new guidelines for transparent and open research

The journal Science has just published details about a new framework for encouraging better scientific research and publishing practices, titled Transparent and Openness Promotion Guidelines. The New York Times has the story here, including a quick description:

The guidelines include eight categories of disclosure, each with three levels of ascending stringency. For example, under the category “data transparency,” Level 1 has the journal require that articles state whether data are available, and if so, where. Level 2 requires that the data be posted to a trusted databank. Level 3 requires not only that data be posted, but also that the analysis be redone by an independent group before publication.

The guidelines come from the Center for Open Science, and scatterplot’s own Jeremy Freese is among the authors. Go Jeremy!

sjmr ama

I recently did an AMA (ask me anything) at SJMR. It was fun but hugely time consuming. In it I mentioned a “acknowledgement letter” from my time doing my ethnographic research. They couldn’t post it. So I decided I’d do it here.

if your business model requires that your employees not be recognized as employees, maybe you need a new model?

A California court just ruled that Uber drivers are employees. Here’s the (pro-Uber) coverage from Business Insider. Note how the story accepts Uber’s versions of the facts about who counts as an employee:

plain-language harassment policy

My university’s sexual harassment and consensual relations policies are written in bureaucratic legalese. Here’s my attempt to create a departmental plain-language statement. Comments appreciated.

The plain language version of our policy is: Don’t date your students, and don’t try to date your students. There are no conditions under which it is acceptable for you to date a student in your class. This includes cases where the student takes the initiative: if a student asks you on a date, or makes romantic overtures to you, you must decline. Moreover, even if you imagine that your interest is entirely friendly and non-sexual, you must not initiate particularistic social relationships with students in your own classes. You should understand that when you undertake the role of instructor, you are entering a hierarchical relationship. Actions that would be acceptable among peers can be problematic and even illegal in a hierarchical relationship.

ask a scatterbrain: supporting students on the job market.

I am wrapping up my second year as DGS in my department. Over the last couple years I’ve made some small, but significant changes in our grad program and I’m finally beginning to see the results. Now that I’ve found my sea legs (just in time for my term to end next summer), I’m ready to tackle something new: improving our support for students on the market.

the new economic imperialism: methods not models

Two economic graduate students affiliated with Duke’s Center for the History of Political Economy have just released a new working paper on the history of quasi-experimental methods in economics. Panhans and Singleton document the dramatic takeoff of the use of techniques like regression discontinuity, difference-in-difference, and instrumental variables in the top economics journals, and most of its subfields. The paper’s a nice introduction to this history, and for readers unfamiliar with the older approaches, sets up a nice quick contrast between a 1970s “structural” approach to the returns to education vs. a 1990s “quasi-experimental” approach. What really struck me, though, was an ending reflection on the nature of economic imperialism.

davis and mizruchi on “corporations and capitalism”

The newest issue of the Economic Sociology section newsletter Accounts was just published. The first piece in the issue is a conversation Mark Mizruchi and Jerry Davis about their research on corporate political power and the contemporary capitalism. Unsurprisingly, it’s simultaneously provocative and hilarious. Here’s a snippet:

Mark: You just gave a good example of why democratic management might not be the way to go.

Jerry: Oh, really?

Mark: Yeah, the problem is, if you’re going to run a company democratically you have to spend 20% of your time in meetings.

Jerry: Okay, some of that 20% is HabermasticationTM. Sometimes meetings are worthwhile because you’re sharing information and figuring things out, but sometimes meetings are a waste of time. Some decisions could be more efficient because we have the technology to be more democratic and local than we used to (say, using a voting app). The alternative less-democratic version of that is let’s say Uber, where you use the same technology to create a class of Student Loan Activated Volatile Employment… it’ s an acronym.

Mark: …Slave.

Jerry: Yes. In Ann Arbor there must be 5, 000 people driving for Uber this second who are recent sociology undergraduates, who have discovered that they are unemployable but they have to repay their student loans. That’s the digital immiseration version of this technology.

Check it out!