ReproducibiliTea Podcast

Episode 28 - Jade Pickering and Marta Topor

This time we are joined by the amazing Jade Pickering (@Jade_Pickering) and Marta Topor (@MartaTopor).

Jade and Marta share their own ReproducibiliTea experiences and an exciting new project on building tools for systematic reviews. Watch this space as the duo get ready to release this tool to the wilds!

Keep an eye out for the most positive and wholesome answers to our usual guest question "what advice do you have for other ECRs?"

Music credit: Be Jammin - Alexander Nakarada

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In the first of our new SolidariTea sub-series, Amy Orben talks to Robert Stenson from the University of Nottingham, UK, where he is finishing a PhD at the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies. SolidariTea episodes are short podcast conversations with Early Career Researchers around the world that highlight injustices, campaigns, struggles and discussions mainly about working conditions, diversity and equality, employment, and work-life balance. Robert Stenson tells us about how his university has outsourced all grad student teachers to a temporary staffing company and how this has affected their working conditions and ability to strike (see his tweet here: https://twitter.com/robert_stenson/status/1199260126319910912). The episode highlights how increasing amounts of universities are outsourcing workers (see https://unitemps.com) and how this precariousness affects grad students and early-career scientists. The practice implemented by the University of Nottingham sets a dangerous precedent for outsourcing teaching by the most junior and vulnerable workers, who are often crucial to delivering the courses departments offer to their students.

Have you, or someone you know, been affected by precariousness, outsourcing or temporary contracts? Please get in touch with us! We are planning to highlight more ECR stories in future SolidariTea episodes.

Music credit:

River Meditation - Jason Shaw

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Episode 27 - More advice on starting a PhD

We return to thinking about starting a PhD. This is part 2 of our series. Sophia brought Amy and Sam some more questions and they had thoughts. If you have any thoughts, comments, and different perspectives we would love to hear them. Please reach out and tell us your thoughts and experiences.

Question 4 - How much time did you spend on different PhD activities? e.g. writing papers, learning skills, reading, etc. AKA. work-work balance

Question 5 - How did you manage your supervisor and build a support team?

Question 6 - What was the hardest part of your PhD?

Amy's blogpost: https://medium.com/@OrbenAmy/why-leaving-oxford-for-a-summer-was-the-best-decision-of-my-phd-33da4616f4af

Music credit: Kevin MacLeod - Funkeriffic

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Episode 26 - Advice on starting a PhD

In a slight change of pace, Sophia interviews Amy and Sam for advice on starting a PhD. This is part 1 of a two part series on advice for new PhDs. If you have any thoughts or comments, hit up our twitter and join the conversation.

Caveat: Amy and Sam both completed their PhDs in Experimental Psychology at Oxford University. We did try to make any advice or comments as widely relevant as possible, however we should recognise the limits of our experience. We would love to hear from you, whether your institution/department would be very different, whether you agree or disagree with our comments, and if you have anything to add we’d love to comment!

Highlights

Question 1 – If you could give yourself some advice at the start of yo9ur PhD, what would you say?

Sams PsyPAG (@PsyPAG) blogpost: http://www.psypag.co.uk/what-advice-would-you-give-to-yourself-at-the-beginning-of-your-postgraduate-studies/

Related: check our Anne Scheel’s (@annemscheel) episode on Everything Hertz (@hertzpodcast) https://everythinghertz.com/47

Question 2 – What should you do at the start of your PhD?

Question 3 – how do you, and have you been successful at, developing a good work/life balance?

A part of this question we faced is, how do you define work?

Music credit: Kevin MacLeod - Funkeriffic

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Episode 25 - Starting A ReproducibiliTea Journal Club With Jade Pickering And Angelika Stefan

Why did we start the ReproducibiliTea Journal club, and how can you start your own? Sam and Amy share their experiences before we listen in on a discussion with two very special guests. Jade Pickering (@Jade_Pickering) and Angelika Stefan (@ephemeralidea) discuss their experiences starting and running a ReproducibiliTea Journal club.

You can find ours, and others', ReproducibiliTea JC materials (including a starter pack) here: https://osf.io/3qrj6/

visit reproducibilitea.org for more information on starting your own JC, and all the info on the other jcs!

Music credit: Kevin MacLeod - Funkeriffic

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Episode 24 - Conferences

This time we talk academic conferences! What do we thing about them as ECRs? Amy was at the ABCD workshop during recording (check out https://abcdstudy.org/) giving a hands-on picture of conference activities. Of course, we couldn't talk conferences without mentioning our favourite SIPS!(see https://improvingpsych.org/meetings/previous-sips-meetings/).

We compare conferences, discuss how we try to make the most out of our conference experience, and what conferences are like for ECRS

Music credit: Be Jammin - Alexander Nakarada

Episode 23 - Nick Fox

Sophia and Amy have a great chat with Nick Fox (@NickFoxstats). Nick is a Research Scientist in the Center for Open Science.

Nick tells us his winding story from being a psych-hating undergrad, through biochem and behavioural neuroscience, to social psychology and meta-science (the full story is on his blog https://nickfox.netlify.com/post/trip-through-grad-school/).

Nick's thesis on "Scientist as Subject: How researcher behaviors influence psychological knowledge" as awesome, and you can read it here https://psyarxiv.com/6m7cn/

Nick gives an overview of SCORE - "Systematizing Confidence in Open Research and Evidence". The project is huge! Reach out to Nick if you want to get involved! you can read more about it here https://cos.io/about/news/can-machines-determine-credibility-research-claims-center-open-science-joins-new-darpa-program-find-out/

Music credit: Be Jammin - Alexander Nakarada

Episode 22 - PsychBrief

This time we chat to another awesome ECR, PsychBrief! You may have seen his very popular blog on psychologocal methods http://psychbrief.com/ or seen him dropping truth bombs on twitter @PsyBrief

No, we don't reveal PsychBriefs real identity, but he does let us in on why he started and maintains his anonymous profile and his experiences in a not-so-open field. This was a great discussion, enjoy!

Music credit: Be Jammin - Alexander Nakarada

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Episode 21 - Katia Damer

This episode we talked to the co-founder and CEO of Prolific Academic (https://prolific.ac/), Katia Damer. Prolific Academic is a platform connecting researchers with a pool of research participants for online data collection. We discuss Katia's experience of founding Prolific as a start-up during her PhD and how prolific brings researchers and participants together.

Find Katia on twitter @ekadamer, and shutout to Prolific co-founder @Phelimb

Some highlights:

- Katia's journey to Prolific

- How we can use Prolific and whether it is the right tool for our research

- How participants can join

- Sam has used Prolific, it was da bomb

- Critical voices about online research

- Katia's start up experience, and bringing that experience back the the PhD

- Dealing with failures and mistakes; how Prolific owns their mistakes.

- Katia's advice for ECRs

Music credit: Be Jammin - Alexander Nakarada

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Episode 20 - Priya Silverstein

Buckle up to hear Priya discuss running (and publishing) replication research and diversity in science. This was perhaps the most eventful recording session we have ever had, but we really enjoyed the conversation. The more diversity the better!

Music credit: Be Jammin - Alexander Nakarada

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