Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science Global Engagement Task Force Report

Abstract

The Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) is an organization whose mission focuses on bringing together scholars who want to improve methods and practices in psychological science. The organization reaffirmed in June 2020 that “[we] cannot do good science without diverse voices,” and acknowledged that “right now the demographics of SIPS are unrepresentative of the field of psychology, which is in turn unrepresentative of the global population. We have work to do when it comes to better supporting Black scholars and other underrepresented minorities.” The purpose of the Global Engagement Task Force, started in January 2020, was to explore suggestions made after the 2019 Annual Conference, held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, around inclusion and access for scholars from regions outside of the United States, Canada, and Western Europe (described in the report as “geographically diverse” regions), a task complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest in several task force members’ countries of residence. This report outlines several suggestions, specifically around building partnerships with geographically diverse open science organizations; increasing SIPS presence at other, more local events; diversifying remote events; considering geographically diverse annual conference locations; improving membership and financial resources; and surveying open science practitioners from geographically diverse regions.

The Chinese Open Science Network (COSN): Building an Open Science Community From Scratch

“…Consequently, few resources are invested in Open Science, and such a situation probably will not change in the near future. Third, a substantial portion of researchers in developing countries lack awareness of Open Science and have limited access to related education or training resources (Gownaris et al, 2022; Okafor et al, 2022; Rabelo et al, 2020; Steltenpohl et al, 2021; Z. Zhang et al, 2014).…”

“…Through developing COSN, we have gained experience that might be useful for colleagues in developing countries or regions who intend to initialize their own local Open Science networks (Table 3). Scholars now actively share their tips and suggestions for advancing Open Science (Elsherif et al, 2022;Kent et al, 2022;Onie, 2020;Puthillam et al, 2022;Savage et al, 2021;Steltenpohl et al, 2021). Most of them, however, focused on topdown policy changes or how individuals can start to adopt Open Science practices; few were about building local Open Science communities, particularly in developing countries.…”

Rethinking Transparency and Rigor from a Qualitative Open Science Perspective

“…Indeed, much of the conversation around transparency in the open science movement has focused on standardizing outputs or processes around data sharing (e.g, Transparency and Openness Promotion [TOP] Guidelines; Nosek et al, 2015), which has limited uptake in fields that do not share a strictly positivist, quantitative lens. Defaults can be useful because they automate processes and reduce our cognitive load when making decisions, but they can also be dangerous for these same reasons, and can result in unchecked assumptions and sloppy work (Sakaluk, 2021;Steltenpohl et al, 2021). The desire of many open science proponents to assign strict guidelines (e.g., always share data) may create problems for those working with qualitative data, those with prolonged engagement with their participant community (Ross et al, 2018), and/or those whose research perspective differs from the seemingly common conceptualization of research as being strictly "right" or "wrong" (Lash, 2015).…”

Open science in dementia care embedded pragmatic clinical trials.

“…Relatedly, countries with different intellectual property laws might have different concerns related to the protection of their intellectual property. In our estimation and the estimation of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science, the way to best ensure that open science practices fit the needs and workflow of researchers in low-and-middle-income countries is to ensure they are represented and that their voices are amplified in conversations about those practices (Steltenpohl et al, 2021). 7…”