EAGER: Sharing Knowledge, Building Community: Introducing a Journal Editors' Discussion Interface (JEDI)

Syracuse University, Syracuse NY

Investigators

Abstract

A partnership of social science domain repositories proposes to create a "Journal Editors' Discussion Interface" (JEDI). JEDI will establish and maintain an online community of social science journal editors and data professionals, encouraging and facilitating continuous communication and learning. With a long track record of engaging with social science journal editors, including organizing a well-attended series of annual workshops for editors focused on open science practices, the partner repositories are well placed to design, launch, lead and participate in this endeavor. By offering journal editors the opportunity to draw on the expertise of other editors and data services personnel, this pioneering, light-weight, high-risk / high-payoff project will augment the readiness of the social science publishing community to generate and adopt consensual best practices for open science. JEDI will combine features of an online forum and a traditional email listserv. It will initially focus on the aspects of the editorial process that concern data and code, and their management, citation, and accessibility; other aspects of research transparency; and reproducibility, replication, and verification. Editors, in turn, will be empowered to encourage and help authors to capitalize on developments in the socio-technical infrastructure supporting open science. With consequential developments in that infrastructure on the horizon – such as the expansion of the National Science Foundation’s Public Access Repository (NSF PAR) – there is a pressing need for immediate action. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.