We’re proud of this year’s Unconference on Open Scholarship Practices for Education Research (UOSPER), which brought together more than 450 members of the education research community. To promote inclusivity, we transformed it into a fully virtual event, but it still featured participant-led sessions analyzing the current state of open scholarship practice and interactive hackathons to generate solutions for identified problems.
The 2022 UOSPER bridged the needs of newcomers to open science who were looking for educational content and researchers who have practiced open science behaviors for years and sought to expand their engagement with link-minded peers. Networking and community building were key components of the unconference as the informal format was designed to form connections among attendees and encourage participant interaction.
Attendee feedback supported the need for interaction saying, “The small sessions were nice, because they supported lots of interaction.” and “I liked the interaction. It’s hard to force this in an online conference, but I think it was worth it!”
Participants discussed the obstacles the education research community faces that make the adoption of open scholarship practices more difficult, including a perception gap about the culture. While 69% of education researchers actually favor data sharing – and only 8% oppose it – when those same survey respondents tried to guess whether their colleagues would support data sharing, they assumed only about 36% support it.
Participants also brainstormed strategies to promote the value of open science in their communities.
The featured sessions are now available online.
- Welcome and Introduction with Brian Nosek
- In Understanding Data Sharing, Sara Hart discusses the “why” and the “how to” of data sharing. Sharing data is becoming the norm, and not just because it’s required for federally-funded projects. When it comes to educational research, the benefits include increased collaboration, the acceleration of knowledge through novel and creative research questions and more opportunities for early-career researchers and faculty at under-resourced institutions.
- In Understanding Replication in Education Research, Matt Makel introduces the purpose of replication, different conceptions of replication, and some models for implementing replication practices in education. Makel goes over all the FAQs of replication, including relevant terms, methods, publication possibilities, and existing funding.
- In Understanding Preprints and Open Access, Bryan Cook and Stacy Shaw discuss the contributions and limitations of preprints, and how they fit into the current models of scholarly publishing. Cook and Shaw discuss various “levels" of open access publishing and the extent to which they encourage scientific literacy. They also discuss workarounds for the ubiquitous paywall problem, including the use of the preprint (not-yet-peer-reviewed) version of your paper. They discuss research on the use of preprints, and how preprints and postprints can promote more open access for important research.
- In Preregistration, Scott Peters and Karen Rambo-Hernandez introduce the basics of pre-registration, which is a tool to create a permanent record of a research plan before data collection or data analysis begin. They discuss the similarities and practical differences between pre-registration and registered reports, and traditional approaches to educational research. They provide some practical advice from their own experiences using preregistration and discuss resources available for researchers interested in preregistering their work. They end with questions and discussion about adopting pre-registration practices and unique considerations for implementing preregistration in education research.
- In Understanding Registered Reports in Education Research, Betsy McCoach and Amanda Montoya discuss registered reports, which are similar to preregistration but are distinct in that they involve the journal before completing the study. With registered reports, peer review and the decision to publish the results of a study occur before data is collected or analyzed. Education research journals are increasingly offering opportunities to publish registered reports. McCoach and Montoya discuss the basics of registered reports, their benefits and limitations, and which education journals accept them. Which projects are appropriate for registered reports? How do you implement registered reports? How do you manage your time during the registration process? We discuss how special cases can be implemented as registered reports, such as secondary data analysis, replications, meta-analyses, and longitudinal studies.
