STEP 10: Dissemination

Once a study has been pre-printed and/or published, the dissemination process does not necessarily end, and ARIADNE showcases the many ways in which you can continue to publicize or present your work (Bourne, 2007). It can be important to pursue additional dissemination strategies in order to reach as many people as possible to benefit from the new findings (Ross-Hellauer et al., 2020). Typically, the results should be presented at conferences in the form of talks or posters (Pain, 2022), and potentially circulated on online platforms (e.g., ➜ X or ➜ Mastodon). These dissemination forms might happen before or during Step 9 as part of the preprint upload, or even as early as Step 7 to get peer feedback on the freshly analyzed results. Generally, two target groups should be differentiated when it comes to dissemination: Other researchers and the general public. Regarding the latter, science communication journals can also be addressed (➜ In-Mind, ➜ Scientific American, ➜ APS Observer, ➜ APA Monitor on Psychology, or ➜ Gehirn und Geist), and usually the outreach offices of many institutions can be contacted to circulate a press release among regional and national news outlets. Ultimately, sharing open materials, including codes and data (Contaxis et al., 2022) with licenses, is highly favorable considering the rise in open science practices. The server’s privacy policies and the respective lawful basis (e.g., General Data Protection Regulation; Houtkoop et al., 2018, Peloquin et al., 2020) should be carefully considered when choosing an appropriate platform (➜ Open Science Framework, ➜ Zenodo, or ➜ PsychArchives). A wide-reach dissemination strategy is highly recommended. Eventually, research only has value when the methods and results leave the academic ivory tower (see Table 1) and are communicated to the general public and stakeholders.