Applying open research in your own work: The open research decision tree

So far, you have learned a lot about the principles of open research and how they are applied. You may be planning to begin incorporating open research practices into your own research immediately, or perhaps you will want to do so in the future. To help you navigate more quickly to the information you need, the course team have developed an open research decision tree. This companion to the course helps you remind yourself of the principles of open research, and how to take open research actions. You can continue to use it after you have finished the course. There is also an open access version on the course description page, so you can share the link with colleagues.

Scroll down to the decision tree (below), and click on it: you need to wait a few moments for it to load. Then take some time to familiarise yourself with the open research decision tree.

Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).
  1. Use the open research decision tree to remind yourself about principles in open research. Go to the welcome page and click the 'principles' button. What do you find? Now click 'Transparency'. Then click 'Manuscript writing and preregistration'. This takes you to some concise summaries. Clicking the second and third of these will bring you to the explanations you’ve just read! You’ll find this handy after you’ve finished the course and want to look something up.
  2. Use the open research decision tree to learn about actions. Go back to the welcome page and click on the 'Actions' pathway, then select the stage you are at with your research. Let’s assume you’re at the planning stage – click ‘I’m planning’. Now click ‘Planning to collect and analyse data’ to remind yourself how you can plan for replicability (something you studied in Week 3). Clicking that will bring you back to the explanations in Week 3.
  3. Now follow your own trail through the interactive.

Reporting guidelines

Quiz