Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training

Attendees at RT2 2023 in Berkeley.

The BITSS Research Transparency and Reproducibility Trainings (RT2) are our flagship training events, which provide participants with an overview of tools and practices for transparent and reproducible social science research. We have hosted eleven events as of 2023, reaching over 430 social science researchers from around the world. As of August 2022, the RT2 program has received a grant by the National Institute of Health’s NIAID Research Education Program (R25) to cover its operational expenses for the next five years. BITSS is excited to continue training participants in open science through 2027 and beyond.

The RT2 curriculum typically covers the following topics:

  1. Threats to research credibility and reproducibility and their relation to the scientific ethos (Mertonian Norms, scientific misconduct and researcher degrees of freedom, and transparency in the research cycle);
  2. Improved research design specification (pre-registration and pre-analysis plans, power analysis, and pre-analysis plans for experimental or observational research);
  3. Ethical and open research (ethical research for open science, data management, and data de-Identification);
  4. Tools and methods for research reproducibility and collaboration (hands-on sessions on version control with GitHub and the GitHub App or GitKraken, and hands-on sessions on Dynamic Documents for R or Stata users);
  5. Evidence synthesis, reproducibility, and interpretation (methods for meta-analyses and systematic reviews, transparency and reproducibility with administrative data, and replicability and reproducibility); and
  6. Open science software and method innovations.

In addition to these, the new grant also covers applications to behavioral and social science research, with a focus on aging and health disparities, like:

  • Power calculations for aging research
  • Reporting guidelines and helpful tips for economics conducting health research
  • Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP) data and cross-national harmonization
  • Using the Gateway to Global Aging Data
  • Maintaining reproducibility and open science in the context of sensitive research
  • Reproducible analysis of administrative, individual-level mortality data
  • Examining the relationship between the researcher and community in health disparities research

Learn more and find materials from past RT2 events here and follow our Events for calls for applications for future RT2s!