In a nutshell, FORRT is a Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training advancing research transparency, reproducibility, rigor, and ethics through pedagogical reform and meta-scientific research. FORRT provides a pedagogical infrastructure & didactic resources designed to recognize and support the teaching and mentoring of open and reproducible science. FORRT strives to raise awareness of the pedagogical implications of open and reproducible science and its associated challenges (i.e., curricular reform, epistemological uncertainty, methods of education) and advocates for the opening and formal recognition of teaching and mentoring materials to facilitate access, discovery, and learning to those who otherwise would be educationally disenfranchised.
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Presentation of FORRT projects
The problem
Recently, the scientific community took steps to reflect a widespread awareness of, and call for, improved practices ushering in the “credibility revolution” including higher standards of evidence, preregistration, direct replication, transparency, and openness.
Structurally, three pillars were proposed to carry social sciences towards academic utopia: opening scientific communication, restructuring incentives and practices, and collaborative and crowdsourced science.
However, ongoing attempts have neglected an essential aspect of the academic machinery: students. And indeed, current norms for the teaching and mentoring in higher-education are rooted in obsolete practices of bygone eras. Improving transparency and rigor of science is the responsibility of all who engage in it.
The solution
In our view, a scientific utopia has a fourth pillar, whose principal goal is to familiarize higher-ED students, who are future consumers of science and perhaps themselves knowledge producers, with the intricacies of the process of science.
We believe the teaching and mentoring of reproducible and open research practices is the clearest indicator of the degree to which institutions and/or departments embody principles of credible science.
This demonstration goes beyond paying lip service to best practices, and ensures that students are trained to engage in the best available scientific practices.
FORRT is designed by, and envisioned for, educators who wish to integrate typical discipline content with open and reproducible science tenets.
FORRT supports this endeavor through a three-pronged approach:
Provide educators a comprehensive but straightforward framework to teach and mentor open and reproducible science as well as qualify and quantify the degree of open and reproducible research practices in their teaching and mentoring.
Equipping educators with high quality pedagogical tools on open and reproducible science practices to facilitate its integration into curricula and educators’ teaching mentoring, and research practices.
Modifying the academic incentive structure regarding teaching and mentoring through recognition and commendations of excellent teaching and mentoring; foster social justice through the opening and democratization of scientific-educational resources to those who otherwise would be educationally disenfranchised; and building a community with existing educational initiatives and strengthening our missions, identify and reduce redundancies, and streamline the advancement of open educational practices.
