Update index.rst

docs/index.rst

@@ -4,13 +4,8 @@ Editors: Sage Boettcher | Dejan Draschkow  | Jona Sassenhagen | Martin Schultze
 
 Contributors: Aylin Kallmayer | Leah Kumle 
 
-Open Science requires more than conviction and good intentions: it is not only a philosophy, but also a technical skillset and knowledge base. Open Science practices -- e.g., data management and sharing, transparent and open-source software, and preregistering projects -- present a steep learning curve. Undeveloped incentive structures shift scientists’ priorities away from these initially time-consuming processes, despite saving a significant amount of time in the long run. Establishing Open Science practices can only succeed if acquired as an essential part of general methodological skill building, i.e., in the first undergraduate classes -- combined with the acquisition of canonised methodological knowledge (e.g., on experimental design or statistical analysis). To facilitate teaching -- as well as practicing -- Open Science, for both junior and senior scientists, we will develop a comprehensive online textbook, combining a state-of-the-art presentation of core methodological skills already embedded in Open Science practices.
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-The text will unify scientific theory, open science, and the practical skills necessary to conduct research into a single framework. Theoretical and practical lessons will go hand in hand, e.g. the proper ways of pre-registering a study, counterbalancing experimental stimuli with Python and the underlying theory of experimental design, determining sampling size using R, and publishing the created code. Students will learn about version control and sustainable data management, while building up their skillset and codebase.
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-In the spirit of Open Science, the book will be hosted on a GitHub repository, open for contributions. This eliminates the need for multiple editions, and a simple text, markup-based structure allows straight-forward conversion into multiple formats, from HTML to ePub or PDF. After establishing the core components and sections on fundamental topics, we will invite experts from different domains to contribute. Contributors will be able to create associated repositories with teaching materials for specialized cases.
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-The dynamic nature of a GitHub-based website allows searchable content, a modular structure, combined with an overarching narrative. Students can complete all necessary steps for preparing, conducting, and presenting scientific work. Our aim is to provide a standalone fully-comprehensible online book that can be integrated into different teaching formats: assisting lectures, theoretical seminars, practical workshops, student-organized tutorials, or self-paced online learning. We hope this resource will change the skillsets and thinking of developing researchers early on. We believe such a project is essential to achieving transparent, open, and reproducible scientific disciplines.  
+The movement towards open and reproducible science prides itself on its grassroots and bottom-up development. However, even in these transformative times, most junior scientists will not discover the value and functional nature of transparent scientific practice before their graduate studies. This discovery is accompanied by transition costs, bad practices, and wasted time. Our project aims at placing open and reproducible scientific methods at the heart of scientific education - the first undergraduate years. To accomplish this we will establish and edit a teaching book covering not only the theoretical foundations of scientific methods for social and cognitive sciences, but also the practical skills necessary for  transparent practice.  
+It will offer standard text book knowledge accompanied by, but also presented via challenging and entertaining practical sessions in the programming environments R and Python – both of which are open source and freely available. The dynamic nature of a GitHub-based website will allow this resource to be both searchable with autonomous sections, while still including a narrative - students will be able to complete all the necessary steps for preparing, conducting and presenting scientific work. We aim at providing a standalone fully-comprehensible online book with the ability to be integrated in different teaching formats: e.g., assisting lectures, theoretical seminars, practical workshops, student-organized tutorials, or self-paced online learning. We hope this resource will change the skillsets and thinking of developing researchers early on and see such a project as essential to achieving transparent, open and reproducible scientific disciplines.   
 
 Chapters
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