Center for Open Science

In addition to publication and knowledge dissemination, the selection and peer review of scientific articles are among the central contributions of journals to scholarly communication. Feedback from researchers about inconsistencies in the review process and the resignation of entire editorial teams following a dispute about journal business models point to problems that often concern the interaction between academic editors and commercial publishers. In order to provide empirical evidence regarding expectations and perceptions towards the peer review process, this study reports the results of two experimental factorial surveys embedded in a two-country study across 25 German and Swiss research institutions. It uses answers submitted by more than 3,200 scholars across 15 scientific fields on the topic of review and decision practices to further the debate about the future of scholarly publishing given existing role conflicts, extractive entrepreneurial strategies and potential decrease in scientific quality.

What happens when the greatest strengths of science-openness, humility, self-criticism, and self-correction-are exploited for political gain? Scientists affirm the genuine application of those strengths as the source of its trustworthiness.

Bilingualism and biliteracy significantly influence the development of phonological awareness and reading. However, existing research is Indo-European-centric, limiting our understanding of reading development in diverse linguistic environments. Addressing this gap, this study examined the relation between phonological awareness and reading in monolingual and bilingual/biliterate children in Uzbekistan, where both Uzbek and Russian are widely spoken. 102 Uzbek-Russian bilingual and 98 Uzbek monolingual (6-10 years; grades 1-4) children in Uzbekistan completed phonological awareness and reading tasks. All children attended a bilingual school however, the language of instruction was primarily Uzbek for Uzbek children and Russian for Uzbek-Russian bilinguals. Overall, children demonstrated stronger reading skills in their respective language of instruction, however bilingual children showed stronger reading skills than monolinguals, despite being instructed in their second language. This suggests that bilingual children demonstrate a reading advantage when tested in instructional languages, but not in non-instructional languages. Bilinguals’ phonological awareness significantly predicted cross-linguistic reading performance, specifically from the instructional language (Russian) to the noninstructional language (Uzbek), even when the languages have overlapping but competing orthographies, providing support for interactive cross-linguistic transfer in reading.

Digital communication technologies have dramatically changed the ways in which scholarship is accessed, discussed, and shared. Joining the traditional journals and manuscripts are new ways to distribute and consume research, including blogs, podcasts, white papers, and more. There is more information available and more ways to access it than ever before, which presents new sets of challenges and opportunities. PressForward is free, open-source software that responds to these needs by combining the features of content aggregation, discussion, and publication into a single, user-friendly dashboard. Acknowledging that collaboration and networking is increasingly important in research development and fund- ing, PressForward has built-in, flexible user roles and workflows that allow communities of any scale to contribute in multiple ways. This article will review the history and features of PressForward, as well as describe the community partnerships that both utilize the software and influence the progress of the project.

kfjvlksfjvskljdfvkljsdfklvjsdfv

Open data collected from humans creates a tension between scholarly values of transparency and sharing on the one hand, and privacy and security on the other. A common solution is to make datasets anonymous by removing personally identifying information before sharing. However, ostensibly anonymized datasets may be at risk of re-identification if they include demographic information. In the present article, we (a) review current privacy standards; (b) describe computer science data protection frameworks and their adaptability to the social sciences; (c) provide practical guidance for assessing and addressing re-identification risk; (d) introduce two open-source algorithms – MinBlur and MinBlurLite – to increase privacy while maintaining the integrity of open data; and (e) highlight aspects of ethical data sharing that require further attention. Technical innovations can support competing values so that science can be as open as possible to promote transparency and sharing, and as closed as necessary to maintain privacy and security.

Open science practices have expanded to many fields in the natural and social sciences, though it is unclear the extent to which they have permeated early childhood special education research, particularly when looking across the range of methodologies (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods). Before making suggestions on what researchers in this field should be doing, one must first understand what practices are currently being used and what potential barriers or supports there might be to use. To this end, we will systematically review empirical research (qualitative, mixed methods, and quantitative) in the early childhood special education literature. We will code each study for the inclusion of open science practices (e.g., preregistration; shared material, data, code; open access). We will then calculate descriptive statistics to explore the implementation rates of open science practices, including the most used practices and differences across study characteristics (e.g., journal, year) and methodologies (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods). We will also compare implementation rates of open science practices to a previous study on K-12 special education to begin to understand potential differences across specialization areas in education. This systematic review is a first step in identifying potential determinants for broader implementation of open science practices across a range of research and specialty areas.

As the field of education, and especially gifted education, gradually moves toward open science, our research community increasingly values transparency and openness brought by open science practices. Yet, individual researchers may be reluctant to adopt open science practices due to low incentives, barriers of extra workload, or lack of support to apply these in certain areas, such as qualitative research. We encourage and give guidelines to reviewers to champion open science practices by warmly influencing authors to consider applying open science practices to quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research and providing ample support to produce higher-quality publications. Instead of imposing open science practices on authors, we advocate reviewers suggest small, non-threatening, specific steps to support authors without making them feel overwhelmed, judged, or punished. We believe that these small steps taken by reviewers will make a difference to create a more supportive environment for researchers to adopt more open science practices.