Blog EN | Open Economics Guide of the ZBW

24. September 2025 Open Access osguide

Optimising Literature Search: Reap the Benefits of Different Search Tools

Understanding the differences between the various types of search tools helps you find literature more effectively and more efficiently. That way you can also reap the benefits of Open Science in a targeted manner. For this purpose, we are presenting some common search tools for business studies and economics as well as the differences between them. Publications contained in traditional or commercial databases are often hidden behind paywalls. However, Open Access expands access to research publications, and openly accessible working papers accelerate the availability of new research results. Reap these benefits by integrating search tools into your search strategy that […]

26. August 2025 Open Data osguide

Sharing Research Data More Effectively: the FAIR Assessment Tool

The FAIR Assessment Tool is a new tool that has recently been introduced to help assess and improve the FAIRness of published data. This allows you to expand your important know-how for publishing data sets in order to benefit from the advantages of FAIR data, such as greater visibility and impact for your research. The FAIR Assessment Tool helps you make your research data FAIR and publish it. FAIR refers to the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability of a dataset. Designing your research data management in accordance with the FAIR principles can, among other things, increase the visibility and impact […]

29. July 2025 Open Code osguide

Open Source: the key to More Open Science in Economics and Business Studies

Open Source software plays an important role in research. However, there is still room for improvement in its use in economics and business studies, as Prof. Dr Hans-Martin von Gaudecker noted during a Coffee Lecture on Open Science Education. In his presentation, he outlined practical approaches and initiatives for promoting Open Source in economics and business studies. At the end of June, the fourth edition of the “Coffee Lecture on Open Science Education” series took place. The guest speaker was Prof. Dr Hans-Martin von Gaudecker, Professor of Applied Microeconomics at the University of Bonn and an active member of the […]

25. June 2025 Open Science osguide

Gollum Effect Harms Research: Open Science is Part of the Solution

Possessive and territorial behaviours among researchers, which hinder collaboration and the free flow of information and thus scientific progress, are referred to as the Gollum effect. Such behaviour includes, for example, a reluctance to share data, methods, research topics or even research areas. A new study looked at the Gollum effect and also investigated what could help to mitigate it. Collaboration and knowledge sharing are generally considered to be cornerstones of scientific progress. The recently published study ‘Systemic territoriality in academia: The Gollum effect’s impact on scientific research and careers’ addresses an important obstacle to collaboration and thus to scientific […]

20. May 2025 Open Science osguide

Teaching Open Science: Introductory Slides for Business Studies and Economics

How can Open Science be embedded in business studies and economics education? In order to support lecturers in teaching knowledge about Open Science to young researchers, the ZBW is offering a new set of introductory slides in the Open Economics Guide for reuse. The slides are specifically tailored to business studies and economics and include a compact and comprehensible introduction to the central concepts, advantages and practical implementation options of Open Science – ideally suited for use in doctoral programmes. Open Science helps researchers to make academic work more transparent, collaborative and effective. However, the knowledge required for this must […]

23. April 2025 Open Data osguide

Check and Improve Data Quality: With the Open Data Editor no Programming Knowledge is needed

Check data in tables, find errors and publish data seamlessly in just a few steps? The Open Data Editor makes it possible. The Open Source tool requires no programming experience and is accompanied by a free course. How the Open Data Editor works. The Open Data Editor is a free no-code desktop application from the Open Knowledge Foundation. It makes working with data easier, especially for people without a technical background. It can be used to examine tables, detect errors in tables and easily upload data to GitHub, Zenodo and CKAN portals. The application focuses on helping users to find […]

25. March 2025 Open Science osguide

Teaching what we practice – Climbing the Open Science Mountain

Teaching what we practice means emphasising the importance of integrating Open Science principles into academic teaching. The relevance of these practices lies in fostering a learning environment that mirrors the evolving landscape of scientific research. With CLIMB Dr Meikel Soliman has developed a structured five-step approach for teaching how to climb the Open Science Mountain. CLIMB is a five-step approach for integrating Open Science into higher education. Developed by Dr Meikel Soliman while teaching research-oriented seminars in Psychology and Economics, CLIMB helps students navigate the research process with transparency and rigor. His interactive workbook, Doing Research – A Fun Workbook [...]

11. February 2025 Open Access, Open Science osguide

Open Science Search Engine: Matilda Opens Citations and References

Named after the Matilda effect, an Open Science search engine recently added to the Open Economics Guide’s tools catalogue helps researchers to find research works as well as the respective citations and metadata and to stay up to date. Here is a short summary and presentation of what Matilda has to offer. Matilda is an open academic search engine and a bibliographic and bibliometric platform for Open Science. It is named after the Matilda effect which describes downplaying or overlooking the scientific contributions and achievements of women. Aiming to make references and citation data as usable as Open Access scholarly […]

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