Graduate Training Opportunity: Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training

BITSS will hold its next Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) in Washington DC, September 11-13, 2019. This RT2 is organized in partnership with the World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) group.

Supported by the National Institutes for Health (NIH), RT2 is a 3-day training targeted at graduate students in the social sciences who are interested to learn about cutting-edge tools and best practices for transparent, reproducible and efficient research. The curriculum is developed and delivered by academic leaders in the open science movement and there is space for collaborative work and hands-on skill building. Learn more about previous RT2 events here.

The RT2 curriculum focuses on the following topics:

• Ethics and Mertonian norms for research transparency and reproducibility
• Scientific misconduct and researcher degrees of freedom
• Improved specification through study pre-registration and pre-analysis plans
• Computational reproducibility and approaches to replication
• Techniques for reproducible meta-analysis
• Hands-on practice with version control using Git (GitHub or the Command Line)
• Dynamic documents with R and Stata
• Data management and de-identification for data sharing
• Appropriate use of statistics and interpretation of statistical evidence

RT2 is designed for researchers in the social and health sciences, with particular emphasis on economics, political science, psychology, and public health. Participants are typically (i) current Masters and PhD students, (ii) postdocs, (iii) junior faculty, (iv) research staff, (v) librarians and data stewards, and (vi) journal editors, funders, and research managers curious about the implications of transparency and reproducibility for their work.

RT2 curriculum is most applicable to research that uses quantitative or mixed methods. Applicants should have proficiency in R or Stata.

Tuition for RT2 is $1,500 for three days, including breakfast, lunch, and a networking reception on September 13. This tuition fee does not cover costs for travel and accommodation.

Financial Support: For up to 30 participants, BITSS offers partial or full financial support by waiving the tuition fee and covering travel, lodging and child care. Financial support will be awarded based on a combination of merit and need, taking into account our commitment to facilitate access to RT2 for diverse and underserved populations.

Submit an application on our online portal here (or at http://bit.ly/bitssrt2dc). The application includes questions regarding (i) your motivation for participating in RT2 and (ii) how you expect your participation to contribute to scaling-up education and training on research transparency and reproducibility.

Applications should also include a Curriculum Vitae or Resume. Letters of Reference are also accepted, though they are not required. Please submit these as attachments in the online application portal.

BITSS aims to select no more than 40 participants for RT2. With this in mind, the number of applications for RT2 tends to exceed the number of available spaces.

BITSS staff will lead the selection process with oversight from the BITSS Faculty Director. Competitive selection will be based on the (i) quality of application materials and expected impact and (ii) balance across disciplines, gender, and institutions.

Applications from self-funded participants will be considered on a rolling basis. Self-funded applicants will be assessed based on the same eligibility criteria as those requesting financial support.

To be considered for financial support, applications must be submitted no later than 11:59 pm PT June 2, 2019. Notifications of acceptance for applicants with financial support will be sent no later than June 14, 2019.

BITSS will consider applications for self-funded participants on a rolling basis through 11:59 pm PT August 28, 2019.

Reach out to BITSS Senior Program Associate Aleksandar Bogdanoski (abogdanoski@berkeley.edu) with any questions about RT2 DC.