This chapter explores the concept of open science and its impact on research. It discusses the mission of the Center for Open Science, the endorsement of open science by the White House, and the practices involved in promoting transparency and reproducibility in research. The chapter also highlights the need to shift the reward system in science towards rewarding transparency and rigor.
A decade ago, University of Virginia psychology professor Brian Nosek cofounded an unusual nonprofit, the Center for Open Science. It’s been a cheerleader, enabler, and nagger to convince scientists that making their methods, data, and papers available to others makes for better science.
The Center for Open Science has built tools to register analysis plans and hypotheses before data are collected. It campaigns for authors and journals to state explicitly whether and where data and other research materials are available. Gradually, practices that were considered fringe are becoming mainstream. The White House declared 2023 the Year of Open Science.
Nosek refers to the pyramid of culture change as his strategy to push for reforms: first make a better practice possible, then easy, expected, rewarding, and finally, required. It starts with building infrastructure, then experience, reward systems, and ultimately policy.
In this podcast, Brian Nosek joins host Monya Baker to discuss the movement of scientific ideals toward reality.
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