The notion of open science has become fairly well established in recent years, with the benefits of opening up research data well espoused.  Alas, despite the clarion call for science to become a more open process, few researchers engage in it.  A major factor behind this reluctance is the lack of any real reward for opening up.

In environments where gamification has taken hold, badges are a common form of currency to provoke certain behaviors.  A recent paper explores whether they could be similarly effective at encouraging us to be open with our science.

Open science badges

The badges are earned by following an open practice with your research and are placed alongside an article to signify that fact to readers.  The scheme is something that journals can opt into, with Psychological Science the first to adopt it back in 2014.

The research set out to explore just what kind of impact the badges had on the open science movement.

“When Psychological Science started offering badges to encourage open practices, there was no evidence to support whether scientists would be influenced by them,” the authors say. “Many researchers thought that the badges would not be significant enough to change standard research practices.”

The analysis suggests that the badges did indeed spark an increase in the sharing of both data and materials.  What’s more, it also seemed to increase the quality of both.

Nudging towards openness

When the publications in Psychological Science were tracked in relation to four other comparable journals, the open publications increased significantly in Psychological Science whilst barely budging in the other publications.

“We noticed that sharing materials can be a bit more complicated than sharing data, and can be more difficult for some sub-disciplines of psychology than others” the authors say. “Social and cognitive psychology oriented journals, whose materials often consist of surveys and stimuli, had much higher rates of reported materials sharing than other comparison journals.”

Suffice to say, claiming that something is available doesn’t necessarily mean they are available, and the researchers did their due diligence into the accuracy of the claims made.  For instance, was the data easily accessible or were various hurdles in place to get to the data?

When badges were present however, it was largely the case that data was both easily accessible and of high quality, so that it was accurate and usable by others.

It shows that something as simple as a badge can have a really strong influence on how people behave.  We’ve seen this in relatively trite areas of life, but this study shows how it can also have an impact in serious areas such as scientific research.

“Relative to their ability to promote transparent practices, the cost and risk for journals to implement badges is minimal,” the authors conclude. “The adoption of badges across a broader range of journals could have a large effect on the field, and may lead to a cultural shift among scientists toward increased transparency and sharing of research data and materials.”