Methods for Promoting Open Science in Social Policy Research

This brief, authored by Rachel Holzwart and Hilary Wagner, summarizes key themes from the 2019 Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation Methods Meeting on promoting open science in social policy research. “Open science” is a broad movement to make all phases of research—from design to dissemination—more transparent, accessible, and replicable. Open science methods have gained momentum as highly publicized news stories related to data manipulation (e.g., p-hacking), publication bias (e.g., no publication of null results), and inability to replicate or reproduce research results have cast doubt on research credibility. Proponents of open science strive to transform the research culture using a range of methods, such as preregistering evaluation plans and providing open access to code and data, to encourage open sharing of research information and enable researchers to verify and build on one another’s work.