The Doctoral School of the Institute of Psychology and the Graz Open Science Initiative (https://psychologie.uni-graz.at/de/sozialpsychologie/gosi/) would like to make a contribution to transparency and open science practices. In this sense, the doctoral school provided information and material on the implementation of open science practices. These are in accordance with the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines (see https://topfactor.org/).
The application of such practices makes sense, as they promote the reproducibility and replicability of analyses and studies and counteract the proven bias of results in the specialist literature (publication bias) (Scheel et al., 2021).
The following practices are recommended by the Doctoral School of Psychology
Pre-registration
Before the data for a study are collected (or before the researchers look at the data for the first time), researchers can conduct a preregistration of the study in which they define hypotheses, variables collected, and analysis plans. The purpose of a preregistration is not to bind researchers to this one plan, but to be able to clearly distinguish in retrospect what the researchers have assumed a priori and what they have inferred a posteriori. In other words, preregistration makes it easier to separate confirmatory and exploratory analyses (see Nosek et al., 2018).
Preregistrations can be conducted on the Open Science Framework(https://help.osf.io/article/162-start-a-registration) or the Leibniz Institute of Psychology(https://prereg-psych.org/index.php/rrp). An accepted registered report in a scientific journal also counts as a preregistration (see www.cos.io/initiatives/re gistered-reports). You can also use the platform "Peer Community In Registered Reports", which offers a standardized review procedure(https://rr.peercommunityin.org/about).
- Answers to frequently asked questions can be found in this publication: Banks, G. C. et. al. (2019)
FAIR Data/Materials
Making materials, data and analysis scripts available facilitates the traceability (e.g. for reviewers) of the research process and the replicability of results. Scientific repositories make it possible to store large amounts of data and annotated code (e.g. via R or Python) online. It should be noted that not all data must be made freely available (e.g. sensitive data). A distinction is made between "open" and "FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable)" data (see ub.uni-graz.at/de/se rvices/publikationsservices/forschungsdatenmanagement/fair-data-und-open-data/).
Materials and paradigms can also be made public (as long as there is no copyright from other researchers, journals and/or publishers) in order to make it easier for other researchers to replicate the study. The approach is similar to data sharing and can be usefully combined with it. For example, open notebooks can be used to document which data was collected using which methods.
How data is handled can be defined in advance in preregistrations and/or data management plans (including metadata; e.g. scales). For large, data-intensive surveys (e.g. via fMRI, EEG, eye tracking, biophysiological measurements, etc.), standardization via the BIDS format should be sought. Please contact the psychological-technical assistants in the respective departments.
- A practical introduction to the topic: https: //osf.io/w82ms/wiki/home/
- Events on the topic can also be found on the ZPID website: https: //leibniz-psychology.org/en/opensciencelectures/
- Information on the documentation of data and materials can be found on the website of the Research Data Center of the Leibniz Institute for Psychology (ZPID): https: //rdc-psychology.org/
- Description and further links to data management plans: https: //ub.uni-graz.at/de/services/publikationsservices/forschungsdatenmanagement/datenmanagementplaene/
- Practical guide to the use of notebooks (Jupyter): https: //medium.com/velotio-perspectives/the-ultimate-beginners-guide-to-jupyter-notebooks-6b00846ed2af
Open Access (OA)
Published articles of the dissertation should ideally be openly accessible, as not all scientifically interested persons have a subscription with a publisher. The University of Graz has concluded numerous OA agreements with publishers so that articles can be made accessible without any problems (see ub.uni-graz.at/de/se rvices/open-access/open-access-abkommen/). However, in rare cases where preferred journals do not offer OA (or it is very expensive), the articles can often still be made accessible - via preprint servers ("green" OA).
For first-submitted articles, publication via a preprint server is usually possible without any problems and at any time. After an embargo period (one to two years), peer-reviewed and accepted manuscripts can be deposited on a preprint server, a personal website or a university repository without any problems. Details can be found on the Sherpa-Romeo platform(https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/).
- Step-by-step instructions can be found in this publication OSF:Soderberg, C. K. (2018)
- Instructions for screen recordings of paradigms can be found in this publication: Heycke, T., & Spitzer, L. (2019)
Bibliography:
Banks, G. C., Field, J. G., Oswald, F. L., O'Boyle, E. H., Landis, R. S., Rupp, D. E., & Rogelberg, S. G. (2019). Answers to 18 Questions About Open Science Practices. Journal of Business and Psychology, 34(3), 257-270.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-018-9547-8
Heycke, T., & Spitzer, L. (2019). Screen Recordings as a Tool to Document Computer Assisted Data Collection Procedures. Psychologica Belgica, 59(1), 269-280. https://doi.org/10.5334/pb.490
Nosek, B. A., Ebersole, C. R., DeHaven, A. C., & Mellor, D. T. (2018). The preregistration revolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(11), 2600-2606. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1708274114
Scheel, A. M., Schijen, M. R. M. J., & Lakens, D. (2021). An Excess of Positive Results: Comparing the Standard Psychology Literature With Registered Reports. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 4(2), 25152459211007468. doi. org/10.1177/25152459211007467
Soderberg, C. K. (2018). Using OSF to Share Data: A Step-by-Step Guide. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 1(1), 115-120.https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245918757689