OSC: Project Possibility

[Brian Nosek]

I was asked to write a chapter about replication, but I can't take on another writing project on my own.  I suggested the possibility of having the Open Science Collaboration author a chapter.  The Editors are open to this.  The purpose of this message is to see if there is sufficient interest here to do it.

I suggested a chapter that would accomplish one or both of the following:

(1) "How to conduct a fair replication"

(2) "How to maximize the replicability of your own research" 

Both would be written with a more practical than theoretical stance.  For those of you that have not experienced an Open Science Collaboration authorship, here are some basics:

* The author of the chapter would be the Open Science Collaboration, and the contributors would be listed in a footnote.  

* There would be a project lead - responsible for keeping it moving, setting deadlines, correspondence with editors, and final resolution of edits.  

* There would likely be a smaller group that outlines and does an initial draft, and then a larger group that edits and improves the draft

* We had good results using a simultaneously edited Google Doc for the last round. 

The original invitation is below to give you a sense of the book's goals and how this contribution would relate.  

If contributing to such a project is of interest to you, ping me back (no need to send to the whole group).  I will compile a list and discuss with that interested list whether we can accomplish this effectively.

-------------------------- Original Invitation ------------------------

We hope that this message finds you doing well.  We are writing to invite you to contribute a chapter to what we believe will be an extremely exciting and important book, “Psychological Science Under Scrutiny: Recent Challenges and Proposed Solutions,” to be co-edited by us.  Following extremely positive reviews of our prospectus, we have received a formal contract from John Wiley and Sons.   We know how busy you are, but we believe that your contribution to this book would be exceedingly valuable.  Moreover, we very much hope that this book will advance ongoing debates regarding psychology’s scientific status.  The key intended audiences are researchers in psychology, psychiatry, counseling, social work, and allied fields (e.g., sociology, anthropology, medicine); graduate students and advanced undergraduates in psychology and allied fields; psychology instructors; educated laypersons interested in psychology and social science more broadly; and science writers and science journalists.

As you can see from the proposed prospectus, which we’ve attached to this message, this edited book will examine a host of recent challenges to the status of psychological science, including false-positive findings, difficulties with replicability, questionable research practices (e.g., misrepresenting exploratory research as confirmatory), confirmation bias in the reporting and evaluation of findings, and the like.  At the same time, our overall message will be upbeat: We intend to focus not merely on the problems, but on constructive recommendations for placing the field of psychology on firmer scientific footing.  As you can also see from the attached prospectus, we intend to enlist many or most of the most prominent players in recent debates concerning the criticisms of psychology’s scientific status to contribute chapters.

Specifically, we would like to ask you to contribute a chapter tentatively entitled “The Insufficient Attention Accorded to Replication in Psychology.” The chapter should be relatively brief; we are aiming for chapters that are 20-25 pages in length double-spaced, including References.  Needless to say, you are more than welcome to bring one or more co-authors on board, although we would prefer that you serve as first-author. The chapter would be due on February 15, 2014.  

[Roger Giner-Sorolla]

Think number 2 would be the more novel chapter. In addition to the RP chapter, there is also another paper in the works that I know of about general standards for replication.