Sep 20, 2017  –  Sep 22, 2017  |  London

Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) – London, England

The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) held the first international Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) in London, England September 20-22, 2017. RT2 provides participants with an overview of tools and best practices for transparent and reproducible social science research. The curriculum is developed and delivered by academic leaders in the transparency movement, and space is provided for collaborative work and hands-on skill building. Participants are encouraged to bring existing research questions and ideas based on their own interests to seek support and feedback from instructors and other attendees.

Read More →

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.

Read More →

Jun 28, 2017  |  San Diego

BITSS Paper Session at 92nd Annual WEAI, San Diego

BITSS has organized two paper sessions on Day 4 of the 92nd Annual Western Economics Association International Conference in San Diego, Ca.

Topics will include meta-analysis, publication bias, data sharing, and research transparency, featuring work by several SSMART grant recipients.

Speakers will include Garret Christensen (BITSS, BIDS), Abel Brodeur (University of Ottawa), Elliott Collins (UC Berkeley), Fernando Hoces de la Guardia (RAND Corporation), Taisuke Imai (Caltech), Chishio Furukawa (MIT), and Mauricio Romero (UC San Diego).

Read More →

Jul 10, 2017  –  Sep 10, 2017

MOOC: Transparent and Open Social Science Research

Demand is growing for evidence-based policy making, but there is also growing recognition in the social science community that limited transparency and openness in research have contributed to widespread problems. With this 3-week, self-paced Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), you can explore the causes of limited transparency in social science research, as well as tools to make your own work more open and reproducible.

Read More →

Jun 7, 2017  –  Jun 9, 2017  |  Berkeley, CA

Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) – Berkeley, CA

Participants and Faculty from RT2 Berkeley held June 7-9, 2017Led by the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS), this Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) provides participants with an overview of cutting-edge mechanisms for transparent and reproducible social science research. The curriculum is taught by academic leaders in the transparency movement, and there will be space for collaborative work and hands-on skill building.

Read More →

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.

Read More →

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

Read More →

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 →

Apr 4, 2017  |  Berkeley, CA

Meet and Greet with Phillip Cohen

Most social scientists want our research to be relevant, to reflect as well as interact with the social actors for whom it is relevant; we want it to be efficient, to maximize collaboration and exchange, and to make the most of our limited resources; and we want it to be accessible, to be read and debated by a wide audience beyond our disciplinary boundaries and university walls. These challenges seem more acute now than at any time in recent memory. And yet our scholarly communication system, especially journal publishing, remains mired in the structures of the past – moving too slowly and costing too much – which impedes the quality, quantity, efficiency, and responsiveness of our research. Open scholarship is a broad response to these deficiencies. In this presentation, Philip Cohen will make a case for open scholarship — and the use of preprints and working papers in particular — through the SocArXiv project, a new open-source, open-access, non-profit archive for social science research, modeled after arXiv in math and physics.

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.
Read More →

Jan 6, 2017  –  Jan 8, 2017  |  Chicago, IL

Meta-Analysis and Reproducibility Paper Session at the 2017 AEA / ASSA Annual Meeting

Join BITSS Faculty Director Ted Miguel and several SSMART grant recipients at a paper session at the 2017 American Economic Association/Allied Social Science Association Annual Meeting in January!

 

The session, titled “Meta-Analysis and Reproducibility in Social Science Research,” will feature research and discussion from BITSS affiliates Eva Vivalt, Sean Tanner, Rachael MeagerRachel Glennerster, Solomon Hsiang, and John Ioannidis.

 

The session will take place on day three of the meeting, January 8, 2017.

Dec 15, 2016  –  Dec 16, 2016  |  Berkeley, CA

2016 BITSS Annual Meeting

BITSS held its fifth Annual Meeting on December 15-16, 2016 in Berkeley, California to bring together leaders from academia, scholarly publishing, and policy to strengthen the standards of transparency and reproducibility across social science disciplines. The meeting featured keynote speakers, an announcement of the 2016 Leamer-Rosenthal Prizes for Open Social Science, results from selected Social Science Meta-Analysis and Research Transparency (SSMART) grants, and selected research from an open call for papers.

Read More →

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.

Sep 30, 2016  –  Oct 1, 2016

2016 Computation + Journalism Symposium

The 2016 Computation + Journalism Symposium at Stanford University will include a “Reproducible Journalism” panel discussion held in Paul Brest Hall and moderated by John Bohannon, contributing correspondent to Science.

Read More →

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 12, 2016  –  Jul 14, 2016  |  Dar es Salaam

EASST Evidence Summit

The Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) and the East African Social Science Translation (EASST) Collaborative, in partnership with the World Bank Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF) and the University of Dar es Salaam, will host the 2016 East Africa Evidence Summit, to be held July 12-14, 2016 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Read More →

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.

Jun 8, 2016  –  Jun 10, 2016  |  Berkeley, CA

Summer Institute – Transparency and Reproducibility Methods for Social Science Research

Taught by: Edward Miguel (Introduction); Tom Stanley (Meta-Analysis Methods and Application); Justin Kitzes (Git + GitHub); Maya Petersen, Fiona Burlig, and Sean Tanner (Pre-Registration and Pre-Analysis Plans); Sean Grant (Disclosure Guidelines); Jesse Rothstein (Replication); Cyrus Dioun (Reproducible Workflow); Leif Nelson (P-Hacking); Daniele Fanelli (Scientific Misconduct).

