Oct 13, 2023  –  Oct 13, 2023

BITSS Workshop: Forecasting in the Social Sciences

Led by Stefano DellaVigna (UC Berkeley) and Eva Vivalt (The University of Toronto), the 2023 workshop brought together leaders from across academic disciplines to present new research findings, share knowledge, and continue charting a path forward for prediction in the social sciences. We were eager to showcase how the Social Science Prediction Platform, which has over 4,500 completed forecasting surveys for over 50 projects, is facilitating the collection and cataloging of forecasts for the broader research community.

The event featured Anna Dreber (Stockholm School of Economics) as the keynote speaker.

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Jun 12, 2021  –  Jun 13, 2021

Catalyst workshop: Pre-doctoral Research in Economics 2021

June 12-13 – Catalyst Jun Wong and colleagues Coly Elhai and Dominic Russel hosted the Pre-doctoral Research in Economics (PRE) 2021 virtual workshop, which provides an introduction to pre-doctoral education opportunities and research practices for transparency and reproducibility. Fernando Hoces de la Guardia gave the keynote presentation, titled “How Research Transparency Can Improve Social Science: Quality and Quantity” (slides here) and Catalysts Anna Josephson and Jeffrey Michler gave a presentation titled “Quantitative standards and pre-analysis plans”. See all presentations here.

The workshop was supported by BITSS and the PREDOC consortium.

 

Dec 12, 2019  –  Dec 12, 2019  |  Berkeley, CA

Workshop: Unlocking the File Drawer

BITSS and the Stanford Immigration Policy Lab (IPL) hosted a one-day ideation workshop titled “Unlocking the File Drawer” at UC Berkeley on December 12. The workshop convened an interdisciplinary group of researchers, funders, journal editors, design specialists, and research administrators to explore integrating approaches to improving the tracking of funded research outputs, with special consideration for projects that yield null results.

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Oct 2, 2019  –  Oct 4, 2019  |  Bloomington, IN

Rigor, Reproducibility and Transparency (RRT) at the Interdisciplinary Interface

Catalyst Sean Grant represented BITSS at “Rigor, Reproducibility, and Transparency (RRT) at the Interdisciplinary Interface”, a workshop organized by the School of Public Health, at Indiana University-Bloomington on October 2-4, 2019. The workshop will include high-level discussions in small group settings and will begin identifying priorities and infrastructure needs for a coordinated and interdisciplinary set of research training activities for promoting RRT in science.

Dec 11, 2018  |  Berkeley, CA

BITSS Workshop: Forecasting Social Science Research Results

Despite growing interest in forecasting and predictions across a number of fields, there is currently neither a centralized platform to collect predictions, nor consensus on best practices. To address this issue, BITSS will host a workshop on Forecasting Social Science Research Results on December 11, 2018, in coordination with the 2018 Annual Meeting.

Led by Stefano DellaVigna (UC Berkeley) and Eva Vivalt (Australian National University), the workshop will bring together academic leaders from across disciplines to share knowledge, present recent research on forecasting, and chart a path for the future. The workshop will also serve as a venue for discussing the design of a shared platform to facilitate the collection and cataloging of forecasts for the broader research community.

Contact Katie Hoeberling at khoeberling@berkeley.edu with any questions about this event.

Oct 3, 2018  |  Quito

Transparency and Reproducibility Workshop in Quito, Ecuador

BITSS Postdoctoral Scholar Fernando Hoces de la Guardia held a workshop on research transparency and reproducibility tools and practices in Quito, Ecuador on October 2, 2018. The audience consisted of researchers from the Inter-American Development Bank and a team of local researchers.

Feb 14, 2018  |  Berkeley, CA

Garret Christensen at UC Berkeley Love Data Week 2018

Garret Christensen will participate in the Data Stories and Visualization Panel at UC Berkeley Love Data Week 2018 on Tuesday, February 14, 2018. Garret will discuss how he used Department of Defense data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request to research how war deaths were affecting the supply of military recruits. Especially without a lawyer, getting this data is time-consuming and may be impossible to verify the quality of the data. But now the data is publicly available in a trusted repository.

