Simple tools to boost your research and productivity

Gilad FeldmanMaastricht University W&SP

Disclaimer

I’m definitely not the best example for productivity and research output, many others do it much better.

No criticism intended whatsoever, we all have different ways and we all have constraints.

No pressure either, really. Change is hard, change takes time, change is risky.

Prioritize your change. If not for you, then consider some of this for your

PhD/masters students.

A discussion. Know something else/better? share!2

Increase visibility – But why?“But why? Things are good enough right now”

Practically, science doesn’t work as well in isolation.Socially, an obligation to the community and the funding taxpayers.

For your benefit… It’s been shown to affect: Faculty recruitment. PhD student recruitment. Citation rates. Grant application success. Receiving more/better job campus-visits/offers. Receiving more/better offers for collaborations. Editors/reviewers who google you (they do).

And it helps you to keep track and stay organized.3

Increase visibility - How?“But it’s too much work!” It’s not.

Update your university profile page. Create a Google Scholar profile. Join ResearchGate, follow related others. Join Twitter. Even better - create your own website (it’s easier

than you think) – Wordpress.com / Wix.com Update your publications (for scholars) Update your news mentions (for laypersons)

There are some who can create it for you - http://www.sciencesites.org/ (sometimes free)

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Keeping up to date - Twitter

Finding & communicating with other scholars See who I follow: https://twitter.com/mgto_org/following E.g. the open-science/replication/stats people

Daniël Lakens @Eindhoven - @lakens Brian Nosek - @BrianNosek Uri Simonsohn - @uri_sohn

News about Workshops (e.g., attended one in Eindhoven) Working papers (e.g., started a collaboration after seeing a

paper) Datasets (e.g., WVS, OSF-based) Grants (e.g., Small Grants in Behavioral Economics) Conference updates New tools and scripts Open positions (even some unofficial openings)

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Keeping up to date - Blogs to follow

Retraction Watch Replication Index In-mind DataColada Daniel Lakens

You might want to use an RSS reader – I use Feeddemon.

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Following others’ research

Google scholar with email updates Research Gate Journal email alerts Mailing lists

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Workflow: Setup a research Wiki / diary

Why? Organize your research Easily share materials with others

(code? ideas?) Easier to collaborate with others

Example : http://wiki.mgto.org How? Dokuwiki, takes 5 minutes to

install on a webserver 8

Need ideas? Some simple article ideas…

Clear your file-drawer. (e.g., Oxytocin) Report your null findings.

Short reviews (~3000 words) of your area at Frontiers, COP, SPPC, etc.

A well-powered pre-registered replication. If have time – a Meta-Analysis.

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Finding money for your research

Crowdfunding research Experiment.com

[Even Kickstarter] E.g., Dan Ariely’s dishonesty – movie, cards.

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Storing data / pre-registration / replications

Research projects: Open science framework: http://osf.io

Code: Github Easier pre-registration - As predicted

 (explained here) Tracking replication work:

curatescience.org

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Data collection

MTurk + Turk Prime(I can help!)

Facebook advertising – can target hard to find populations.

[And Qualtrics, ofcourse, for running surveys.]

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Stat software

Time to switch to R If you’re into dialog boxes, consider

JASP (open source easy Bayesian stats)

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Before you submit your article

Check your stats - Statscheck Check your grammar - Grammarly Check your citations - Reciteworks Check your p-curve

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Essential Chrome extensions

Scihub bookmarklet Altmetrics it – keep track of media

mentions Google Scholar Button EZ Proxy – has Maastricht University

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Backup your work!

I automatically sync to Mega-sync (50gb free)

Previous university gave all students and alumni 1-TB onedrive business account, where I store photos and large datasets.

You only need one software for all syncs: use Odrive Syncs: GoogleDrive, Dropbox, OneDrive,

S/FTP, Facebook, Instagram, etc. etc. (Tip: S/FTP means you can automatically backup your Wiki & website)

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Storing confidential materials

Datasets with confidential information need to be safe.

VeraCrypt for an encrypted drive/partition.

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Take charge of your emailAcademic email handling

How? Forward all incoming emails from all academic

accounts to one designated Google Mail account.

Why? We move between institutions / joint appointments /

academic roles Better functionality (POP3/IMAP/mobile-sync,

search, contacts, calendar, etc.)

Things to consider: Confidentiality (students).

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Looking for an academic job? The work psyc/OB job-market Excel

The OB folks have created an amazing view of the academic job market:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gyB2QWkPIcUjMiBkkrwvkOg1uyo0VBrD9BDugzgEyhw/edit?usp=sharing

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Reference managers

The very simple Cite This For Me addon. People mentioned using Zotero or

Mendeley. Others mentioned JabRef

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Other tips/tools

Publish or Perish – analyze citations.

Journal Reviewer – Journal review info.

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