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Open Science

Philosophy

Our goal is to be completely open with the world with respect to how we do science and what we find. This means that – after completion of a project, and after all co-authors feel ready – we share our stimuli, raw data, results, and code. This will usually be done upon publication of results in a peer-reviewed journal.

 

A related goal (really, requirement) is that we release our manuscripts on a preprint server simultaneously with submission to a peer-reviewed journal. This allows our results to be shared with the public as soon as we are comfortable with our work, without the inevitable delays that come along with journal submission and peer review. This also allows our work to be freely available (i.e., not being a paywall – though we will also provide our final, approved manuscripts on our website for everyone to access).

 

So far, our lab has used bioRxiv, GitHub, OpenNeuro, and the Open Science Framework to share preprints, code, data, and information about our research. Feel free to talk to Mariam about which open science resources are right for your project.

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Prerequisite

A prerequisite to open science is knowing how to effectively organize your data. This includes managing raw data and analysis output, organizing and commenting your code, providing notes on every step of the analysis, organizing your project directories, and keeping track of changes in your pipeline and scripts. Here is an overview of “good enough” practices in this process – lots of room for improvement, but this should be the minimum to strive for.

 

 

Recommended preprint severs

There are many preprint servers you can use, but the two mentioned below are perhaps the most common amongst psychologists and neuroscientists.

bioRxiv (has been around longer, extends to all of bio-related disciplines)

PsyArXiv (more recent, specifically for psychology)

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Code / data sharing resources

Stimuli, data, results, and code can be shared via the lab’s GitHub, but lab members are also encouraged to share it more broadly via established open-science initiatives that will enable others to find our work, even if they are not familiar with our lab.

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Here are some of those initiatives:

A list of open science resources

OpenNeuro (sharing raw fMRI data)

NeuroVault (sharing statistical maps from fMRI data)

Open Science Framework (for a unified project page with all resources; also our Wiki’s new home!)

Finally, it’s important to write our IRB protocols and consent forms in such a way that we are allowed to share data, and take steps to anonymize data to protect participants’ privacy. Open Brain Consent can help with this process (all our current IRBs have adopted language from Open Brain Consent).

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