Jan 30, 2018  |  London

Geography and Environment Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training, LSE

The Geography & Environment Department is pleased to host you for the first Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Faculty: Greer Gosnell (LSE, Grantham Research Institute), Ben Groom (LSE, Department of Geography & Environment), Thomas Leeper (LSE, Department of Government), Laurence Horton (LSE Library), Rachael Meager (LSE, Department of Economics), and Arnaud Vaganay (Meta-Lab).

Participants will learn about a range of innovative practices and tools, including:

  • Pre-registration
  • Pre-analysis Plans
  • Data management and de-identification
  • Tools for transparent workflows, including the Open Science Framework (OSF), Git, R, and dynamic documents.

With this training, we aim to directly impact researchers’ practices in favor of transparency and reproducibility. We focus on topics such as pre-registration, pre-analysis plans, and version control so that participants can apply these tools to their own work. We hope that these events will have long-term, sustainable impacts on scientific norms and practices as learners and faculty continue to incorporate innovative tools and methods into curricula and coursework.

Oct 12, 2017  –  Oct 13, 2017  |  La Paz

Seminar and Workshop on Research Transparency + Reproducibility — Catalyst Event, La Paz, Bolivia

BITSS and La Salle University in Bolivia have partnered to develop and deliver a series of activities on research transparency that caters to the needs of the research community involved in conducting high-quality research in Bolivia. The proposed activities are a small yet significant step to i) generate awareness among users and contributors of the science research, and ii) to provide a platform to share tools and resources that assist in improving transparency in research, within the community of practitioners and academicians.

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Oct 9, 2017  –  Oct 10, 2017  |  Lima

Seminar and Workshop on Research Transparency + Reproducibility — Catalyst Event, Lima, Peru

BITSS and the Lima SE have partner to develop and deliver a workshop on research transparency that caters to the needs of the research community involved in conducting high quality research in Peru. The proposed workshop is a small yet significant step to i) generate awareness among users and contributors of the science research, and ii) to provide a platform to share tools and resources that assist in improving transparency in research, within the community of practitioners and academicians.

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Oct 5, 2017  –  Oct 6, 2017  |  Santiago

Seminar and Workshop on Research Transparency + Reproducibility — Catalyst Event, Santiago, Chile

BITSS and a joint collaboration of the Center for Longitudinal Studies and the School of Government of Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (PUC),  have partner to develop and deliver a workshop on research transparency that caters to the needs of the research community involved in conducting high quality research in Chile. The proposed activities are a small yet significant step to i) generate awareness among users and contributors of the science research, and ii) to provide a platform to share tools and resources that assist in improving transparency in research, within the community of practitioners and academicians.

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Aug 18, 2017  –  Aug 19, 2017  |  5045 Bergen

Research Transparency and Reproducibility Workshop – Bergen, Norway

To address growing need for improved norms and practices of social science research, and in partnership with The Choice Lab at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), BITSS will deliver a workshop on research transparency and reproducibility. This two-day workshop will be led by Dr. Eva Vivalt (Australian National University) and will target 40-50 students, faculty, and researchers to train them on the challenges facing the credibility of social science research, as well as currently known best practices for more transparent, reproducible research. The workshop will engage the audience with hands-on workflow-related activities and software.

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May 3, 2017  –  May 4, 2017  |  Cuernavaca, Morelos

Transparency + Reproducibility Workshop at INSP, Cuernavaca

BITSS and INSP have partnered to develop and deliver a workshop on research transparency that caters to the needs of the research community involved in conducting high-quality research in Mexico. The workshop is a small yet significant step to i) generate awareness among users and contributors of the health science research and ii) provide a platform to share tools and resources to assist in improving transparency in research within the community of practitioners and academics.

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Apr 20, 2017

Research Transparency Workshop — Catalyst Workshop, Universite Protestante du Congo

Catalyst: Zacharie Tsala Dimbuene

Research Transparency is gaining attention in the scientific community around the world, including the United States, European countries, and Anglophone countries in sub-Saharan Africa; yet the concept is quite a “new world” in Francophone Africa. In my efforts to advance the movement in Francophone Africa, I successfully delivered the first Research Transparency Workshop at the University of Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo). This workshop is intended to sustain previous efforts to set up “Research Transparency in Social Sciences” as a culture in the next generation of social scientists in Francophone Africa. 

