Emeritus Professor Geoff Cumming has dedicated his career to making statistics accessible and enhancing the rigor of scientific research through Open Science.
Open Science involves sharing scientific knowledge, data, and methods openly with both the scientific community and the public.
“Over the last decade, Open Science research practices have been spreading across a range of scientific fields, in response to recognising that many published research findings were simply wrong,” says Emeritus Professor Cumming.
“Open Science helps to ensure transparency, reproducibility and collaboration required for rigorous research. We strongly encourage the adoption of Open Science, especially by helping beginning students to understand the statistical and other research practices needed for Open Science.”
Emeritus Professor Cumming and colleague, Professor Robert Calin-Jageman, authored the introductory textbook ‘The New Statistics: Estimation, Open Science, & Beyond’ aimed at beginning students.
“This is the first introductory statistics textbook to use an estimation approach from the start to help readers understand effect sizes, confidence intervals and meta-analysis (‘the new statistics’). It is also the first introductory text to explain the new and exciting Open Science practices,” he says.
“Most efforts to promote these concepts have focused on those already in the research field, however, beginning students are the future of research and should be learning these things now. We find they easily grasp the basics of Open Science.”
“We are currently working on a new edition of the textbook, with the most notable feature being much improved software for data analysis with an emphasis on ‘the new statistics’.”
