Modified

July 26, 2026

How to: ReproducibiliTea

Concept

ReproducibiliTea (ReproT) is a journal club series initially started by UKRN that aims to promote discussion about research reproducibility and open science practices. The CRS has been running a ReproducibiliTea journal club since 2019, and we are always looking for new ideas and volunteers to help run the series. Rachel has been responsible for the program since 2022 – and is looking for a successor. Hence, the how-to, so that everyone could take over.

Collaboration with ReproT Basel

The CRS ReproducibiliTea journal club is run in collaboration with the ReproducibiliTea Basel. Basel organises their journal club in the Fall semester and Zurich joins and promotes the program. Vice-versa, we organise ours in the Spring semester and Basel joins and promotes our program via their channels.

Format

Our ReproT journal club is an online talk series of 6-8 events, each lasting 45 minutes. The format is flexible, but usually includes a talk by the speaker on a paper or project of about 25 minutes, followed by a discussion of about 20 minutes. In very rare occasions, e.g., when we have an international visitor, we might organise a hybrid event. The goal is to foster an open and inclusive environment where participants can share their thoughts and experiences related to research reproducibility and open science.

Organise next semester’s ReproT journal club

  1. Ask to be added as contributor on our OSF page.
  2. Check the UZH Semester Dates for the exact dates of the spring semester. It usually starts in mid-February and ends in mid-June.
  3. Decide on +/- 7 dates for the journal club. The dates should be on Thursdays, starting at 4:30 PM and lasting for 45 minutes. The first date should be in mid-February, and the last one end of May or early June. Make sure to avoid public holidays and other events that might conflict with the journal club.
  4. Find the CRS ReproT ReproducibiliTea Organization Sheet on our GDrive (in OtherTraining/ReproducibiliTea) and start a new sheet. You might find some names of potential speakers that were not yet contacted. If you are not sure, ask Rachel or check out our old programs.
  5. Hardest bit: Find the speakers for the journal club! You can either invite speakers from the CRS team, or reach out to external speakers. Make sure to bug your CRS colleagues for ideas. No speaker is too senior or famous and no speaker is too junior to present. If you read a paper that you think is interesting, reach out to the authors and ask them to present it. If you are not sure how to approach a speaker, ask Rachel for advice. She has lots of e-mail templates that you can use.
  6. Create a Zoom meeting for the each event. Make sure to chose the option to have participants register for the meeting.
  7. Once you have the dates and speakers, fill out the ReproducibiliTea Organization Sheet with the following information:
    • Date
    • Speaker name
    • Title of the talk
    • Link to the paper or project
    • Optional: link to the speaker’s profile (e.g., ORCID, website, etc.)
    • Link to the Zoom meeting
  8. Create a new folder in the ReproducibiliTea folder on GDrive for the semester and copy the content of the previous year: this should be a doc with the content for the website, the schedule as a flyer, and the opening slides presentation. Update those documents with the information of the new semester.
  9. Ask Shirin to add the information, program and flyer on the website (using the doc you created in 6.).
  10. Post the program with the flyer on LinkedIn or have Shirin do it with the CRS account - mention the speakers as well as organisations like FORRT, SwissRN, UZH Open Science, UZH Graduate Campus, EBPI etc in your post to boost visibility. Also, sent an email to all the speakers (in BCC) with the full program, THANK THEM and invite them to join others talks.
  11. Inform the ReproT Basel team about the dates and speakers, so they can promote our journal club in their channels. The best persons to contact is Xeni and Claudia.

Congrats, you have organised the ReproT journal club series! 🎉

Moderation of the events

Be clear with the speakers on the time they have to present, and ask them to sent you their slides after the event. Make sure to sent a reminder email a week before the event, and maybe even a day before the event. The reminder should include the Zoom link. Ask the speaker to log in 5-10 minutes before the event starts, so that you can check the audio and video. Before letting the participants out of the waiting room present the opening slide. Say a few words about the speaker, the topic and the format of the event. Introduce the speaker and let them present. After the talk, moderate the discussion. If you are not sure how to moderate, ask Rachel for advice.

Follow-up after the events

After the event, make sure to thank the speaker for their time and effort. If they did not do it yet, ask them to sent the slides. Once you have the slides, post them on our OSF page. When you are putting the first slide deck, also put the flyer with the program online. You can also sent the OSF link to the speaker, so they know where their slides are deposited.