WorkshopQUEST Center
Write My Protocol Workshop
During this hands-on workshop, you’ll work with expert instructors to write a reusable step-by-step protocol, or improve an existing protocol for a procedure that you perform in your own research. You’ll complete an 11-minute exercise to quickly structure your protocol, use an online protocol repository (protocols.io) to enhance readability.
Description of the Workshop
Participants will begin writing a protocol for a method that they use, or improve an existing protocol, using the protocols repository protocols.io.
The workshop starts with an 11-minute exercise, where participants quickly start the protocol writing process or identify gaps in an existing protocol. Participants will then transfer their ideas and protocol details into protocols.io, improve their protocol, and get feedback from instructors and other participants.
After the workshop
Participants can join the “Write and Publish My Protocol Working Group Course” to continue working on their protocol or prepare a Lab Protocols article to submit to PLOS One.
Target group and scope
This workshop is designed for researchers working with a reusable step-by-step protocol, and is not limited to wet lab protocols.
This workshop is not intended for participants who are writing study design protocols (e.g. systematic review or meta-analysis protocols, clinical study protocols, other protocols that describe a design for a specific study).
Study design protocols may include reusable step-by-step protocols (e.g. protocols for performing a specific measurement or intervention) that would be a good fit for this workshop.
What do I need to get started?
- List of materials used to complete the protocol
- A protocols.io account (sign up for free at https://www.protocols.io)
- Existing protocol (if available), or a draft list of steps (if you have one)
ECTS & course credit
Participants will receive a certificate (0.1 ECTS for BIH or Charité students). Graduate students should talk to staff for their degree programs, prior to enrollment, to determine whether ECTS acquired during this course will count towards graduation requirements.
Commitment to openness
All course participants must commit to sharing their full, step-by-step protocol. Steps cannot be omitted.
Instructors
Tracey L. Weissgerber, PhD, Group Leader, Berlin Institute of Health at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, QUEST Center for Responsible Research, tracey.weissgerber@bih-charite.de
Dr. Weissgerber is a meta-researcher. Her team focuses on improving transparency, reproducibility and rigor in scientific publications. Her 2015 paper on bar graphs has been viewed more than 395,000 times. This paper contributed to policy changes in many journals that encourage authors to replace bar graphs of continuous data with more informative graphics (dot plots, box plots, violin plots).
René Bernard, PhD, Coordinator for Value and Open Science NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, rene.bernard@charite.de, orcid.org/0000-0003-3265-2372
Dr. Bernard is a trained pharmacist, pharmacologist, and currently works as Coordinator for Research Value and Open Science in the NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence. In addition to neuroscientific research, he worked for several years in an academica-industry collaboration and helped to develop two quality management systems designed for preclinical research. He is committed to promoting good research practice, as laid out in this open access book, to which he contributed.
Course support
This is a joint course from BIH QUEST Center and NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence. NeuroCure is funded within the Excellence Strategy by the GERMAN FEDERAL and BERLIN STATE GOVERNMENTS through DFG Grant EXC 2049 / project number: 39068808.
