[Session abstract] Open Science is a broad movement looking beyond Open Access to publish openly and share scientific research immediately. Accessibility is addressed on all levels for everyone, without fees. Open Science not only deals with Open Access papers but scientific research results in general, including figures, data, models, algorithms, software, tools, notebooks, laboratory designs, recipes, samples and much more. Furthermore, it covers the communication, review, and discussion of research results and considers changing needs regarding incentives, quality assessment, metrics, impact, reputation, grants and funding. Thus Open Science encompasses licensing, policy-making, infrastructures and scientific heritage while safeguarding the dynamic nature of science and its evolving forms. However, this short course is meant not to carry too far with Open Science. Rather, it looks at what is possible nowadays and what is ready for application in geosciences. The speakers present open data solutions and introduce networks. It is aimed to create an idea on how researchers benefit from Open Science regarding research data. Both the drawbacks and opportunities of open data are outlined. This short course is the first part of the Short Course series 'Open Science goes Geo'. Part I covers research data and its role in the scientific work. The possibilities for publishing research data leveraging Open Science in geosciences are addressed, together with related opportunities and stumbling blocks. Moreover, the ways in which networks can support scientific collaboration on shared datasets are introduced. The short course will close with a mini panel discussion to gear follow-up discussions.