IGDORE Open Seminars

Organisations IGDORE
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I mentioned to @pcmasuzzo yesterday the idea of launching an IGDORE open seminar series occurring online on a bi-weekly or monthly basis. Speakers would come from within and outside of IGDORE and talks would be relevant to open and replicable science. The seminars would be open to the public.

Each session would begin with a 10-15 minutes general Q&A on open and replicable science. Here any attendee may ask questions they’re looking for answers to, such as how to solve a statistical issue they’re struggling with, how to preregister their research, how to convince co-authors to publish open access, or any other question they currently may be struggling with. The speaker would be present to answer such questions but the questions could just as well be answered by other attendees.

I was thinking about talks being categorised into one of five recurring themes:

Whistleblowers. Speakers who blew the whistle, or perhaps decided not to, and speakers who may have conducted research on whistleblowing.

Methodological terrorists. Speakers who by some might be considered ‘data police’ or ‘methodological terrorists’, the latter a term coined by Dr. Susan Fiske, Professor in Psychology. That is, speakers who investigate the quality of other researchers’ work. This type of talk focuses on the investigative process, related ethics, funding, conflicts, etc; pure methodological topics are instead discussed under the category ‘Hardcore methods’.

Revelations. Speakers talk about their own mistakes in science, how they themselves were engaged in questionable research practices or other types of morally questionable research. The talks have a particular focus on how the speaker came to realise that what they were doing was wrong or how they came to the decision to change their practices.

Future of science. Speakers discuss ideas and concepts they believe to be the future of science. The talks can be highly visionary or bring up phenomena that have already been launched but still are new to many empirical researchers.

Hardcore methods. Here we discuss research methods and statistics. The speaker might launch a new idea or provide a walk through of an already established concept, method, analysis, or tool.

Would love to hear people’s thoughts on this. Maybe you have suggestions on speakers you’d like to hear? Or maybe you have thoughts on additional or other categories or maybe you’d prefer to rename them?

Ping e.g. @global_board.

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This is a great idea and, if my expertise is deemed useful, I volunteer to host one of these meetings. I could give a practical, hands-on session on how to use the OSF, perhaps the target audience is interested and would just need a little nudge to start using it. I could also provide a short introduction on preregistration and registered reports, or a specific Q&A session on registered reports. There are more knowledgeable people than me on this forum, so I’d be happy to co-host. @rebecca, I am not sure any of these proposals fall into your above categories… what are your thoughts?

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Awesome, @antonio.schettino, that sounds great! I think it belongs in the ‘Hardcore methods’ category. But maybe we should rename it if you think it’s no good fit for your seminar(s) (because if you don’t find it fitting then there’s probably others thinking the same).

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I would consider “hardcore method” something complex, e.g., Bayesian hierarchical modeling in statistics, not how to use the OSF. Perhaps an additional category could be Useful Tools and would include hands-on sessions on how to use the OSF as well as other open source software and services, e.g., Cryptomator (to encrypt files and folders with sensitive research data), VSCodium (a code editor), and the best VPN service out there, Mullvad.

Discussions on preregistration and registered reports might fit in a separate category called Current Advancements or something like that… I’ve never been good at catchy titles :stuck_out_tongue:

For the category Future of science, I would definitely recommend contacting the editors of the Journal of Trial and Error, one of the most interesting and innovative young journals I’ve seen. I have invited them a couple of times (e.g., yesterday :smiley:) to present their vision and project to the OSCR members. If you think it can be a good topic, I can contact them directly.

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Very interesting! That made me think of another new and very interesting journal: https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/

Perhaps it could be meaningful with a seminar including presentations and discussion on both these journals?

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Maybe @dbernt and you could give a joint seminar on VPN and why researchers should care about it?

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Yes, a seminar highlighting these two journals and their underlying philosophy would be really cool!

I’m not qualified, but I’d love to hear @dbernt’s opinion… I’d definitely attend such a seminar!

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This all sounds like a great idea. Some of these categories also sound like they could work well in a panel discussion format (particularly Revelations & Future of Science)

Relatedly, @pcmasuzzo and I were also talking about an OS journal club for the forum. This seems to be on the back-burner for now, but inviting OS/metascience researchers to discuss their latest work could also be nice for a seminar (I guess this could fit under any category).

