Open Research

The Weizenbaum Institute’s mission statement defines open research as one of five fundamental working principles: “The Weizenbaum Institute stands for open and transparent research. We rely on the approaches of open data, open source, open access and open science methods and develop them further.”

Research data is an essential basis for scientific work. With this guideline, the Weizenbaum Institute is committed to creating the conditions for good research data management (RDM). Openness and open access are fundamental principles here.

The Open Research Working Group was founded in 2022 with the aim of pooling expertise from the various areas of open research at the Institute and addressing strategic and practical topics (e.g. mission statement and guidelines for open research, handling of research data at the Weizenbaum Institute).

With the Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society, the Discussion and Policy Paper series, the Weizenbaum Report and the Weizenbaum Conference Proceedings, the central publication series of the Weizenbaum Institute are offered Open Access.

The Open Access Publication Fund for Researchers of the Weizenbaum Institute promotes Open Access publications by researchers of the Weizenbaum Institute and supports the open-access transformation of scientific publishing.

The Weizenbaum Libraty is an Open Access repository for research. It provides open publications, research data, and other digital resources of the Institute for free re-use.

The Weizenbaum Panel collects longitudinal data on the question of how people perceive digitalization, how people's democratic and civic attitudes are changing and how they shape their role in a digitalizing democracy. To enable other researchers to work with the survey data, the data including the associated questionnaires as well as the methodological and results reports are published.

The Data Explorer provides an interactive visualization of data from the Weizenbaum Panel to enable both scientists and journalists to independently analyze individual questions on the panel's topics.

Participatory approaches to teaching and learning are experiencing a new lease on life in the 21st century as a result of the rapid technology development. This paper by Bonny Brandenburger aims to make a valuable contribution to the opening up of learning and teaching, and expands the discourse around possibilities for interpreting Open Educational Practices.

For a better understanding of selection processes (e.g. of false information) on digital platforms, the research group Dynamics of Digital News Dissemination has created highly realistic newsfeed environments that enable the tracking of individual user behavior.

In order to increase the efficiency of social science data collection, the WI Methods Lab has developed a tool with which content and settings for data collection can be dynamically customized via a web interface or an Android and iOS app.

This research group focuses on the requirements for the design of digital teaching and learning processes and the possibilities and limits of increasing individualization of education. The use of new technologies, in particular AI, is analyzed from a theoretical and application-oriented perspective.

This research group researches the digitalization and opening up of science and is actively involved in shaping it. Its current focus is on data infrastructures and data tools for interdisciplinary and data-intensive researchers.

This research group investigates how a reorganization of scientific practices along digital principles can contribute to individual and social self-determination.

The Methods Lab is the center for the promotion, networking and coordination of methods training and consulting at the Weizenbaum Institute. In addition to ongoing research projects of the research groups and units, methodological research is also carried out and tools for collecting and analyzing digital data are developed.

The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities was initiated in 2003 by 19 research organizations. It is considered an important milestone of the Open Access movement. The Weizenbaum Institute has been a signatory since May 2024.

The state of Berlin is committed to maximizing openness in the areas of science and culture. It has therefore formulated goals in a strategy (2015) to achieve open access and comprehensive usability in the sense of open access for all.

The Open Access Office Berlin is a coordination center for open science in Berlin and is based at the University Library of Freie Universität Berlin and is supported by the Senate Department for Science, Health and Care: Science and Research Division, in order to support Berlin’s scientific and cultural heritage institutions in implementing the OA Strategy for Berlin.

The Berlin University Alliance is composed of four institutions: Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin and Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Through its 2023 mission statement, the BUA establishes a framework for advancing and promoting Open Science.

Open Access as a cross-sectional task requires joint and coordinated efforts at all levels. The Brandenburg Open Access Strategy (2019) defines goals and measures for the state of Brandenburg. The aim is to make knowledge from the state of Brandenburg more visible, findable, accessible and usable.

Open Access Brandenburg supports Brandenburg’s universities and universities of applied sciences in their open access transformation in line with the state's open access strategy.

This collection of links to further offers, institutions and initiatives in the Berlin area is maintained by the Berlin University Alliance.