Partecipanti: Scientific Committee: Mariagrazia Benassi, Sara Giovagnoli, Sara Garofalo
OPEN SCIENCE: OPEN STATISTICS & OPEN YOUR EYES
September 30 - October 1 2019
In honor of the retirement of Prof. Roberto Bolzani, a two-day symposium on the topic of Open Science is organized, with the aim of bringing together the leading experts on the two main themes that characterized his research and teaching activity.
On September 30th the discussion will focus on
“Open Statistics: Methods and Thinking in Psychological Research”
dealing with the most controversial topics that currently characterize scientific research: the reproducibility crisis, the old controversy between Fisherian and Bayesian statistical approaches and the growing importance of education on statistical reasoning. Discussing the strengths and weaknesses of current statistical approaches can be the key to opening up statistical thinking not only to the scientific community, but also to a wider audience, and promoting a true Open Statistics.
On October 1st the topic will be
“Open Your Eyes: eye movements in vision research, bridging the gap between scientific disciplines”
where the methods of analysis of eye movements will be addressed from different theoretical perspectives: clinical, psychological and mathematical. The opportunity to share updates on eye movement research with different views will offer participants the opportunity to improve their knowledge and inspire new research networks in the field of eye movement research.
Interventions by major national and international experts on both issues are planned and the active participation of all interested parties will be encouraged.
The symposium will be free for all participants, subject to registration.
More details in the attached brochure.
General objectives
There is a strong need for all scientific disciplines for an update on methodological and epistemological issues to understand the limits of the methods that characterize scientific knowledge, to use them consciously and to help improve them. Although it is widely acknowledged that new technologies have enabled scientific research to achieve the goals set in much faster times than in the past, even in the academic world few know the debate on the reproducibility crisis that has affected all sciences in recent years, from psychology, to economics, to medicine, up to astrophysics. This symposium will be an opportunity for researchers from different disciplines to discuss in depth these issues, comparing themselves with expert scholars from different universities.
The discussion on the scientific method has always been at the center of the debate of science since ancient times but a peculiar reflection of today's science is the aspect of sharing knowledge, indicated as one of the essential aspects to face the crisis of reproducibility. Sharing, or Open Science, concerns primarily the academics who are asked to make the hypotheses, data and results of their research accessible. In this way everyone must be able to control the scientific results, at every level. In the face of this openness, to date, much must be done for a scientific literacy of the society. Indeed, sharing also concerns the non-academic community that needs to understand the methods and results of scientific research. The symposium will be open to the society and will allow the academic world to a more direct confrontation.
Audience
Researchers from the academic world and scholars interested in reflections on the scientific method of national research institutes will be invited as auditors. University students and students in the last years of upper secondary schools in the municipality of Cesena and their professors will also be invited. Journalists and editors working in editorial boards of Italian and international newspapers will also be invited.
Specific objectives
The first objective of the symposium is educational: with these two days of symposium it is intended to improve the knowledge and methodological, epistemological and statistical skills of all the recipients of the symposium (university professors, researchers, students and all those who write and use the scientific knowledge). For university students in particular, having the opportunity to meet scholars from different scientific disciplines together with reflecting on scientific methods in a free symposium will be an opportunity to bring their academic training back into a more active and critical perspective. The symposium will also aim to create scientific collaborations among scholars invited to participate.