@antonio.schettino - I would be happy to hear more on OSF and other tools you use.

I would be interested in hearing more from @sTeamTraen about data policing, it seems he’s developed quite a reputation for it!

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Nick is on my list too of people I’d like to invite. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Or maybe a seminar on internet privacy in general? Inviting someone from PrivacyTools.io? We applied for a grant (unsuccessfully) with them with the aim to create a MOOC on privacy based on their website. I hope to apply again from somewhere else.

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I hesitate as it could be perceived as marketing.

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We live in capitalism, it is totally normal. Can you give a seminar about importance of VPN and non-Google alternative tools?

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i volunteer for the WHISTLEBLOWING seminar, as i have a LIVE case at hand… :slight_smile:

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Absolutely. Here’s a revised suggestion of categories and content:

Whistleblowing.

Category description:

Speakers who blew the whistle, or perhaps decided not to, and speakers who may have conducted research on whistleblowing.

Examples of speakers: The researchers at Karolinska institutet who reported Paolo Macchiarini, the students at Tilburg who reported Diederik Stapel, Josefin Sundin and/or Fredrik Jutfelt who reported the Swedish microplastics study published in Science…

Metascience.

Category description: Speakers who investigate the quality of other researchers’ work. This type of talk focuses on the investigative process, related ethics, funding, conflicts, etc; pure methodological topics are instead discussed under the category ‘Methods & Tools’.

Examples of speakers: There are many great people, one of them Nick Brown.

Nonachievements.

Category description:

I considered calling the category “Fuckups”, inspired by Fuckup Nights, but thought that perhaps Nonachievements would work a bit better in an academic setting…

Examples of speakers: Mickey Inzlicht, Diederik Stapel, Will Gervais…

Tools & Methods.

Category description:

Examples of speakers:

Future of science.

Category description:

Examples of speakers:

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This sounds great, @rebecca!

I’d like to think of such realizations as an actually quite significant ‘achievements’ of a special kind … So calling them ‘nonachievements’ might sound a bit misleading too?

How about “epiphanies”, or maybe “realizations”?

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definitely epiphanies and realizations… :slight_smile:

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I’d like to think of such realizations as an actually quite significant ‘achievements’ of a special kind … So calling them ‘nonachievements’ might sound a bit misleading too?

How about “epiphanies”, or maybe “realizations”?

I completely agree that such realisations are useful, so nonachievements are misleading, as you say. I initially thought that the word “fuchup” might be a bit… too much, for an academic audience. But now I begin to think that perhaps it could work. Fuckup Nights is an established concept that “transforms failure into radical solutions that help people make better decisions”.

Fuckup Nights is a global movement and event series that shares stories of professional failure. Each month, in events across the globe, we get three to four people to get up in front of a room full of strangers to share their own professional fuckup. The stories of the business that crashes and burns, the partnership deal that goes sour, the product that has to be recalled, we tell them all.

We Live Life Without Filters By Sharing Stories Of Failure

Here’s a 2 min introductory video about Fuckup Nights:

https://vimeo.com/483746569

So how about simply calling this category ‘Fuckups’ (and explicitly referring to Fuckup Nights in the written introduction of the category)?

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I am all in for fuckups - I think a lot of people will be able to relate to this.

Another term I have seen around (and used in a few of my talks) is #failtales (see e.g. https://twitter.com/evalantsoght/status/1103735515344449536) - but really it’s only a matter of choosing a word, and I think fuckups is the right one. :slight_smile:

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Hi everyone, Happy new year! To revise this topic, I’d actually like to hear a bit more about the research that others in IGDORE are doing, perhaps via a seminar series along similar lines as has been suggested by @rebecca and others. Another option would be to collect and share information about when people are giving seminars independently, but those might be for more technical audiences and not as accessible to those outside the field. Are there any resources available to IGDORE members that might make this series easy to set up? E.g. do we have a Zoom subscription? (I know “free” calls are limited to 40min, which is a bit short for a useful session) What do others think? D.

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The Global Board has a Zoom subscription, we’d probably be able to find some sort of solution with that account.

I would enjoy something like a 10-20 min summary of one researcher’s work/topic before going into a different subject in the seminars.

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