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CommentaryVol. 1: Inaugural IssueUpdated

Barriers to reproducibility: misalignment of career incentives and open science best practices

Colleen Mills-Finnerty

Abstract

We are on the precipice of a sea change in how research is conducted. Funder mandates and changing expectations around scientific reproducibility have resulted in a new set of open science best practices (OSBP) for research. These practices include, but are not limited to, data and code sharing, hypothesis preregistration, registered reports, and open peer review. With these changes come challenges and potentially unanticipated side-effects. In particular, here I will highlight what I see as the biggest mismatches between the career incentives of the field of neuroscience and OSBP, from the perspective of an early career researcher.

Keywords: Open science, research ethics, reproducibility, open review, registered reports, preregistration

References

https://molecularbrain.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13041-020-0552-2

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170911095932.htm

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/02/alzheimers-amyloid-hypothesis/517185/

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/one-five-genetics-papers-contains-errors-thanks-microsoft-excel

https://www.theverge.com/2013/4/17/4234136/excel-calculation-error-infamous-economic-study

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsa1409364

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)33220-9/fulltext

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/06/nobel-prize-winner-demonstrates-best-way-apologize-chemist-frances-arnold

https://laskowskilab.faculty.ucdavis.edu/2020/01/29/retractions/

Keywords

  • Open science
  • research ethics
  • reproducibility
  • open review
  • registered reports
  • preregistration

Cite as

Colleen Mills-Finnerty (2022). Barriers to reproducibility: misalignment of career incentives and open science best practices. Journal for Reproducibility in Neuroscience, 1.

License

Barriers to reproducibility: misalignment of career incentives and open science best practices by Colleen Mills-Finnerty is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.

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