Open Science Against Humanity and Open <3 Science Card Games
Lena Karvovskaya Elisa Rodenburg Stephanie van de Sandt
Engagement with Open Science and digital preservation can present a challenge because of their (perceived) abstract and theoretical nature. The GHOST (Games of Horror in Open Science Training) Collective uses gamification to lower this barrier and spark interest in these topics with researchers and other practitioners. Because many Open Science concepts are concerned with digital preservation, the following GHOST games are very applicable and inspirational to the iPRES audience. 

[Open Science Against Humanity][1] is based on the Cards Against Humanity gameplay concept. Players hold several cards in their hands that can be matched to the prompts on the table. The funniest or most on-fleek response to each prompt ‘wins’; the winning player gets to keep the prompt. Whoever has won the most rounds at the end, wins the game. The prompts and responses are all related to several Open Science aspects, including the preservation of data and software and the significant effort associated with it - something that all digital preservationalists will recognise. Players are encouraged to make humorous moves but also look up and discuss the meaning of cards or terms they do not know and thus learn about various aspects of Open Science

[Open <3 Science][2] is more content-focused. Players still hold several cards in their hands and get prompts on the table, but they are encouraged to find the best match based on factual and/or practical content. The prompts are about Open Science principles, while the response cards contain Open Science concepts, including a brief explanation and a QR code that leads to bibliographic source material where players can find more in-depth explanations about the concept. Players are encouraged to discuss which response is the best match to the prompt, based on what they learned about the concepts at hand. Also here, there are many concepts that digital preservationalists will know, from licences and digital sovereignty to labour-intensiveness and community.

In the session, players are invited to try both games in several groups. Each game takes approximately 20 minutes to play, depending on the discussions. Players can walk in and out freely.


  [1]: https://github.com/ghostCollective/OpenScienceAgainstHumanity
  [2]: https://nlesc.github.io/open-loves-science/
communications and advocacy for dp from document to data