About DART

 

DA-RT has no formal organization chart. It began in 2010, as an Ad Hoc Committee of the American Political Science Association. As of today, it has no formalized membership. DA-RT is more accurately concieved as an idea rather than an institution. If you want to be part of it, you are. 

 

DA-RT has a diffuse leadership structure. Many different people have contributed to the efforts and outcomes described on this site. Arthur Lupia, Colin Elman, and Diana Kapiszewski made this website. The American Political Science Association has provided staff support for the efforts listed below. Syracuse University and the University of Michigan have provided important support for our efforts and events. Dozens of scholars have participated in DA-RT events as presenters or to offer commentary and insight.

 

From 2010 to 2012, DART scholars worked with the American Political Science Association leadership, council, staff, and several committees to introduct DA-RT principles into APSA's ethics guide.

 

The text of the ethics guide changes was drafted by an Ad Hoc Committee, which consisted of Arthur Lupia (University of Michigan), Colin Elman (Syracuse University), George C. Alter (University of Michigan), Brian D. Humes (National Science Foundation), Diana Kapiszewski (Georgetown University), Rose McDermott (Brown University), Ron Rogowski (University of California, Los Angeles), S. Laurel Weldon (Purdue University), and Rick Wilson (Rice University).

 

The suggested changes were reviewed and amended by APSA’s Committee on Professional Ethics, Rights, and Freedoms, which consisted of Richard G.C. Johnston (University of British Columbia), Michael Lienesch (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill ), Marion Smiley (Brandeis University), Philip A. Schrodt (Parus Analytics), Sarah Birch (University of Glasgow), and Christian Davenport (University of Michigan). At the spring 2012 APSA Council Meeting in Chicago, the council adopted by acclamation the language put forward by the Ethics Committee as APSA policy. For more on these changes and how they were developed, see Lupia and Elman (2014). 

 

The changes to the ethics guide represented a single, coherent set of general principles that apply across the research traditions.  However, it was understood from the outset that DA-RT is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. There was a strong expectation that different research traditions would instantiate the general principles differently.  Accordingly, the APSA Council authorized the DA-RT Ad Hoc Committee to develop more fine grained guidance for DA-RT in different research traditions.  Two sub-committees were formed to draft guidelines and to coordinate feedback from the political science community.  

The quantitative sub-committee was chaired by George Alter (University of Michigan and Director of ICPSR), and also included Arthur Lupia (University of Michigan), Brian Humes (National Science Foundation), Gary King (Harvard University), Christopher Zorn (Pennsylvania State University), Rick K. Wilson (Rice University), Michael Alvarez (Caltech), Dara Strolovitch (University of Minnesota), Thomas Carsey (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), and Valerie Martinez-Ebers (APSR and University of North Texas). The qualitative sub-committee was chaired by Colin Elman (Syracuse University), and also included Diana Kapiszewski (Georgetown University), Rose McDermott (Brown University), Andrew Moravcsik (Princeton University), Brian Humes (National Science Foundation), Elizabeth Saunders (George Washington University), and Marc Trachtenberg (UCLA).

Some of the activities just mentioned, as well as the guidelines that these two sub-committees drafted, were documented in the January 2014 edition of PS: Political Science and Politics.

 

The following scholars contributed to the 2014 PS Symposium: Arthur Lupia (University of Michigan), Colin Elman (Syracuse University), George Alter (ICPSR), Diana Kapiszewski (Georgetown University), Thomas Carsey (University of North Carolina), Allan Dafoe (Yale University), John Ishiyama (American Political Science Review lead editor), Rose McDermott (Brown University), and Andrew Moravcsik (Princeton University). 

 

Following the publication of the symposium, individual scholars, journal editors, publishers, and professional organizations sought advice about how to build infrastructure and create incentives for greater openness and transparency. At one of these endeavors, held in September 2014 in Ann Arbor Michigan, a group of leading journal editors proposed a joint statement that would articulate a shared commitment to making greater openness and transparency a more valued and central part of political science publications.

 

The 2014 workshop that led to the Journal Editors Transparency Statement (aka, JETS) was attended by: George Alter (ICPSR), Michael Alvarez (California Institute of Technology), Phillip Ardoin (Appalachian State University), Neal Beck (New York University), Sara Bowman (Center for Open Science), Janet Box-Steffensmeier (Ohio State University), Elaine Brock (University of Michigan), Tom Carsey (University of North Carolina), Logan Casey (University of Michigan), Eleni Castro (Harvard University), Louise Corti (University of Essex), Jesse Crosson (University of Michigan), Colin Elman (Syracuse University), Leah Fargotstein (Sage Publications), Jeremy Gelman (University of Michigan), Paul Gronke (Reed College), Macartan Humphreys (Columbia University), Paul Huth (University of Maryland), John Ishiyama (University of North Texas), William G. Jacoby (Michigan State University), Julia Kamin (University of Michigan), Diana Kapiszewski (Georgetown University), Ronald Kassimir (Social Science Research Council), Jonathan N. Katz (California Institute of Technology), Arthur Lupia (University of Michigan), Sean Lynn-Jones (Harvard University), Walter Mebane (University of Michigan), Andrew Moravcsik (Princeton University), James Moskowitz (Indiana University), Elizabeth Moss (ICPSR), Brian Nosek (University of Virginia), David J. Samuels (University of Minnesota), Steven Rathgeb Smith (American Political Science Association), Barbara Walthall (American Political Science Association), and Mark Zadrozny (Cambridge University Press).

 

Activities to clarify, instantiate, and incentivize greater sharing and openness continue. The number of journals joining on to the DA-RT statement continues to grow and a number of scholars who played central roles in the activities listed above helped to design and produce the Center for Open Science's TOP (Transparency and Openness Promotion) Guidelines in 2015.

 

At the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, there were numerous panels and associated meetings and conversation about DA-RT, JETS, and implications for the conduct of research and academic publishing. The events revealed a great deal of enthusiasm for the project, noteworthy sources of anxiety about the proposed changes, a substantial dose of misinformation, and new attempts to build multimethod and multiepistemic understandings of viable ways to increase openness and transparency. Read more about our views of these events here.

 

For questions about the content of this website or questions about the past, present or future of DA-RT, please contact Colin Elman, Diana Kapiszewski or Arthur Lupia.