Led by the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS), this workshop provides participants with an overview of cutting-edge mechanisms for transparent and reproducible social science. The curriculum is taught by academic leaders in the transparency movement, and there will be space for collaborative work and hands-on skill building. Read More →

May 26, 2016  –  May 29, 2016  |  Chicago, Illinois

Association for Psychological Science Convention

The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences will be an exhibitor at the Association for Psychological Science’s (APS) 28th Annual Convention.

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 →

Feb 2, 2016  |  Washington, DC

Open Data: Big Impact

BITSS Program Director Jennifer Sturdy is a panelist at the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Open Data Challenge discussion. Supported by OpenGov Hub, the discussion centers around the winners of MCC’s first Open Data Challenge. Find out more here.

Jan 25, 2016  |  Berkeley, CA

A Noob’s Guide to Reproducibility

What does it mean to work reproducibly and transparently? Why bother? Whom does it benefit, and how? What will it cost me? What work habits will I need to change? Will I need to learn new tools? What resources help? What’s the simplest thing I can do to make my work more reproducible? How can I move my discipline, my institution, and science as a whole towards reproducibility? Check out Leamer-Rosenthal Prize for Open Social Science recipient Philip Stark’s upcoming lecture on reproducibility.

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

Jan 4, 2016  |  San Francisco, CA

AEA Side Event – Leamer-Rosenthal Prize Recipients

Join BITSS at an American Economics Association (AEA) Conference side event in San Francisco, CA on January 4, 2016 from 6-8pm to honor the Leamer-Rosenthal Prizes for Open Social Science recipients.

The event is in the Hilton Union Square in the Union Square 17 & 18 rooms.

Dec 10, 2015  –  Dec 11, 2015  |  Berkeley, CA

BITSS 2015 Annual Meeting

BITSS held its 4th Annual Meeting in Berkeley, California to bring together leaders from academia, scholarly publishing, and policy to strengthen the standards of openness and integrity across social science disciplines. The meeting featured awards to the recipients of the first annual Leamer-Rosenthal Prizes for Open Social Science, presentations from winners of BITSS’ Social Science Meta-Analysis and Research Transparency (SSMART) grants, selected research from our open call for papers, as well as an optional hand-on training with research transparency software tools. Read More →

Nov 8, 2015  |  London

Research Reproducibility: Hands-on Experience with Replication

Through this session at MozFest 2015, we provide an opportunity to reproduce the results of a prominent academic publication. The goal of our workshop would be for attendees to be able to find a suitable publication, locate and download the original data from the Internet, reproduce the original results, and extend the analysis to probe the robustness of the published findings. This would require that the participants have some statistical knowledge, as well as programming ability (R preferably, since it is available free, but also possibly Stata, SPSS, SAS, etc. if students have that software themselves). However, by using a relatively simple randomized trial (such as “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” by Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004 just to name one possible example) on an important and easily understood topic (racial discrimination in employment), and by having attendees work in small groups, even beginners should be able to benefit.

Sep 1, 2015  –  Sep 2, 2015  |  Nairobi

Research Governance and Management Workshop

The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) has created a tailor made research governance and management workshop aimed at equipping university and organizations research leaders with skills to diagnose institutional research governance processes and to find ways or strengthen their institutions’ research structures. The research governance and management workshop offers you an opportunity to interact with top African Scientists and network with other research leaders from academic and research institutions as well as government agencies and organizations implementing development programs. The workshop will be facilitated by senior researchers from APHRC, Deputy Commission Secretary, Quality Audit and Standards Division at the Commission of University Education University, (CUE) Kenya and Project Scientist at the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS), University of California, USA.

Jun 10, 2015  –  Jun 12, 2015  |  Berkeley, CA

BITSS 2015 Summer Institute

Research norms are changing faster than ever before. Repeated cases of scientific dishonesty, mistakes in data analysis, irreproducible findings, and publication bias in the literature, have prompted an impressive number of methodological, statistical, and technological innovations. There is a growing quantity of services and resources to archive and share data, report methods used to generate results, pre-register study plans, enable reproducibility of findings, as well as software tools to support transparent and collaborative workflows. Read More →

Dec 11, 2014  –  Dec 12, 2014  |  Berkeley, CA

BITSS 2014 Annual Meeting

The movement towards more transparency, reproducibility, and openness has gained a lot momentum in the social sciences. Yet, the norms and institutions that govern academic research do not reflect this culture shift. Significant problems remain, including professional incentives that reward striking and statistically significant research findings at the expense of scientific integrity. Read More →

Jun 2, 2014  –  Jun 6, 2014  |  Berkeley, CA

BITSS 2014 Summer Institute

Over the past years, an inspiring number of bottom-up innovations across social science disciplines have sought to advance the reliability, reproducibility, and validity of empirical social studies, realigning scholarly incentives with scholarly values. Examples include systematic disclosure of methods and results, registration and pre-analysis plans, and open data and materials. Meanwhile, multiple organizations have been developing tools to make it easier to archive and share research design, plans and data. This workshop seeks to inform participants about the latest trends in the shift towards increased transparency, providing an overview of the different tools and techniques that are available and appropriate for social science research. The curriculum has been designed for anyone interested in learning more about best practices for empirical research in economics, political science, psychology or any other social science discipline. Read More →