Journals' instructions to authors: A cross-sectional study across scientific disciplines

Abstract

In light of increasing calls for transparent reporting of research and prevention of detrimental research practices, we conducted a cross-sectional machine-assisted analysis of a representative sample of scientific journals' instructions to authors (ItAs) across all disciplines. We investigated addressing of 19 topics related to transparency in reporting and research integrity. Only three topics were addressed in more than one third of ItAs: conflicts of interest, plagiarism, and the type of peer review the journal employs. Health and Life Sciences journals, journals published by medium or large publishers, and journals registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) were more likely to address many of the analysed topics, while Arts & Humanities journals were least likely to do so. Despite the recent calls for transparency and integrity in research, our analysis shows that most scientific journals need to update their ItAs to align them with practices which prevent detrimental research practices and ensure transparent reporting of research.

Fig 1. Percentages of journals covering transparency in reporting and research integrity topics in their instructions to authors.

*Our sample size was 835 journals (n). All analyses were performed in STATA (version 13) using sampling weights representing a total of 14,814 journals (Nw). † Addressing at least one of the following topics: Bayesian statistics, confidence intervals, sample size, and effect size.

Fig 2

Differences in percentages of journals addressing transparency in reporting and research integrity topics according to Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) terciles; publisher size (large: Taylor & Francis, Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Wiley-Blackwell; medium: those with 2–22 journals in our sample; and small: those with only 1 journal in our sample); registration in Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) database; and scientific discipline.

Fig 3

Association (odds ratios from regression analysis) of transparency in reporting and research integrity topics addressed in instructions to authors of journals with: A) Source Normalised Impact per Paper (SNIP) values, registration in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), publishers’ category (medium or large sized publishers) and; B) top scientific areas. Red and light blue numbers and bars indicate statistically significant associations, while grey ones indicate statistically non-significant associations. Dark blue bars and numbers indicate odds ratios higher than 5. All odds ratios are rounded to one decimal place. *Our sample size was 835 journals (n). All analyses were performed in STATA (version 13) using sampling weights representing a total of 14,814 journals (Nw). For the regression analyses, reference categories were: 1) SNIP increase of 1; 2) Not registered in DOAJ; 3) Belonging to small publishers (defined as having only 1 journal in our sample form the same publisher); 4) Multidisciplinary Sciences journals.