Reporting
Published results often lack important information that is necessary for a critical assessment, such as: B. Information on the study design and a precise description of the methods. Authors should therefore adhere to reporting guidelines such as ARRIVE and include all necessary information in their publication (source: BIH QUEST Center).
🔄 ARRIVE Guidelines - Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments
The ARRIVE guidelines were developed in consultation with the scientific community as part of an NC3Rs initiative to improve the standard of reporting on research involving animals ( link ). The ARRIVE guidelines are now available in a beta version 2.0 ( link ).
🔄 Equator Network - Find Report Policies
The EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) network provides a database of more than 400 reporting guidelines for all types of studies. The Equator Wizzard helps authors find the right reporting guidelines for their studies ( link ).
🔄 Recommendations for the publication of negative (or zero) results
This encouraging review article (Bespalov et al. 2019) describes a set of criteria that can help researchers publish technically sound, scientifically valuable negative (or null) results that come from rigorously designed and conducted studies ( link ) .
🔄 BIH QUEST: Fiddle
Fiddle is a tool developed by QUEST to combat publication bias. This "match-making" tool helps researchers find alternative ways of publishing information from well-designed experiments that are often difficult to publish in traditional journals (ie, zero or neutral results, datasets, etc.). These alternatives to traditional journals include data repositories, micro-publications, preprint publications, data journals, publication platforms and journals that are open to zero results ( link ).
🔄 FAIR guiding principles
In 2016, the "FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship" were published in Scientific Data. The authors intended to provide guidelines for improving the discoverability, accessibility, interoperability, and reuse of digital assets. The principles emphasize machine discoverability (i.e., the ability of computer systems to find, access, interact with, and reuse data with little or no human intervention) as humans increasingly rely on computer assistance to handle data due to the increase in volume, complexity, and speed of creation of data( link ).
🔄 Open access journals
The Berlin Quest Center has established a list of biomedical open access journals that adhere to certain quality standards. This is an excellent starting point if you want to search for suitable open access journals for your research area (link).
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a comprehensive database of Open Access journals for all research areas. The journals have to pass a quality review before they are listed in the DOAJ (link).
🔄 Open access publication costs
Most OA journals charge an "Article Processing Charges (APC)" as a condition of publication. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) provides a funding opportunity for Open Access publications from completed BMBF-funded projects. The so-called Post-Grant-Fund covers costs for publications after the end of a BMBF-funded project. Further information can be found on the BMBF website (link).
Heidelberg University supports scientists who publish articles in Open Access journals by means of a publication fund from which funds can be requested for the pro-rata payment of publication fees. More information can be found on the university's page (link).
🔄 Repositories for open data
Repositories allow you to upload any material collected with your research project (data or analysis scripts).
Zenodo: Supports DOI generation, citable and no size limit (link).
Figshare: Universally usable repository, but limited to 5 GB (link).
🔄 Preprint server
Preprint servers are used to publish a preliminary version of your publication prior to submission to a peer-reviewed journal. The advantage is that you can make your work visible early on and receive comments from others to further improve your work.
- bioRxiv - preprint server for biomedical science (link)
- PeerJ - preprint server for the areas: biology, environmental sciences, medical sciences, health sciences
and computer science (link)