We are pleased to announce that the Australian Journal of Psychology, Australian Psychologist, Clinical Psychologist and Educational and Developmental Psychologist all now feature Open Science Badges and Registered Reports. These exciting new offerings increase the transparency and reproducibility of the journals’ published research, provide recognition for our authors, and showcase the forward-thinking of our journals. Open Science Badges and Registered Reports are optional for members. We hope you will take the opportunity to use these options in our journals.
What are Open Science Badges?
Open Science Badges (OSB) were designed by the Center for Open Science. Three Open Science Badges are currently available, subject to research meeting various assessment criteria (bit.ly/35QyUHA).
Data and materials can be shared via a university repository, registration on the Open Science Framework or an independent repository such as those listed at www.re3data.org. Registration is available through institutional registration systems such as ClinicalTrials.gov, Open Science Framework, AEA Registry and EGAP. If authors have met the criteria for more than one badge, they may apply for as many as applicable.
Why offer Open Science Badges?
There are several benefits to offering Open Science Badges. First, adopting the badges demonstrates a commitment to supporting open research practices, which authors across a range of subjects are increasingly expecting from the journals they submit to.
Second, it has been shown that implementing these badges can dramatically increase the rate of data sharing. A different study, conducted by the Center for Open Science, suggested that
offering Open Science Badges is associated with better open science practices.
Third, data sharing presents an opportunity to connect readers to the larger research agenda. As Professor Justin Kenardy, editor-in-chief of the Australian Journal of Psychology, says, “The data generated from a specific project can have a broader impact if it is shared rather than not. Making that data available to other readers allow and even invites conversation about that data, including how it contributes directly to the original or related research questions in other settings or contexts.
“Further, it has the potential to connect more explicitly researchers into a community with common goals with respect to an area of research. It also can become a stepping-off point for the authors into new areas of work by fostering these connections. Data sharing and Open Science have the potential to magnify the impact of the one published study into helping to address a much larger and more significant research question or simply to provide greater confidence by readers in the authors’ work.”
How do authors apply for a badge?
Once a paper has been submitted to a journal supporting Open Science Badges, authors will go through the following steps:
1. The author receives an automatic notice through the journal’s online submission site, making them aware the journal supports the Open Science Badges program and informing them they will have the opportunity to apply for these badges later in the peer-review process
2. At both revision and acceptance stages, authors will receive the Author Disclosure Form through the online submission site. Please note authors will be informed that only accepted papers are eligible to be awarded badges.
3. Authors wishing to apply for badges will complete the form and upload to the peer-review system, or email directly to the journal’s editorial office within 72 hours of acceptance (forms received after this 72-hour window cannot be processed). The editor will then assess the submission against the criteria set out by COS.
Authors can find out more about Open Science Badges on Author Services.
What are Registered Reports?
The Center for Open Science describes Registered Reports as “a publishing format… that emphasises the importance of the research question and the quality of methodology by conducting peer review prior to data collection”. In practice this means changing the way research is conducted and published.
What is the workflow?
Registered Reports changes the way that experiments are designed and conducted by breaking the peer-review process into two parts. The first round of peer review is much earlier in the process than the standard research workflow, after the experiment has been designed but before any data has been collected or analysed.
This workflow allows researchers to get feedback on both the question they are looking to answer, and the experiment they have designed to test it. The initial submission is peer reviewed on the basis of:
- the importance of the research question
- soundness and feasibility of the research question
- the level of methodological detail.
The journal can ask authors to make revisions, as well as making reject or accept decisions. Manuscripts that pass peer review will be issued an in-principle acceptance (IPA), indicating that the article will be published pending successful completion of the study according to the pre-registered methods and analytic procedures, as well as a defensible and evidence-based interpretation of the results.
Researchers are encouraged to publish their in-principle acceptance online (to register the research). One venue for this is with Center of Open Science. Researchers can then proceed with the data collection and analysis.
Once the data is collected and analysed, researchers may prepare their article for submission back to the journal for second stage peer review and publication. The second round of peer review checks the data, that the authors followed the experiment outlined in their first submission, and other basic checks before the article moves into the production process as usual.
One of the benefits of the Registered Reports workflow is that if an article passes the first stage peer review the journal will still publish the final report even if the hypothesis is not confirmed.
Journals offering this article type provide further information on how to submit and what to expect as part of the Instructions for Authors page on their website.
An FAQ with further details about the Registered Reports processes and policies can be found on Author Services.
If you have questions about open research, email Taylor & Francis: [email protected].