[Colloquium] Seminar Announcement: How Academic Journals Affect Social Science: Peer Review and Reproducibility

[Ninfa Mayorga]

~Reminder

Computation Institute Presentation - Data Lunch Seminar (DLS)

Speaker: Misha Teplitskiy, Department of Sociology, The University of Chicago
Host:  Tanu Malik and Kyle Chard
Date:  March 13, 2015
Time: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location: University of Chicago, Searle 240A, 5735 S. Ellis Ave.

Title: How Academic Journals Affect Social Science: Peer Review and Reproducibility 

Abstract: 
Advances in social science are often disseminated through academic journals, which must select which findings to publish and which to reject. In this talk I will present how an elite sociology journal, American Sociological Review, made such decisions between 1977 and 1982, and how well these decisions predicted the articles' impact over the subsequent decades. In addition, the intense competition to publish in top academic journals has created incentives for scientists to search their data for the most sensational, even if statistically unsound, relationships. Consequently, there is widespread concern that journals are filled with sensational but unreproducible findings. I will present a project that evaluates the reproducibility of hundreds of social science articles in an automated way. Results indicate that the chief obstacle to reproducibility may be not poor research practices but a changing social world.  

BIO: 
Misha Teplitskiy is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on how the institutions of science, particularly academic publishing, affect the production of knowledge. Using innovative computational methods, he has studied how manuscripts change as they undergo peer review, conducted an (automated) reproducibility study of hundreds of published social science articles, and is currently exploring peer review practices at a sociology and a neuroscience journal. Misha's research has been enabled by grants from the Metaknowledge Research Network, The University of Chicago Social Sciences Division, the Oxford Internet Institute, and by the Erik and Wendy Schmidt Data Science for Social Good Fellowship. He received his B.S. in physics and mathematics from Rice University. 

 
Information:  Lunch will be provided


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