Recap: Open Science Shop & OpenFlexure Microscope Working Group Meeting (October 2024)

Recapped by Jo Long for the Open Science Shop Newsletter

Each month, we share a summary of our most recent Open Science Shop & OpenFlexure Microscope Working Group (OSS-OFM WG) meeting as we continue to work together to enable distributed manufacturing of the OpenFlexure Microscope (OFM) on a global scale.

The Open Science Shop convenes these working group meetings on a monthly basis. These monthly meetings serve as an opportunity to share updates from the various task forces and brainstorm actions the group can take next.

Update on vendor directory & soft launch

Since the previous meeting more vendors have been onboarded to the vendor page. At the time of the meeting there was a total of 10 vendors and 5 continents listed. There was a discussion on the best ways the group can promote this project. Notes from this discussion and action items are listed below:

• A draft press release has now been shared on the forum. Working group members should provide comments and feedback on the draft
• Discussed some possible outlets for sharing the press release
• Suggested the group develop a "press kit" for vendors to easily share about the project via their social media, newsletters etc. Press kit should have links to the vendor page and press release, some recommended images and sample language about the project
• Recommended to add a "call to action" to the press release and other publicity materials
• Tentative date for press release on or after the week of October 21st to allow time for some vendors to re-stock inventory
• Before the soft launch check-in with all vendors on inventory

Heads of Agreement

In addition to the vendor page, the group is also working on creating resources that can be used by project creators and manufacturers/vendors that will smooth the path for interested parties to work together. There was a short discussion re-affirming why these kinds of resources are important to members of the group, including:

• Starting discussions: There is a courtesy in having a dialogue before you start to manufacture something, and these resources can greatly help to frame discussions and make them more structured
• Prevent misunderstandings: There is a common understanding on what each party is going to do
• Ensure the community plays well together

The main resources the group is interested in developing are a heads of agreement and perhaps template agreements that can be customized by the parties. The group discussed creating a list of topics that are areas that could be agreed on between parties. Examples for the OFM project could be:

• Branding - How to use/not use branding
• Vendor badges - These are currently subjective. There is still a need to more clearly define when they can be used

The OFM team and IO Rodeo have an existing letter and for next steps it was suggested that this could be shared with the group and see if there are places it needs to be expanded as a basis for a general template agreement. 

Funding & OSS Structure

Funding: Open Science Shop does not currently have a lot of expenses. Some fees have been covered by members for web services such as domain registration and the Open Science Shop newsletter and website fees. However, if we did want to develop Open Science Shop further, we may need to look for funding to cover more administration work and other expenses. We could potentially look at grants with fiscal sponsorship through other organizations.

Structure: Currently OSS is focused on the OpenFlexure Microscope distributed manufacturing project. There was some discussion of changing the groups name to reflect this focus, but most felt that keeping the Open Science Shop branding is good for future expansion. It also avoids any confusion that the vendors are part of the OpenFlexure Team. Keeping the Open Science Shop branding makes it clearer that we are an independent collective supporting distributed manufacturing of the OpenFlexure Microscope.

Summary

• Goals before the next meeting
  • Check-in with all vendors on inventory before the press release
  • Share the IO Rodeo/OFM agreement doc with the group

Agenda for upcoming meeting

The next meeting is scheduled for Monday November 5th at 4 pm UTC. Below are some of the items for the next meeting:

• Update on vendor page launch
• Update on OHW template agreement
• Brainstorming on Funding
• Org structure for OSS 

New members are always welcome to join the OSS-OFM working group! Please fill out the form linked below for the meeting link.

Interested in bringing your open science hardware design to market? Connect with Open Science Shop

Open Science Shop's role is to facilitate connections between open science hardware project creators and a distributed manufacturing network. In addition to the OpenFlexure Microscope, we are also seeking to pilot distributed manufacturing initiatives with other designs. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, the format we are developing is a space where anyone in the open science hardware community can bring a Product Proposal to the group for consideration. If you are interested in collaborating with Open Science Shop to support bringing your open science hardware design to market, please let us know by submitting this form, and we will follow up with the next steps.