Editor's Column
Tara Behrend
I’m writing this, my first column as editor, from the conference hotel after a whirlwind annual conference. During the week, I learned just how important TIP is to SIOP members. Two stories in particular stand out to me. 1. In a preconference event, I heard a story from Walter Reichman about how he first met his longtime collaborator Stuart Carr. Walter was working as a consultant and thinking about his professional direction. He had become very interested in international development but hadn’t considered how this interest might overlap with I-O. Walter picked up the newest issue of TIP, and came across an article by Stu, entitled “I-O Psychology and Poverty Reduction—Past, Present, and Future.” Walter cold called Stu to discuss, and that meeting became the impetus for Humanitarian Work Psychology. They credit the birth of this organization and research area to meeting each other through the pages of TIP. 2. Later that same afternoon, I heard a talk from Sean Cruse. He described the process by which he obtained his current position at the United Nations Global Compact. Turns out, he first learned about the organization from an article in TIP, and he called the article’s author to find out more. That call turned into an internship, which turned into a job, which turned into a 10-year career.
These two stories capture the essence of TIP. It is a publication that allows us to connect with each other: to learn about new ideas, new opportunities, and new challenges that face our field. I have no doubt that many of you have similar stories about reading TIP. Feel free to tweet them at me, where they will promptly be lost forever because I don’t know how to use Twitter yet (I’m learning!). Or you can email your stories to me instead: behrend@gwu.edu. Tell me what your favorite TIP article is and why you love it.
Open Access
TIP is also important because it is SIOP’s only open-access publication. That is powerful. Open access is so important to scientific progress that the Netherlands is using its turn as head of the European Union to push for it. In these pages, anyone with a desire to do so can connect with the great minds of our field to do their best work. This is also our venue for sharing information and resources with the public, and I hope you will take advantage of it.
Openness is critically important to the science and practice of I-O psychology. This issue of TIP has several important articles that focus on this theme and help move us forward in thinking about this issue and developing good habits. First, Chris Baker, Frank Bosco, Krista Uggerslev, and Piers Steel report on their metaBUS tool. MetaBUS is a free resource available to researchers and practitioners that is showing how openness can change the field profoundly though meta-analyses. Second, you can find in this issue a Call for Proposals for updated rankings of I-O psychology graduate programs, from Nick Salter, Joseph Allen, Allison Gabriel, Dave Sowinski, and Loren Naidoo. This initiative will stand apart from previous rankings because multiple teams will preregister their methods, collect data independently, and share it with others. By following open practices, we will learn about how differences in methodologies may change our conclusions about graduate program quality. Finally, the Scientific Affairs Committee has written a terrific call to action for all SIOP members to reflect on what SIOP’s contributions to good scientific practice can be. I’m delighted to share these articles with you and hope they set the stage for further conversations.
Changes to Format and Content
You may have noticed something different about the look of TIP this month. We are saying goodbye to the flipbook and presenting articles in fully html format. In the coming months and years, you will see some more changes to the look of TIP. We will continue to move toward becoming a truly online publication, with html articles that allow for videos, links, and interactive features embedded. In my next column, I’ll share some data about how TIP is being read, shared, and cited, and how I hope to use this data to make additional changes over time.
I encourage you to use these changes in the publication to change your own habits about how you read TIP. Are you a skimmer? A searcher? As an experiment, try reading it “cover to cover.” (Do web pages have covers? Perhaps not.) See what you discover about the inspiring work your colleagues are doing.
Frequently Asked Questions
I appreciate the warm welcome I have received from SIOP members. I’m all the more excited about this gig, knowing that TIP is so valued. I have received some terrific questions, too, which I’d like to answer here in a quick Frequently Asked Questions section:
Q: Hey! What happened to my favorite column? You monster!
A: Don’t worry. Some columns have changed in frequency, but none are going away altogether. Plus, there are terrific new columns to win your heart: check out Crash Course in Technology; Lost in Translation; Getting to Know SIOP Award Winners; and Learning About Learning!
Q: Will you bring back paper copies of TIP?
A: No.
Q: Why not!
A: It is still technologically challenging to print a video, as far as I know.
Q: Can you write a piece about X topic?
A: No, but you can! Send me your best work.
Q: How can I help TIP?
A: Writing an article would be a great start. Case studies, news, ideas, and opinions of broad interest to the SIOP community are welcome. Consider getting in touch with a regular column editor and collaborating on a column if you have an idea that will fit with their vision. Or, volunteer as a peer reviewer.
In This Issue
This issue has a lot of content you should read. As mentioned above, three feature articles are organized around a special theme of Openness. Additionally, Stephanie Payne and Joy Oliver report out on the updated Guidelines for Education and Training in I-O Psychology. The LGBT Committee (Katina Sawyer, Larry Martinez, Nicholas Smith, and Steve Discont, with Jayden Thai) gives a comprehensive overview of issues that affect trans people in the workplace. Ted Axton, Ben Porr, Soner Dumani, and Meredith Ferro give an update on member survey results relating to licensure issues. The team from PTC/MW, DC’s local I-O group, reports on their successful annual graduate student consulting challenge. Jeffrey Cucina and Fresia Jackson update Landy’s (1997) psychology family trees with recent SIOP presidents.
There are some new editorial columns making their debut in this issue. Richard Landers begins his “Crash Course in Technology” series by giving us a crash course in the r programming language. Amy DuVernet and Tom Whelan kick off “Learning About Learning,” which will cover the intersections of I-O and learning and development, highlighting what we can learn from each other. Liberty Munson and Garett Howardson’s “Getting to Know SIOP’s Award Winners” will let us get close to the brilliant folks who win SIOP’s awards by presenting interviews with a personal touch. “Lost in Translation” from Andrew Collmus and Michael Litano will help us with the eternal struggle of communicating about I-O to a variety of non-I-O audiences. These new columnists join our existing team of columnists and bring light to some important and broad-reaching issues.
I hope you will read this whole issue of TIP to discover something you weren’t looking for. There are reports from SIOP’s committees, special initiatives, and officers. There are survey results and data analyses. There are announcements galore. In short, this issue of TIP will help you do your job better. It will make you a more well-rounded professional and probably a better person. Don’t skip it.
I’ll close here with a too-brief note of thanks to Morrie Mullins, outgoing editor, for leaving TIP in such good shape and for all his wise advice and assistance to date. Although I was initially skeptical about some of his advice, it is already proving to be true. He warned me that I might lose sleep about TIP. I scoffed at the very idea! Until last night, when I found myself wondering what color would be best for the web headings as I drifted off to sleep.