The Society for Transparency, Openness, and Replication in Kinesiology (STORK) provides a platform for kinesiologists, movement scientists, sport and exercise scientists, physical activity and health scientists to come together to improve methods and practices within our respective disciplines. Anyone with an interest in improving kinesiology research, regardless of experience, is welcome to join. Whether you’re an educator, coach, practitioner, researcher, student, athlete, or consumer of science – you’re welcome. The only membership requirement is that you want to see Kinesiology and its related disciplines improve. STORK is a non-profit service organisation with the single goal of improving the quality of research in our respective fields.
To achieve this we aim to:
- Encourage researchers within this field to prioritize research quality over publication quantity. We believe in providing education to empower researchers at all levels to adopt more rigorous research practices such as pre-registration, replication, open sharing of data, and sharing working documents (i.e., preprints) for feedback. As part of this initiative, we will deliver workshops with universities and funders to help researchers identify questionable research practices within the context of an incentivized publishing system and to explain the potential solutions.
- Increase transparency in kinesiology research practices by encouraging and supporting the open sharing of code, data, materials and working documents. Progress towards this goal has been made via our partnership with the Open Science Framework, and the introduction of SportRxiv: The Open Access Subject Repository for Sport, Exercise, Performance and Health Research. Although the infrastructure is in place, we aim to increase adoption rates by establishing a welcoming community of kinesiology researchers.
- Promote alternative publishing models that reduce or eliminate the costs associated with sharing and accessing research. To achieve this we plan to create a community-driven, open-access, and free for STORK members journal. Developing a new journal, particularly one that removes article processing charges (APCs), will involve some organizational, administrative and financial challenges. Membership fees will contribute to the development and ongoing provision of this service.
- Bridge the Researcher-Practitioner divide. We aim to encourage more contact between researchers and practitioners by creating a forum for interested parties on both sides to communicate. Further, we aim to hold meetings and workshops around the world that are free-to-members sharing our results in an inclusive and cost-effective way.
- Encourage metascience and critical evaluations of research practices within Kinesiology. Science is only self-correcting when scientists are able to critically evaluate the way research is conducted. At STORK, we believe that the quality of research can be improved by scrutinizing current practices to help inform future advancements within the field.
Join STORK
Annual membership plans run from the 1st of January through to the 31st of December. We ask that new members provide an email address upon payment and although we do not immediately collect any form of demographic information, please expect to provide such information shortly.
We offer three membership options and encourage members to select the option that best fits their role/needs: Professional membership is $96; student membership is $60; and supporter membership is $36.
If you have any questions, please email secretary@STORKinesiology.org and we will get in touch as soon as possible.
More…
Please visit the STORK website for more information.
And read this informative article in FiveThirtyEight, in which the STORK initiative is presented by Christie Aschwanden.
