Between December 15, 2017 and January 31, 2018, BITSS surveyed the editors of 76 academic journals which at the time, accepted submissions in the Registered Report (RR) format. Find summary statistics of the results in this document.
BITSS hosted a Research Transparency and Reproducibility Training (RT2) in Washington DC, September 11-13, 2019. This was the eighth training event of this kind organized by BITSS since 2014.
RT2 provides participants with an overview of tools and best practices for transparent and reproducible social science research. Click here to videos of presentations given during the training. Find slide decks and other useful materials on this OSF project page (https://osf.io/3mxrw/).
Prepared by BITSS, this literature review includes information on the distinguishing features and advantages of registered reports, as well as challenges involved in its implementation.
This presentation by Ted Miguel was given at the Transparency, Reproducibility and Credibility Research Symposium at the World Bank on 9/10/2019. You can find videos of other talks from the Symposium in this playlist.
BITSS prepared a template to assist authors in the preparation of their Stage 1 Proposal submissions to the Journal of Development Economics. The template expands on features that are commonly reported in pre-analysis plans in development economics, and includes a checklist to help authors record different parts of the research design.
As part of a pilot project, the Journal of Development Economics (JDE) now offers authors the opportunity to submit empirical research designs for review and approval before the results of the study are known. The pre-results review track is designed to award well-designed and well-executed studies regardless of whether their empirical results yield clear interpretations.
Learn more about the pilot in this blog post by JDE Editors Andrew Foster and Dean Karlan, and BITSS Faculty Director Edward Miguel.
The Center for Open Science (COS) has put together a portal containing information about the registered reports format of peer review and publication. The portal includes general information about registered reports, a list of journals that have implemented the format, an explanation of an appropriate workflow, resources for journal editors, motivation for funders, FAQs, and a list of allied initiatives, inlcuding those that focus on results-blind review and Exploratory Reports.
A preprint by Tom Hardwicke and John Ioannidis. Abstract: Selection pressures for significant results may infuse bias into the research process. We evaluated the implementation of one innovation designed to mitigate this bias, ‘Registered Reports’, where study protocols are peer-reviewed and granted in-principle acceptance (IPA) for publication before the study has been conducted. As of February 2018, 91 journals had adopted Registered Reports and 91 Final Reports had been published. Psychology journals are the principal adopters, but expansion has begun into medicine, social science, and other fields. Among 29 journals that responded to a survey, 334 protocols had been submitted to them, 87 had been granted IPA and 32 Final Reports had been published or were in press as of July 2017. We encountered several sub-optimal implementation practices, including non-availability of IPA protocols, and diverse approaches to protocol registration in the absence of a single central registry. Registered Reports should be iteratively evaluated and improved to ensure maximal benefits.
The Royal Society Open Science is a fast, open journal publishing high quality research across all of science, engineering and mathematics. A Registered Report (RR) is a form of journal article in which methods and proposed analyses are pre-registered and peer-reviewed prior to research being conducted (stage 1). High quality protocols are then provisionally accepted for publication before data collection commences. The format is open to attempts of replication as well as novel studies. Once the study is completed, the author will finish the article including results and discussion sections (stage 2). This will be appraised by the reviewers, and provided necessary conditions are met, will be published.
Dr. Felix Schönbrodt’s blog promoting research transparency and open science.
Chris Chambers is a psychologist and neuroscientist at the School of Psychology, Cardiff University. He created this blog after taking part in a debate about science journalism at the Royal Institution in March 2012. The aim of his blog is give you some insights from the trenches of science. He talks about a range of science-related issues and may even give up a trade secret or two.
