Inside IES Research

Notes from NCER & NCSER

Celebrating the Launch of the Registry of Efficacy and Effectiveness Studies (REES)

The Registry of Efficacy and Effectiveness Studies (REES) is now ready for use! REES is a registry of causal impact studies in education developed with a grant from the National Center for Education Research (NCER). REES will increase transparency, improve the replicability of studies, and provide easy access to information about completed and ongoing studies.

The release of REES aligns with recent IES efforts to promote study registration. In the FY 2019 Requests for Applications (RFAs) for the Education Research and Special Education Research Grants Programs, IES recommended that applicants describe a plan for pre-registering their studies in both the project narrative (as part of the research) as well as the data management plan. IES is also developing the Standards for Excellence in Education Research (SEER) and has identified study registration as an important dimension of high value education research.

We asked the REES team to tell us more about how the registry works.

How can researchers access REES? REES can be accessed through the SREE website at www.sreereg.org. Over the next year, REES will transition to a permanent home at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan, but it will still be accessible through the SREE link.

Screenshot of REESWhat kinds of studies can be registered? REES is a registry of causal impact studies. It accommodates a range of study designs including randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental designs, regression discontinuity designs, and single case designs.

What information should be included in a study entry? A REES entry includes basic study information and a pre-analysis plan. The checklist of required information for a registry entry provides detailed information for each of the different design options. All of the information for a REES entry should be easily found in a grant application.

How long does it take to register a study? For a study with a complete grant application, completing a REES entry should be straightforward and take approximately one hour.

What if a study entry needs to be changed? Principal investigators (PI) or other authorized research team members should update a REES entry as changes occur. All updates to an entry will be time-stamped. Original entries and updated entries will be publically available.

Are registered studies searchable by the public? Yes! When a PI or authorized research team member is ready to make the study available in the public domain, they click on the publish option. This will time stamp the entry and make it publically available. REES entries that are published are available on the search page. A pdf of individual entries can be downloaded from the search page or an Excel file of multiple entries can be exported.

What will happen to studies that were entered in the pilot phase of REES? A REES entry that was started and/or completed during the pilot phase is a part of the REES database. To make the study publically available and a part of the searchable database, the PI or other authorized research team member needs to click on the publish option for the entry.

Over the next two years, the REES team will be working to ensure the sustainability and visibility of REES with a grant from the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER). To do this, the team will transfer REES to its permanent location on the ICPSR website and disseminate information about REES within the education research community, as well as with funders, publishers, and users of education research, through meetings, conferences, websites, social media, and targeted outreach.

So, what are you waiting for? Go check it out!

If you have questions about REES, please email contact@sreereg.org.