The Coordinating Committee for the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines and the Center for Open Science are seeking candidates for the position of Chairperson to lead the committee and promote its mission.
The TOP Guidelines, published in Science in 2015, consist of eight policies that journals, publishers, and funders can adopt in one of three tiers of increasing rigor to improve scientific practice. TOP has been widely supported in the scientific community, with nearly 5,000 signatory organizations and implemented in over 850 journals.
The mission of the TOP Coordinating Committee is to maintain the standards, improve or revise recommended policy as needed, advocate for increased adoption of TOP policies, and evaluate their effectiveness or support their evaluation by external parties. Continued assessment of current TOP policy implementations is expected, as are new activities to increase policy implementation.
The Chair will be charged with leading the Coordinating Committee and establishing guidelines for Committee activities. The Chair will use resources provided by the Center for Open Science to advance the mission of the Committee including logistical support and personnel hours for related activities.
Qualifications for the position include knowledge of issues leading to calls for increased transparency and rigor in scientific practice, including publishing, funding, or hiring practices. Knowledge of some of the following areas is required: open data, code, and materials; data citation practices; reporting guidelines, preregistration in basic or preclinical sciences; replication research; or Registered Reports. Demonstrated leadership within a scientific discipline is required. Experience in implementing policy in areas of publishing, funding, or hiring practices is desired, as is experience outside of North America or Western Europe.
The term of the Chair is two years and can be renewed at the end of term with approval of the Committee.
Candidates will be selected for interviews with members of Coordinating Committee. This is a volunteer service position with no compensation, though occasional support for travel may be provided pending resource availability.
Applications should include a brief cover letter describing the vision for the future of the TOP Guidelines and a CV, and be sent to David Mellor (david@cos.io) by October 1, 2018. Inquiries or nominations are welcome.
About the Center for Open Science
The Center for Open Science (COS) is a non-profit technology startup founded in 2013 with a mission to increase openness, integrity, and reproducibility of scientific research. COS pursues this mission by building communities around open science practices, supporting meta-science research, and developing and maintaining open source software tools. COS communities include a Board that oversees the COS mission, an ambassador program, and advisory committees that support Registered Reports, Open Science Badges, the TOP Guidelines, and our Preprint communities. Learn more at cos.io and osf.io.
