SMWCon 2020/Day3 - "ReplicationWiki: Information on empirical studies in social sciences" J. Höffler
Channel: Semantic MediaWiki
Date: 09/12/2020

SMWCon Fall 2020 - Semantic MediaWiki Conference - The Future of Knowledge Sharing -  https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/SMWCon_Fall_2020


A database on availability of data and code for empirical studies in the social sciences, and of replications
Speaker(s):  Jan H. Höffler


The ReplicationWiki currently offers a database of 4,500 studies from the social sciences for which empirical methods were used. It lists which of the studies have data and code available online. In cases where replications, i.e. studies that check an original study's results, are known they are classified by their type and results. This talk is addressing

    scientists interested in the use of semantic wikis for academic purposes
    developers interested in technical improvements of features like the semantic drilldown or joining a project on an automated expansion of the database with machine learning and natural language processing techniques
    investors who see the business opportunity in addressing a large specialized audience
    the general public interested in how open science can help us to gain better knowledge

The ReplicationWiki was described in more detail in a journal article. In the 2017 American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings an overview was given of economics journals’ data policies as well as of the distribution of the use of different software packages and of the geographical origin of the data used. In that article, some evidence was also presented that indicates that studies for which replication material is made available may attract more citations.

Newer features of the wiki are overviews of the methods, data sources and software used in the studies. In addition to replications the wiki now also provides information about corrections that have been published and whether studies have been retracted. The drilldown extension now allows complex searches with a more user-friendly interface.

As the wiki has been cited from a number of neighboring fields as an example to follow, it is becoming a hub for all social sciences. There have already been contributions in particular from political science and sociology.

The ReplicationWiki’s pages have been accessed more than 6.7 million times so far. It has been mentioned numerous times in the media, and more than 280 users from around the world have registered. As a wiki, it lives off the contributions of its users. We hope to encourage more users to contribute to this tool, or simply use it. In particular, one site feature that could become more valuable with higher participation is the ability to vote which studies should be replicated.