Encouraging Open Science Practices in Minority Serving Institutions

Last registered on January 19, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Encouraging Open Science Practices in Minority Serving Institutions
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012115
Initial registration date
January 18, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
January 19, 2024, 2:21 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Yanqi Cheng
Affiliation
University of California, Berkeley
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Abhishek Nagaraj
PI Affiliation
UC Berkeley
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PI Name
Saqib Choudhary
PI Affiliation
UC Berkeley
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2023-07-31
End date
2025-02-01
Keywords
Education, Other
Additional Keywords
Innovation, Business, Social Science
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Our field partner Open Research Funders Group (ORFG) is interested in encouraging Open Science Practices (OSPs) among traditionally underrepresented academic institutions. ORFG’s key hypothesis is providing a small amount of funding to such institutions for targeted interventions can kickstart a broader movement towards open science practices. ORFG is in conversation with several funders to support such interventions which could form a part of a large field experiment testing the value of such funding. Here we propose to evaluate a smaller pilot ORFG is running with one funder to disburse about $100k to traditionally underrepresented institutions for OSP interventions.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Cheng, Yanqi, Saqib Choudhary and Abhishek Nagaraj. 2024. "Encouraging Open Science Practices in Minority Serving Institutions." AEA RCT Registry. January 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12115-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We will be providing funding in the range of $1000 to $5000 to researchers from under-represented institutions.
ORFG initiated a funding call during the pilot phase of the study. Participants whose proposals are above the quality bar will be randomly assigned with equal probability to one of two experimental conditions:

1. Participants will receive a grant equal to the amount they requested in the proposal.
2. Participants will not receive any grant.

Intervention Start Date
2024-02-01
Intervention End Date
2024-08-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We will evaluate four sets of outcomes: (a) attitudes towards OS collected via surveys, (b) observed adoption of OSPs (collected through a quantitative index), (c) responses to data/code sharing requests and (d) citations to publications.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Attitudes towards OS collected via surveys: The surveys will examine attitudes towards open science on a subjective scale (survey to be developed).
Responses to data/code sharing requests: we hope to run email audit studies to measure the willingness of researchers to share data from published research.
The bibliometric data for observed adoption of OSPs and citations to publications will be collected after a period of 1 year of disbursement of grants.
We will obtain these results by asking confirmed participants to fill out an optional survey detailing attitudes toward open science.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The study will have a between subject design with 1 factor (funding received) and 2 levels (funded, not funded).
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
We will use simple randomization. Each proposal that is rated above the predetermined quality threshold will have an equal chance of being assigned to either treatment (funded) or control (not funded) groups. The randomization will be performed using a computer.
Randomization Unit
The primary unit of randomization in this study will be the Proposal.
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
80 - 120 proposals
Sample size: planned number of observations
The subject population is researchers from traditionally underrepresented academic institutions and will include research active members -- faculty, Ph.D. students, etc. The maximum number of subjects planned for the study is 1200 researchers.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
We expect to be able to fund about 20-40 proposals through this award program. So, the treatment group is 20-40 proposals with 300-600 treated researchers. There will be a comparable number of control proposals and researchers for the pilot study.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Data Sharing: With treated 80 clusters, we can identify an increase of 25% or above in willingness to share data. Citations: With 80 clusters, we can only identify effect sizes that are 30% or higher (with 0.8 between cluster variation).
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of California, Berkeley
IRB Approval Date
2023-10-19
IRB Approval Number
2023-08-16611
Analysis Plan