Open science in all stages through the ExoClock project

The ExoClock project is part of the ephemerides working group of ESA's Ariel space mission and its main scope is to maximise the mission’s efficiency by providing a consistent and homogenous catalogue with all exoplanet ephemerides. The project is open and interactive,  counting six years in operation. In this effort, our team has been actively collaborating with professional and amateur astronomers coming from various countries around the world as well as university and school students. Participants contribute with observations of exoplanets by using a wide range of telescopes, from backyard ones to large facilities own by organisations and universities. Apart from the main scientific goal, the project activities foster public engagement with science. Dedicated educational and user friendly tools support completely inexperienced people such as citizen scientists and school students. Moreover, the open and integrated platform of the project support performance of further scientific projects. The main exoclock database is also open for use by the wider community for planning of exoplanet observations with larger instruments.

This presentation will describe how collaborative and open science can be used to advance exoplanet research though projects such as ExoClock. More specifically, I will talk about the organisation of the ExoClock project and the main tools that are used to achieve an effective pro-am collaboration. I will also present the status of the project and the results of the publications we have produced so far. The ExoClock network currently consists of more than 2000 participants, including professionals, amateur astronomers (75%), university students but also some citizen scientists. The talk will end with lessons learned from 6 years of operation and future ideas.