Hi there, Open Science fans!
You might have wondered “What was the initial inspiration for creating SIOS?” Well, then here’s some exciting news! In a very special interview, we talked to Prof. dr. E.M. Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, who added the “Good Research Practices” course to the Research Master’s in Psychology curriculum, and this is how it all begun. Without further spoilers, let’s give you some background about Wagenmakers and the concepts that we discussed with him. In this way, you can enjoy the interview with no open questions in mind. Besides, after watching the interview you might want to check this post again for some useful links and resources.
Introducing Eric-Jan Wagenmakers
Wagenmakers is a professor at the Methodology Unit in the Department of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam, as well as on “Neurocognitive Modeling: Interdisciplinary Integration” for the Cognitive Science Center Amsterdam at the University of Amsterdam. He is an Open Science (OS) advocate and a prominent figure in promoting the use of Bayesian statistics. He is the founder and CEO of JASP (Jeffreys’s Amazing Statistics Program), an open-source and free statistical software that provides easy-to-use interphase with Bayesian analysis options. However, we wanted to interview him for another reason: the “Good Research Practices” (GRP) course he created is one of the reasons why SIOS exists today.
What is the GRP course?
The Good Research Practices course is a student course in the curriculum of Research Master’s program in Psychology at the University of Amsterdam, created by Wagenmakers and his colleagues. The GRP course covers topics related to OS such as the “Replicability Crisis”, questionable research practices (QRP), the importance of replication studies, pre-registration, and the public sharing of data, code, and analysis plans. It not only aims at informing and creating awareness about OS for future researchers but also gives us students the opportunity to critically evaluate the bigger picture, why we need OS, and what can be done within the current system even if we do not end up in research. The course is very student-focused and introduces students to the OS world via practical training, and social media platforms. It encourages participation in discussions about OS with guest lecturers who are prominent OS advocates such as Chris Chambers (the author of the course book) and among classmates.
The founders of SIOS, who took the course during their studies, were inspired by the course and what it entails. However, they noticed that a lot of them did not even hear about OS before starting a Research Master’s in Psychology. They realized that the student’s perspective and more general education for students on OS is largely missing. Therefore, they decided that students must take action themselves! And so, it all began…
We interviewed Wagenmakers about Open Science and its future, how and why he created a “Good Research Practices” course, about JASP and SIOS along and many more topics. Without further due here’s the link to the interview video on our YouTube channel:
Wanna know more about the topic? Contact us!
Some useful links and resources from the interview!
An article about the GRP course:
Sarafoglou, A., Hoogeveen, S., Matzke, D., & Wagenmakers, E. (2019). Teaching good research practices: Protocol of a research master course. Psychology Learning & Teaching, 19(1), 46-59. https://doi.org/10.1177/1475725719858807
Information about (Transparency and Openness Promotion) TOP guidelines:
Nosek, B., Alter, G., Banks, G., Borsboom, D., Bowman, S., Breckler, S., Buck, S., Chambers, C., Chin, G., Christensen, G., Contestabile, M., Dafoe, A., Eich, E., Freese, J., Glennerster, R., Goroff, D., Green, D., Hesse, B., Humphreys, M., … Yarkoni, T. (2015). Promoting an open research culture. Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 348(6242), 1422–1425. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aab2374
https://www.cos.io/initiatives/top-guidelines
Mentioned Articles
The survey with researchers about data sharing:
Houtkoop, B. L., Chambers, C., Macleod, M., Bishop, D. V., Nichols, T. E., & Wagenmakers, E. (2018). Data sharing in psychology: A survey on barriers and preconditions. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science,1(1), 70-85. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245917751886
Study example related to journal impact and open-access:
Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2019). Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. CHANCE, 32(1), 4–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/09332480.2019.1579573
Mentioned Books
Chambers, C. (2019). The seven deadly sins of psychology: a manifesto for reforming the culture of scientific practice. Princeton University Press.
Mentioned Websites
For preregistration: https://aspredicted.org
SIOS Lecture (An inconvenient truth – The p-value) given by E.J. Wagenmakers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol3IeqRZl-w
JASP website: jasp-stats.org
SIOS - Student Initiative for Open Science 