Project Description

Research syntheses are increasingly used in educational and behavioral sciences as a method to provide an evidence-based overview of relevant questions or topics. The evidence results from the complete systematic collection and selection of relevant publications and the structured synthesis of findings from the literature. A variety of methodological approaches have developed in this process, including new AI tools. The project aims to standardize the documentation of research syntheses and the heterogeneous data generated from them.

ForSynData addresses three challenges in the curation of research synthesis data: The heterogeneity of different types of research syntheses, the provision of data in different formats, and the use of semi-automated applications (AI tools) in research syntheses that generate new outcome, analysis and process data.

On the one hand, a standardization of the documentation of different types of research syntheses and their data formats will be developed in order to make this data available in the sense of open and FAIR research data in the long term. The output of the project provides a guideline for research data centers and researchers, comparable to STAMP (Standardized Data Management Plan for Educational Research). Secondly, the reuse potential of various research syntheses in the educational and behavioral sciences will be investigated in order to facilitate the use of existing infrastructures. To this end, a framework model for research data centers for curating research synthesis data will be developed that simplifies the sharing of data and its  reuse. The latter is achieved through standardized bibliographic information, comparable to initiatives that offer portals for the standardized preregistration and documentation of research synthesis data.

The project is aimed at researchers who act as data providers and need support in the transparent documentation and processing of FAIR data. The aim is to enable researchers to reuse the research synthesis data of others. To this end, the relevant research data must be searchable in order to evaluate it according to their own needs and use it in their own research design.

ForSynData is also aimed at research data centers that curate and provide research synthesis data in the educational sciences and psychology and act as an intermediary between data providers and data users of research syntheses.