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Publishing Options and Opportunities: Publishing beyond journals and books

Data

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Registered Reports

Preregistration and registered reports are similar models, and both create a time-stamped, non-modifiable, public record of a study and analysis plan before data collection and analysis.

An important distinction between these forms and the more widespread concept of clinical trial registration is that the latter may not require the registration of a study's analysis protocol, the initially registered study design is not generally peer reviewed, and publication of the results is not dependent on the study being carried out as initially described.

Preregistration

With preregistered research articles there is a single published output, but it is peer-reviewed in two stages.

Stage 1: Researchers submit a protocol including the hypothesis, methodology and materials.  The protocol is reviewed and accepted in-principle on the condition that the study is executed as approved.

Stage 2: Researchers complete the study and add the results and discussion to their approved Stage 1 protocol to create a single, integrated Preregistered Research Article.

Some journals offer registries for accepted registered protocols. In other cases, you can register it with an open registry.

Registered reports

With registered reports there are two linked peer-reviewed publications: the protocol and the study findings. 

1. Registered report protocol. This describes the study rationale, methodology and any approvals needed.  It is peer reviewed and given an in-principle acceptance (IPA).  This guarantees publication of the final report regardless of findings, as long as the methodology is carried out as described or modifications made explicit.  .

2. Registered report. The authors complete the study then submit a Registered Report, that is a full research article describing the study and its findings.

Diagram showing the Research Reports workflow, with a stage of peer review between study design and the collection and analysis of data.

Registered Report workflow diagram (and 'Preregistered' badge above) by Centre for Open Science, licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0.

Resources - Center for Open Science

References: This section has been copied from a guide by the RMIT University Library licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 licence

("Preregistration" by PLOS is licensed under CC BY 4.0)
("Future-proof your research. Preregister your next study." by Center for Open Science is licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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Scholarly Communication at the UC San Diego Library

Image credit: Tomás Saraceno. Stillness in Motion - Cloud Cities. CC-BY 2.0 Paul Haahr. Accessed on Flickr.

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