Learner Profiles
These profiles are composites. They are written from the feedback of the first in-person run of the course (HU Berlin library, 2026-09-24), where participants said they know metadata, versioning, knowledge management and long-term preservation well, and know little about engineering, the hardware life cycle, or quality control. The names and details are invented, and no profile describes a real person.
Amara, research data librarian
Amara has worked in a university library for eight years and now supports researchers with data management plans, repositories and DOIs. She knows metadata standards, licensing for data and software, and how to deposit material in an institutional repository. A researcher in the physics department recently asked her whether the lab’s home-built detector could be “put in the repository”. She was not sure what to deposit, how to describe it, or whether a hardware design needs a different license from data.
What she wants from the course: a way to apply what she already knows about FAIR, metadata and citation to hardware, and to learn where hardware differs from data and software.
Jonas, subject liaison librarian
Jonas is the liaison for life sciences and chemistry. He spends much of his time on collection development, teaching information literacy, and answering questions from researchers who are looking for tools and methods. He is comfortable with literature searching and with evaluating sources, but has never needed to find a hardware design, and does not know how to tell a well-documented one from a poorly documented one.
What he wants from the course: a repeatable route for finding open hardware for a researcher, and a short checklist for judging whether a design is documented, licensed and maintained well enough to recommend.
Lucía, makerspace coordinator
Lucía coordinates the makerspace in a university library. She runs 3D printers, laser cutters and electronics workshops, and is comfortable with hands-on fabrication. She knows less about research workflows, publication, or how researchers cite and share designs. Researchers sometimes ask the makerspace for help building instruments, and she would like to support them in sharing what they build.
What she wants from the course: to connect her making skills with open science practices such as licensing, documentation and deposit, and to understand where the library can help researchers beyond providing equipment.
Using these profiles
When you edit the course, check it against these three people. The same checks also work for planning a workshop.
- Does the opening of the course start from what Amara, Jonas and Lucía already know, rather than from a definition of OSH?
- Do the challenges ask for something these librarians would actually do, such as find a design, assess documentation, or advise on a license? Challenges framed for researchers do not fit.
- Does the course say plainly that engineering, life cycle and quality control are new topics for most of the audience, and treat them at an introductory level?