbooks:

  • Use federated search tools to locate additional open-access textbooks and open educational resources:

  • Make your teaching materials as FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) as possible

    • Garcia et al. (2020) recommend 10 simple rules for making materials easier to find, (re)use, and adapt (see Figure 2 below). Their key recommendations include:
      • Properly describing materials by adding sufficient metadata and explanations that are useful to trainees.
      • Giving materials a unique identifying number or URL and adding them to an audience-specific registry such as OER Commons.
      • Defining rules for who can access the materials.
      • Creating materials in interoperable formats that allow (re)use in different software programmes and operating systems.
      • Keeping materials up-to-date and inviting contributions from others.

Garcia et al. (2020) Figure 1

Figure 2: An illustration from the paper “Ten simple rules for making training materials FAIR” by Garcia et al. (2020). Credit: Luc Wiegers and Celia van Gelder ( 2019) under Creative Commons CC-BY-4.0 license. No modifications have been made to the original.

4. Help students and mentees learn more about open science practices

Educators and mentors can actively support students in exploring open and reproducible science through curated resources, experiential learning, and community engagement. This means not only sharing accessible introductory materials, but also encouraging participation in clubs, workshops, or mentorship initiatives.

How ?

5. Create opportunities for students and mentees to engage in open science research projects

Involving students in open science projects is an effective way to deepen their understanding of transparent and collaborative research practices. These experiences can also help them connect with like-minded researchers, gain mentorship, and build valuable skills—especially early in their academic journey.

How ?

6. Make your research open

Sharing your research openly helps others learn from your work. Educators can use open data and materials in their teaching—for example, in hands-on classroom activities like data analysis or mini-replication projects. This makes your work more impactful and supports student learning at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

How ?

  • Open Science Framework: A popular platform where research data and materials can be easily shared and indexed.
  • Zenodo: Another trusted platform for uploading and sharing research outputs. Supports a range of file types and provides DOIs.
  • re3data: A searchable directory of research repositories across different fields. Great for finding a subject-specific platform for your work.
  • Table with Open Access Types (original is in German): An overview of the most common Open Access models, evaluating their accessibility and cost implications.
  • GitHub: Online platform for creating, storing, managing, and sharing code, with version control.

7. Embed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in your teaching and mentorship

Higher education is still a profoundly inequitable, non-inclusive, and non-diverse environment shaped by deep-rooted societal constraints. Educators have the responsibility and opportunity to address these issues—regardless of the subject they teach—by integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles into their teaching and mentoring practices.

Common structural barriers and how to address them:

  • Paywalled readings → substitute open access (OA) versions/ library link/ author PDFs/ summaries.
  • Participation grading → alternative modes (written/ audio/ anonymous).
  • Group work inequities → structured roles, rotating facilitation, credit tracking.
  • Neurodiversity → predictable structure, multiple submission formats, low-sensory options.

How ?

  • Foster an inclusive classroom culture:
  • Use FORRT’s Academic Wheel of Privilege as a class exercise to integrate DEI topics in the course curricula and make relevant connections to the structures of academia:
    • Ask students to locate themselves on the Academic Wheel of Privilege by reflecting on where they fall across various identity dimensions. Discuss together how these intersecting aspects of their identity influence their academic experiences and may shape their future career trajectories. To deepen this reflection, assign students to write a positionality statement that thoughtfully explores how their identity, background, and experiences inform their perspective and place within the academic landscape. Example of a positionality statement: https://osf.io/2rcuz_v1
    • Present scenarios in which two researchers from different backgrounds collaborate, and assign students to small groups to discuss how factors such as privilege and marginalization might influence recognition and credit. Encourage them to consider how systemic advantages can shape decisions around authorship order, funding opportunities, and collaborative dynamics. Follow with a plenary discussion to surface these insights and make visible the often-invisible ways privilege operates in academic settings.
  • Diversify your syllabus.
  • Use inclusive citation practices.
    • Consider adding a Citation Diversity Statement in your course materials or assignments, to acknowledge and intentionally include scholarship from diverse voices and underrepresented groups.
    • Use McGill’s Citation Justice Guide to help students audit their citation practices and intentionally seek out diverse voices in their research. The guide offers practical tools for analyzing whose work is being cited, identifying gaps, and finding resources to include scholars from marginalized communities.
    • Read FORRTs Manuscript on The Citational Justice Toolkit which offers practical guidance and tools to help researchers make more equitable and conscientious citation choices throughout the research process.
  • Engage with Towards Social Justice In Academia Initiatives:
    • FORRT’s remote mentorship program aims to facilitate and encourage adherence to open and reproducible research practices for (a) students from underprivileged and underrepresented backgrounds; (b) non-WEIRD; and (c) when there are no local open science friendly institutions or personnel.
    • FORRT’s supporting underprivileged and underrepresented early-career researchers initiative serves as a link between willing mentors and mentees in their engagement with academia, its several duties (e.g., application materials, grant/funding proposals, academic writing, research development, statistical analyses, etc.), as well as open and reproducible science practices. It is FORRT’s goal to chip away at the barriers that exist and to promote a more inclusive environment for all (Roberson, 2020).

