192: Outsourcing in academia

We're back! After a long break, we catch up on why it's been so long: Dan's promotion and James's new venture capital gig at Helena where he can argue about science for a living. Then it's on to how much meta-science has changed in the past six months. Dan talks about using MetaCheck and local LLMs to find out whether shared materials on OSF actually get downloaded (mostly yes) and James argues that reanalysing public data is now so cheap it barely counts as a paper. We also get into why real human data is gaining value, how to disclose AI use (Disclosure: AI was used to help create these notes, based on the recording), and why open-weight models at "temperature zero" make reproducibility of LMM output easier. We also cover the worry about outsourcing thinking, what LLMs mean for grants, and why data provenance is going to matter. Other links Helena The metacheck R package Dan's OSF downloads preprint Ollama for local LLM use The OpenAlex scholarly database

We discuss how living meta‑analyses—meta‑analyses that are continuously updated as new studies appear—can cut research waste and keep evidence current. We also chat about how using synthetic research participants is a terrible idea. Links The BMJ Christmas special paper on how recent is "recent" The synthetic panel service The paper describing a living meta-analysis platform for oxytocin research A preprint commentary on living meta-analysis Social media links Dan on Bluesky James on Bluesky Everything Hertz on Bluesky

We discuss whether preprint servers and journals should require author identity verification for submitting manuscripts. This would probably speed up the submission process, but is this worth the potential downsides? We also discuss the similarities and differences between academia and professional sports and a weird case of author identity theft. Other links The BJKS podcast https://bjks.buzzsprout.com Social media links Dan on Bluesky James on Bluesky Everything Hertz on Bluesky

Dan and James chat about a a new 'pop-up journal' concept for addressing specific research questions. They also answer a listener question from a journal grammar editor and discuss a new PNAS article on paper mills Links The pop-up journal The episode where Dan's wife went into labor The PNAS paper mill paper A blog post from the PNAS paper lead author, Reese Richardson. The Nature piece on the paper Social media links Dan on Bluesky James on Bluesky Everything Hertz on Bluesky Citation Quintana, D. S., & Heathers, J. (2025, August 7). 193: The pop-up journal, Everything Hertz [Audio podcast], DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/2ZMQ7

Dan and James answer listener questions on outsourcing in academia and differences in research culture between academic institutions and commercial institutions. Social media links Dan on Bluesky James on Bluesky Everything Hertz on Bluesky Citation Quintana, D. S., & Heathers, J. (2025, July 1). 192: Outsourcing in academia, Everything Hertz [Audio podcast], DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/3MC2R

James and Dan discuss James' newly funded 'Medical Evidence Project', whose goal is to find questionable medical evidence that is contaminating treatment guidelines. Links James' blog post from last year The carthorse child blog post The blog post announcing the project A write up in Nature about the project Other links Dan on Bluesky James on Bluesky Everything Hertz on Bluesky Citation Quintana, D. S., & Heathers, J. (2025, June 4). 191: Cleaning up contaminated medical treatment guidelines Everything Hertz [Audio podcast], DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/537BN

We chat about two new studies that took different approaches for evaluating the impact of paying reviewers on peer review speed and quality. Links James' 450 movement proposal The paper from Critical Care Medicine The preprint from Biology Open Other links Dan on Bluesky James on Bluesky Everything Hertz on Bluesky Citation Quintana, D. S., & Heathers, J. (2025, April 2). 190: What happens when you pay reviewers?, Everything Hertz [Audio podcast], DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/PHQ2K

Dan and James discuss a recent piece that proposes a post-publication review process, which is triggered by citation counts. They also cover how an almetrics trigger could be alternatively used for a more immediate post-publication critique. Links The Chonicle piece by Andrew Gelman and Andrew King [Free to read with email registration] The paper by Peder Isager and collegues on how to decide what papers we should replicate. Here is the preprint. The ERROR project Other links Everything Hertz on Bluesky Dan on Bluesky James on Bluesky Everything Hertz on Bluesky Citation Quintana, D. S., & Heathers, J. (2025, Mar 2). 189: Crit me baby, one more time, Everything Hertz [Audio podcast], DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/3X5UR

Dan and James discuss a recent editorial which argues that double-blind peer review is detrimental to scientific integrity. Links The editorial from Christopher Mebane: https://doi.org/10.1093/etojnl/vgae046 Other links Everything Hertz on Bluesky Dan on Bluesky James on Bluesky Everything Hertz on Bluesky Support us on Patreon and get bonus stuff! $1 per month: A 20% discount on Everything Hertz merchandise, access to the occasional bonus episode, and the the warm feeling you're supporting the show $5 per month or more: All the stuff you get in the one dollar tier PLUS a bonus episode every month Citation Quintana, D. S., & Heathers, J. (2025, Jan 30). Double-blind peer review vs. scientific integrity, Everything Hertz [Audio podcast], DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/6XS29

We chat about the events that started the replication crisis in psychology and Dorothy Bishop's recent resignation from the Royal Society Links The resignation blogpost from Dorothy Bishop The bluesky post from Sarah Weiten that asked the question, "If you had to cite an event that opened the "replication crisis" era, what would you point to?" The "Year of Horrors" paper from Eric-Jan Wagenmakers Other links Everything Hertz on Bluesky Dan on Bluesky James on Bluesky Everything Hertz on Bluesky Support us on Patreon and get bonus stuff! $1 per month: A 20% discount on Everything Hertz merchandise, access to the occasional bonus episode, and the the warm feeling you're supporting the show $5 per month or more: All the stuff you get in the one dollar tier PLUS a bonus episode every month Citation Quintana, D. S., & Heathers, J. (2024, Dec 3). 187: What started the replication crisis era?, Everything Hertz [Audio podcast], DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/EC7QH