OPEN SCIENCE
The battle for reproducibility over storytelling in cognitive neuroscience. Chris Chambers’ overview of seven commentaries to be published in Cortex.There will also be new reproducibility initiatives around verifications of research (using the original data) as well as replications.
Evaluation of repositories for sharing individual-participant data from clinical studies. A review of data repositories suitable for sharing clinical data. Out of 25 repositories only three (Dryad, Drum, EASY) met fully or partially all criteria. There clearly remains work to be done. Published in Trials.
Where should preprint servers set their bar for content? For arxiv it is manuscripts that would be suitable for peer review, as highlighted in a recent twitter thread on class projects by Thomas Dietterich as an arxiv moderator, and also documented at their help pages. Although not all preprints end up being published in a journal. A study of bioRxiv content by Abdill and Blekhman has found that around 30% of bioRxiv preprints remain unpublished. And why not? With online commenting functionality and other features preprints have advanced beyond being a prelude for journal publishing.
PUBLISHING
Elsevier has accidentally exposed user’s email addresses and unencrypted passwords on an open server, Motherboard reported.
RESEARCH
Scientists rise up against statistical significance. More than 800 researchers signed a statement published in Nature that calls for the end of using specific p-values to assign statistical significance or not as there are other ways that are more nuanced.
PLOS
I blogged about our case resolution concerning a study on gender incongruence in adolescents. In terms of open science, it is clear how much, beyond the scientific community, the context and the correct framing of open access research matters. With open access publishing and free-to-read schemes of papers advancing, due diligence in publishing also means to be mindful in messaging to that broad audience.
EVENTS
The 14th Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing will take place in Tromsø, Norway on 27-28 November 2019.
OTHER
A report of nearly 14,000 US postdoc salaries from 52 institutions reveals considerable variations, including by gender, job title and geography. News story here, original research in Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education here (see also image below).
Postdoc salaries by US Census region and inferred gender. The overall salary advantage in the US for male postdocs is $860.47. MW = Midwest, NE = Northeast, S = South, W = West. ** p-value <10-2, *** p value < 10-3, **** p-value < 10-5.
Credit (CC-BY): Rodoniki Athanasiadou, Adriana Bankston, McKenzie Carlisle, Caroline A. Niziolek, Gary S. McDowell, (2018) “Assessing the landscape of US postdoctoral salaries”, Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, Vol. 9 Issue: 2, pp.213-242, https://doi.org/10.1108/SGPE-D-17-00048