Open data, open methods, and reproducible and transparent research are increasingly endorsed by funders, publishers, institutions and learned societies. But what does making your research open, transparent and reproducible mean in practice? What are the advantages and the pitfalls?

This edition of the Data Conversations will focus on preregistration. We will talk about preregistration from the perspective of two different disciplines: movement science and psychology.

In this Data Conversations researchers from different Faculties, Institutes and disciplines will have a chance to hear and learn from each other about their experiences with opening up data and methods, failures, and setbacks.

Come and share your research data stories and hear others. Find the registration button at the bottom of this page.  At the moment, Data Conversations take place online. You will receive an email with a Zoom link after your registration.

Agenda

12:50 - 13:00   Sign in; check your microphone

13:00   Data Conversations begin

Sjoerd M. Bruijn "My journey into preregistration"

Alexandra Sarafoglou "My experiences with preregistration"

Joint Q&A session

13:45 - 13: 55 Discussion in smaller groups

13:55 - 14:00   Wrap-up and closing

What to expect?

Data Conversations will feature a series of short talks from researchers or colleagues who support research. Each talk will be about 10 minutes long and there will be time for a Q&A session. There will be a discussion in smaller groups to give you an opportunity to meet like-minded colleagues across the VU.

Abstracts of the talks

Sjoerd M. Bruijn: My journey into preregistration

A few years ago, I found myself arguing on twitter with some of the proponents of preregistration. I argued that this is nice and all, but should not come at the cost of reduced exploratory analysis. In other words, I was critical, as I viewed most of my work as rather exploratory, something that simply cannot be preregistered, because it's too novel. Last year, a reviewer commented on our paper, stating that we were potentially HARKING, because we had so many hypothesis. That reviewer was wrong; we had preregistered our work, and as such, all hypothesis. Do I now think that all work should be preregistered? Certainly not, but I do think preregistration can be of great value, and causes transparency. In this talk, I will discuss my journey into preregistering my work.

Alexandra Sarafoglou: My experiences with preregistration

Since I started my PhD, I have preregistered all my studies, made many mistakes in the process and learned a lot. During the data conversations, I will share my personal experiences with preregistration, including my workflow, preferred platforms I use to publish preregistrations, and checklists that facilitate the whole process. I will also share some of the problems my colleagues have experienced. Finally, I will give some suggestions on how newcomers can get started with preregistering their studies.

About the speakers

Sjoerd M. Bruijn

Sjoerd is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Movemenet Science at VU Amsteram. As he puts it himself: "My main research interest is how humans are able to walk on two legs with such remarkable ease. I am convinced that this is due to two things; 1) the way the human body is build, and 2) remarkable control from the central nervous system. In my research, I try to disentangle how this control is achieved." Sjoerd is working on an NWO-VIDI project, to following up on his Veni project. In this project, he is testing the hypothesis that gait stability is controlled only in certain moments in the gait cycle. A project page on this project will be online soon.

Alexandra Sarafoglou

Alexandra Sarafoglou is a PhD student at the Psychological Methods department at the University of Amsterdam. Among other topics, her PhD focuses on open science practices and reproducibility in the field of psychology. She is also one of the coordinators of the Open Science Community Amsterdam.

Who should attend?

Data Conversations brings together researchers, research support staff, and data management, and data science experts from all subject areas. Early career researchers as well as experienced academics are welcome to attend.

About Data Conversations

Data Conversations started at the University of Lancaster in the UK. The Lancaster Data Conversations aim to bring data practitioners together to talk about how researchers create, collect, use and share data. The Data Conversations at the VU Amsterdam share the same aim and are intended to provide a forum for researchers from different subjects and disciplines to exchange practices and ideas around open data, FAIR data, research data management and related open science topics.