“3.5.7 Registered reports and open practices badges

One possible way to incorporate all the information listed above and to combat the stigma against papers that report nonsignificant findings is through the implementation of Registered Reports or rewarding transparent research practices. Registered Reports are empirical articles designed to eliminate publication bias and incentivize best scientific practice. Registered Reports are a form of empirical article in which the methods and the proposed analyses are preregistered and reviewed prior to research being conducted. This format is designed to minimize bias, while also allowing complete flexibility to conduct exploratory (unregistered) analyses and report serendipitous findings. The cornerstone of the Registered Reports format is that the authors submit as a Stage 1 manuscript an introduction, complete and transparent methods, and the results of any pilot experiments (where applicable) that motivate the research proposal, written in the future tense. These proposals will include a description of the key research question and background literature, hypotheses, experimental design and procedures, analysis pipeline, a statistical power analysis, and full description of the planned comparisons. Submissions, which are reviewed by editors, peer reviewers and in some journals, statistical editors, meeting the rigorous and transparent requirements for conducting the research proposed are offered an in?principle acceptance, meaning that the journal guarantees publication if the authors conduct the experiment in accordance with their approved protocol. Many journals publish the Stage 1 report, which could be beneficial not only for citations, but for the authors’ progress reports and tenure packages. Following data collection, the authors prepare and resubmit a Stage 2 manuscript that includes the introduction and methods from the original submission plus their obtained results and discussion. The manuscript will undergo full review; referees will consider whether the data test the authors’ proposed hypotheses by satisfying the approved outcome?neutral conditions, will ensure the authors adhered precisely to the registered experimental procedures, and will review any unregistered post hoc analyses added by the authors to confirm they are justified, methodologically sound, and informative. At this stage, the authors must also share their data (see also Wiley’s Data Sharing and Citation Policy) and analysis scripts on a public and freely accessible archive such as Figshare and Dryad or at the Open Science Framework. Additional details, including template reviewer and author guidelines, can be found by clicking the link to the Open Science Framework from the Center for Open Science (see also94).

The authors who practice transparent and rigorous science should be recognized for this work. Funders can encourage and reward open practice in significant ways (see https://wellcome.ac.uk/what?we?do/our?work/open?research). One way journals can support this is to award badges to the authors in recognition of these open scientific practices. Badges certify that a particular practice was followed, but do not define good practice. As defined by the Open Science Framework, three badges can be earned. The Open Data badge is earned for making publicly available the digitally shareable data necessary to reproduce the reported results. These data must be accessible via an open?access repository, and must be permanent (e.g., a registration on the Open Science Framework, or an independent repository at www.re3data.org). The Open Materials badge is earned when the components of the research methodology needed to reproduce the reported procedure and analysis are made publicly available. The Preregistered badge is earned for having a preregistered design, whereas the Preregistered+Analysis Plan badge is earned for having both a preregistered research design and an analysis plan for the research; the authors must report results according to that plan. Additional information about the badges, including the necessary information to be awarded a badge, can be found by clicking this link to the Open Science Framework from the Center for Open Science….”