8. Become an advocate at your own institution/professional society

A great way to adopt the values of principled education is to advocate in your own institution for incorporating the values of open science and transparent research into teaching.

How ?

  • Within your institution:
    • If you’re part of a teaching committee, suggest adding open science topics to course content, as simple as adding a slide or a real-world example.
    • Start conversations with colleagues about including transparency and reproducibility in the curriculum.
    • If you are involved in hiring decisions, try to understand the quality criteria used. If your institution is only using citation numbers or Journal Impact Factors, make everybody aware of sfdora.org and coara.eu (if you are at a big university, chances are high that they signed SF DORA); maybe you can ask the committee to use resque.info. Relying solely on bibliometrics is not useful if the aim is to choose a qualified person as they are not reproducible and possibly unrelated to scientific quality (e.g., Prestigious Science Journals Struggle to Reach Even Average Reliability).
  • Within professional societies or unions:
    • Advocate for policies that support openness, transparency, and equality in research and education.
    • Encourage societies to offer workshops, resources, or statements supporting these values.
  • Track open science adoption: Monitoring how open science is implemented across journals reveals progress, gaps, and opportunities for change. It also provides concrete examples to inform discussions in advocacy, teaching, and policy. Use the following tools to track OS uptake and support data-informed advocacy:
    • OSF Registries – Monitor how often studies are preregistered, and explore trends in research transparency across disciplines. To see how many registrations there are by subject you can use the OSF registries website.
    • Registered Reports Database – Discover which journals accept Registered Reports, a publishing format that promotes methodological rigor by reviewing research plans before data collection.
    • TOP Factor – Compare journals based on their transparency and openness policies. This tool rates journals across 10 dimensions, including data sharing, preregistration, and replication.
    • Peer Community In (PCI) – Explore peer-reviewed preprint platforms across disciplines that support open, transparent, and community-driven scholarly communication.
  • Connect with others who care about open research by joining networks such as:
    • ABRIR: An international network of researchers and practitioners dedicated to promoting open, reproducible, and transparent research practices across disciplines.
    • FORRT: A collaborative forum connecting educators and researchers who develop, share, and discuss resources for teaching open and reproducible science.
    • T he repliCATS project: A collaborative initiative that engages researchers in systematically assessing reproducibility and credibility in published research, fostering methodological reflection and community learning.
    • Quala Lab: Collaborative working group finding connections between the open science movement and qualitative and mixed methods research.
    • Reproducibility Network: National peer led consortium of researchers aiming to promote and ensure rigorous research practices.
    • ReproducibiliTea: A podcast highlighting the great work of early career researchers.

What do you think of these tips?

Have you used any of these tips? What do you think worked well or what did you have to change? What demographic of students did you use this for (e.g. Bachelor, Masters, PhD)?

We welcome contributions from educators, researchers, and practitioners who would like to help expand and enrich these resources. Have your say through this Google Form.

Share back

You can also submit a short contribution to FORRT’s curated database or directly to this page. This may include:

  • a syllabus snippet

  • an assignment

  • a case study

Submissions can be made via our short Google Form. Please note that contributors can get credit. We are committed to transparent and meaningful attribution. Contributors are credited using our formal crediting mechanism (Tenzing / CRediT taxonomy). When submitting via the Google Form, you will be invited to add your details so that you can be properly credited for your contribution. We value community knowledge and aim to recognise all contributions appropriately

JUST-OS chatbot (offline)
Chatbot offline — we hope to bring it back soon