Participation
Who can participate?
OSC is currently designed with high school students in mind. Because the program operates online, students may participate from any geographic location. We are open to participants from other backgrounds who share OSC's spirit of inquiry.
Does this cost any money?
No.
How much time does OSC require?
OSC is designed to fit alongside school, extracurricular activities, and other commitments. Pilot cohorts will likely run for several months, but participants need not devote large amounts of time each week. We care more about consistent engagement and thoughtful inquiry than about the total number of hours invested.
Do I need prior research experience?
No. In fact, OSC is intended as an entry point into inquiry and research for many participants.
Can I participate if I'm not interested in science?
Yes, depending on what you mean by "science." OSC welcomes inquiries that extend beyond the conventional subjects associated with high school science classes. We understand science broadly as the systematic, evidence-based pursuit of knowledge, including the social sciences. We are less interested in whether your idea counts as "science" than in whether you can answer your question systematically and use evidence to evaluate competing explanations. Projects that are primarily artistic or purely theoretical may be less compatible with OSC's inquiry model.
Projects
What kinds of questions are appropriate?
OSC welcomes questions that can be investigated systematically using evidence. Questions may emerge from personal experience, academic interests, current events, local communities, or simple curiosity. A good OSC question does not need to be groundbreaking. In fact, some of the most rewarding inquiries begin with modest questions that someone is willing to pursue carefully.
What kinds of projects are allowed?
OSC welcomes a wide variety of projects. These might involve replication studies, data analyses, historical investigations, field observations, interviews, experiments, and other forms of inquiry or some combination thereof. Some projects may also produce tools, websites, datasets, visualizations, or other artifacts that help answer the underlying question. We are less interested in whether a project fits a particular category than in whether it approaches a question systematically and transparently.
Can I work with a team?
Yes. While many participants will pursue individual inquiries, collaborative projects are also welcome. Team members should share responsibility for the inquiry and contribute meaningfully to both the investigation and the documentation process. They are encouraged to also document how each member contributed to the project.
Can I continue a project I've already started?
Absolutely. Many worthwhile questions take multiple iterations to explore. Participants are welcome to continue existing projects, revisit earlier work, replicate previous findings, or investigate new puzzles that emerge from prior inquiries.
What if I change my mind?
That is often a sign that learning is taking place. Participants are free to revise their questions, methods, assumptions, and conclusions as their understanding evolves. Inquiry is rarely a straight path from question to answer.
What if my project doesn't "work"?
Some of the most valuable inquiries produce unexpected results, null findings, failed replications, revised hypotheses, or entirely new questions. OSC is interested in how participants investigate questions and respond to evidence, not whether they obtain a particular result. A carefully documented dead end may ultimately be more informative than a superficial success.
AI
Can I use AI?
Yes. OSC permits the use of AI tools and recognizes that they are becoming a normal part of many people's thought processes. Participants may use AI for brainstorming, learning new concepts, generating ideas, locating sources, writing code, and many other purposes.
At the same time, AI is imperfect and involves tradeoffs. While offering numerous benefits including efficient workflows, skills coaching, editing, and much more, it may generate errors, produce misleading explanations, and encourage users to accept answers they do not fully understand. OSC urges participants to verify claims and remain actively engaged in the reasoning process. OSC values understanding over merely completing a project. The rule of thumb should be, "Is AI helping me truly understand this?" as opposed to "Is AI helping me generate content faster?"
How should I document AI use?
Participants should document AI use in a way that is honest, transparent, and useful to themselves and others. Depending on the project, this might involve recording prompts, preserving portions of AI conversations, describing how AI influenced key decisions, or reflecting on how AI helped or hindered learning. OSC welcomes documentation that reports negative experiences with AI, not just positive ones.
Does OSC prefer projects completed without AI?
No. OSC is less interested in whether participants use AI than in how they use it. The goal is neither to minimize nor maximize AI use, but to use AI thoughtfully while reflecting on and documenting the process.
AI can both support and undermine learning. In some situations, it may unlock curiosity and deepen understanding. In others, it may facilitate cognitive offloading that creates the illusion of learning without genuine comprehension. OSC encourages participants to consider the value in some forms of intellectual effort. Just as physical exercise can strengthen muscles, wrestling with difficult concepts, solving problems independently, and working through confusion can strengthen our ability to think.
AI technologies are evolving rapidly, and their effects on learning remain ambiguous. In the spirit of intellectual humility, OSC avoids rigid rules and instead embraces thoughtful experimentation, reflection, and documentation.
Community
How does feedback work? What if I'm uncomfortable sharing unfinished work?
Participants share aspects of their work with each other throughout the cohort experience, not just at the end. Some of the most valuable feedback comes before a project is complete. Feedback may take the form of written comments, discussions, or collaborative troubleshooting. OSC encourages feedback that is honest, generous, specific, and constructive.
Depending on their projects, participants may also receive feedback from educators, researchers, graduate students, professionals, and other members of the broader OSC community. Different perspectives often reveal different strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities within an inquiry.
OSC aims to create an environment where participants not only strengthen their work through input from others, but also improve at giving and receiving feedback. Sharing rough ideas can feel quite vulnerable, but like anything, it becomes easier with practice—especially in a supportive community of peers. Each OSC cohort will develop its own culture of learning in public.
Is OSC competitive?
Not in the traditional sense. OSC does not give rankings or awards but instead prioritizes curiosity, self-driven learning, and collaboration.
At the same time, we recognize that friendly competition can motivate people to push themselves to do their best work. OSC therefore does not discourage competition, but seeks to ensure that it complements rather than displaces intrinsic motivation.
Who owns the work I create?
You do. Participants retain ownership of their projects, documentation, writing, data, code, and other materials they create through OSC. We encourage you to share your work publicly so that others can learn from it, but we will never share it on your behalf without explicit permission. OSC will clearly attribute work to its creators whenever possible.
Who created OSC?
OSC was founded by Lisa Mueller, a political scientist and college professor interested in how people learn, ask questions, and develop intellectual independence. After years of teaching research methods, mentoring student projects, participating in the open science movement, and experimenting with AI-assisted learning, she began exploring how to make inquiry more rewarding and rigorous for younger people.
OSC is a living experiment. While it currently reflects one person's ideas, its participants will steer its future development.
Questions? hello@opensciencechallenge.org