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Apr 14, 2017  –  Apr 15, 2017

Research Transparency Workshop — Catalyst Workshop, University of Kinshasa

Catalyst: Zacharie Tsala Dimbuene

Research Transparency is gaining attention in the scientific community around the world, including the United States, European countries, and Anglophone countries in sub-Saharan Africa; yet the concept is quite a “new world” in Francophone Africa. In my efforts to advance the movement in Francophone Africa, I successfully delivered the first Research Transparency Workshop at the University of Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo). This workshop is intended to sustain previous efforts to set up “Research Transparency in Social Sciences” as a culture in the next generation of social scientists in Francophone Africa. 

Read More →

Feb 1, 2017

Research Transparency Workshop at the World Bank

This one-day workshop at the World Bank on Wednesday, February 1, 2017 aimed to improve understanding of challenges to the transparency and reproducibility of social science research, and to teach the latest techniques for developing a reproducible workflow, focusing on version control and the GitHub platform.
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Dec 12, 2016

Transparency Workshop – 2016 ASE Summer Institute for Economic Research, Benin

The African School of Economics (ASE) will incorporate a Research Transparency workshop in their Impact Evaluation training next week at the Summer Institute for Economics Research (SIER). The workshop will be co-led by BITSS Catalyst Saint Kizito Omala and CEGA EASST Fellow Constantine Manda.

The workshop precedes a 4-day conference presenting research from African economists focusing on leading policy challenges in Africa. Visit the ASE website to learn more about the school and see a detailed 2016 SIER program.

Jul 19, 2016  –  Jul 20, 2016

Catalyst-Led Francophone Africa Workshop

Catalyst Grant Winner Zacharie Tsala Dimbuene Hosts Research Transparency Training in the DRC.

The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) will fund Catalyst Zacharie Dimbuene to organize a workshop in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on July 19-20 at the University of Kinshasa. The event, focusing on research transparency tools and best practices, will feature the head of Department of Population Sciences and Development, Professor Crispin Mabika Mabika, and trainings on the Open Science Framework (OSF), Git, and pre-analysis plans.

Jul 5, 2016  –  Jul 6, 2016  |  Ann Arbor, Michigan

Transparency + Reproducibility Workshop

There is growing interest in research transparency and reproducibility across the social sciences. This workshop is a crash course on the problems of publication bias, inability to replicate research, and specification searching (or p-hacking, among other names) that have heretofore caused researchers problems. We will cover recent methodological progress in this area, including study registration, pre-analysis plans, disclosure standards, and open sharing of data and materials, drawing on experiences in economics, political science, and psychology, as well as other social sciences. We also engage hands-on with workflow-related software developments that help a researcher make their work more reproducible, particularly version control and dynamic documents, which can accurately track all changes made to code and make one’s entire analysis reproducible with a single click.

Mar 10, 2016  |  Lusaka, Zambia

Transparency + Reproducibility Workshop

This workshop aims to improve understanding of the current literature on challenges in the quality of social science research, and to teach the latest techniques for developing a reproducible workflow. Read More →

Mar 9, 2016  |  Nairobi, Kenya

Transparency + Reproducibility Workshop

This workshop aims to improve understanding of the current literature on challenges in the quality of social science research, and to teach the latest techniques for developing a reproducible workflow. Read More →

Mar 7, 2016  –  Mar 8, 2016  |  Machakos

Transparency + Reproducibility Workshop

Both IPA and CEGA aim to support high quality, transparent, reproducible research. The research support staff at both organizations are typically tasked with preparing data and code for publication. However, key steps for preparing data and code take place as early as the study design phase as well as in the data collection process. Read More →

Jan 6, 2016  –  Jan 7, 2016  |  San Francisco, CA

Replication and Transparency in Economic Research

The workshop will consist of mini-courses covering research transparency, a topic that is often neglected in the conventional economics curriculum, with an emphasis on empirical research and macro models. For young scholars it can be very useful to orient themselves by looking at how established researchers do their studies. Though economics has recently seen an increase in replication materials made publicly available, it is often frustrating to actually replicate analyses since work is poorly documented or poorly organized, or necessary data and code are missing. This workshop intends to help young scholars find out how to replicate others’ studies and how to archive their own research for future use.

View all information and event materials