In advance of Valentine’s Day, here’s a pitch for a timely rom-com: a pair of healthcare workers have been ‎in an on-again and off-again relationship for years, never quite settling down, in part because of his fear of ‎commitment. While on a bit of a break, the pandemic hits and between demands of work and social ‎distancing, they’re never quite able to connect and they both wonder what their future holds. Then, a ‎twist: a long-lost uncle dies, very publicly leaving her a sizable fortune. Soon thereafter, the pair meet up, ‎and he professes his undying love and desire to finally marry. But she has her doubts: is this change of ‎heart real or borne out of an interest in her newfound wealth? She spurns him, and he walks off, dejected. ‎Just then, a postal carrier arrives with a bundle of long-delayed mail, weeks overdue. On top of the pile ‎rests a letter, from him, postmarked well before her uncle’s death, wherein he bares his heart and tells her ‎he wants to be with her forever. Clutching the letter, she chases him down. They embrace. The end.‎

So that’s research preregistration: researchers outline in a public and/or time-stamped manner their intentions, ‎including hypothesis, protocols, and statistical analysis plan, prior to conducting the research. As Olevska ‎and co-authors describe in their recent article “Ensuring Reproducible Research Requires a Support ‎Infrastructure: The Value of Public Registries to Publishers”, preregistration of research can be a useful ‎tool to combat “often unintentional and questionable research practices such as p-hacking and HARKing.” ‎Exploratory analyses of generated data are important and essential for new discoveries, but the authors ‎advocate for greater support of preregistration for preclinical and fundamental research by journals to ‎promote greater transparency and reproducibility.‎

This call for an active role for journals comes from the fact that preregistration for clinical trials is a ‎scientific publishing success story. Since 2005, any researcher who wants to publish their clinical trial in a ‎journal that belongs to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (i.e., every ‎prominent medical journal) needs to ensure that their trial is registered on a public registry, such as ‎clinicaltrials.gov, prior to patient enrollment. At the time this was implemented, preregistration was still ‎relatively new, but the requirement worked and trial registration increased significantly soon after the ‎mandate went into effect. Nowadays most authors are aware of this requirement, but the occasional trial ‎goes unregistered and editors must make the tough call to reject what may otherwise be a decent ‎manuscript.

Because they involve human subjects, the argument for strictly requiring registration of clinical trials is ‎strong, but even if journals stop short of requiring that all research be preregistered, Olevska and co-‎authors outline ways that journals can integrate preregistration into the publication process that will ‎encourage and support researchers who do. Researchers and journals, standing together, embracing ‎preregistration. The end?‎

-Jonathan Schultz
Editor-in-Chief, Science Editor

Not a CSE member or still need to renew? Now’s the time! Membership info along with instructions for ‎becoming a member of the Council of Science Editors can be found here.‎

Recent Early Online Articles

Statistical review is becoming an essential component of rigorous peer review. It’s also a process that ‎needs its own infrastructure and support to be successful; without these, you’ll either spend weeks looking ‎for stat reviewers or burn out the few that have agreed to help. In his recent interview with Anna Jester, ‎Dr. Leonard Jack, Jr, Editor-in-Chief of the CDC’s Preventing Chronic Disease journal shares how they have ‎established their statistics review committee both to provide reliable and careful statistical review, but also ‎as a working group to “disseminate the best statistical methods and testing available in public health.” The ‎full interview is here: Dr Leonard Jack, Jr: Preventing Chronic Disease Through Statistical Rigor

Hot Articles from Recent Issues (For CSE Members Only)

As a CSE member benefit, once Science Editor articles are moved to an issue, they are available only to CSE ‎Members for one year. ‎

If you really consider it, there’s a good chance your organization is not running as effectively as it should. ‎In publishing, so much has changed in the last decade or so that workflows that made sense even a few ‎years ago may be bloated or inefficient now. Making changes can be challenging, especially in scientific ‎publishing where we are always effectively in the middle of some process or schedule. If and when you do ‎get a chance to adjust your internal procedures, you may find this recent article by the Editorial Services ‎Team at the United States Pharmacopeia helpful as they walk through each step in their process, from ‎surveys through implementation, and provide their top 5 recommendations: Workflow and Team ‎Optimization for Editorial Services Within the United States Pharmacopeia

Not a CSE member? Additional membership info along with instructions for becoming a member of the ‎Council of Science Editors can be found here. ‎

Resource of the Month

Many (hopefully most) journals now require that authors include a data availability statement in their ‎articles, clearly stating how to access or request underlying data (or not, in some cases). Just the act of ‎requiring this statement can help promote good data sharing and encourage authors to pay attention to ‎this underappreciated aspect. But not all Data Availability Statements are equal, with some authors ‎providing vague and unhelpful statements. To help authors write better, more informative statements, I ‎recommend this blog post by Tristan Matthews (@TrisCurator) from Springer Nature with Tips for Writing a ‎Dazzling DAS (Data Availability Statement) and examples from the Center for Open Science as part of the ‎TOP Guidelines.‎

Special Recognition

Without an in-person CSE Annual Meeting last year, we were robbed of the opportunity to give the ‎recipients of the CSE Award for Meritorious Achievement, the CSE Distinguished Service Award, and the ‎CSE Certificates of Appreciation a well-deserved round of applause. Instead, be sure to check out the CSE’s ‎‎2020 Awards and Honors recap from the Winter issue and raise a glass to the honorees as you read about ‎their accomplishments and contributions. Huzzah!‎

Feedback and suggestions are always welcome at scienceeditor@councilscienceeditors.org.

We are also always looking for new submissions or article suggestions you may have; for more details, see our Information for Authors.