Discourse Processes Adopts the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines

ABSTRACT

The Discourse Processes editorial team has decided to adopt the Transparency and Openness Promotion guidelines. The purpose of the guidelines is to help researchers, journal editors, and reviewers adopt practices that support transparency, openness, and reproducibility of research. The guidelines include eight transparency standards regarding (1) citations of data and materials, (2) data sharing, (3) analytic methods, (4) research materials, (5) design and analysis methods, (6) preregistration of the study, (7) preregistration of the analysis plan, and (8) replication studies. We describe each standard, how they are implemented, and what it means from the perspective of an author who wishes to publish their work in Discourse Processes.

Introduction

The open science movement aims to improve the quality and impact of research by promoting practices that increase transparency, openness, and reproducibility of research. In line with these goals, research institutions and funding agencies promote or even require researchers to follow open science practices, such as openly sharing data and research materials and publishing the research results as open access. Many scientific journals have already taken actions to promote open science practices (Mayo-Wilson et al., 2021), even though there might be some challenges and barriers in implementing them in journals’ functions (Naaman et al., 2023).

The Discourse Processes editorial team has decided to adopt the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) guidelines (Nosek et al., 2015) promoted by the Center for Open Science. The purpose of the TOP guidelines is to help researchers, journal editors, and reviewers adopt practices that support transparency, openness, and reproducibility of research (Center for Open Science, 2023). The guidelines include eight transparency standards regarding:

1. Citations of data and materials

2. Data sharing

3. Analytic methods

4. Research material

5. Design and analysis methods

6. Preregistration of the study

7. Preregistration of the analysis plan

8. Replication studies

There are three levels of the standards, with increasing levels of stringency. Discourse Processes is a multidisciplinary journal that publishes both quantitative and qualitative research, which is why we will implement the guidelines at level two—not the least or the most stringent level—as we think that this best serves our diverse research community.

Adopting the TOP guidelines means that authors are now expected to follow the guidelines for their work to be considered for publication in the journal. Editors will check whether the authors adhere to the guidelines, and submissions that do not fulfill the criteria will be directly returned to the authors for revision. In other words, manuscripts will only be sent out for review once the guidelines are followed. In the following, we describe each standard, how they are implemented, and what it means from the perspective of an author.

TOP standards for discourse processes

Citations of data and materials

Authors should include proper citations to their data and materials as specified in the seventh edition of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) publication manual. If the manuscript uses previously published datasets or materials, authors should cite the original publication. If the authors are using materials and dataset that they have created, and which are published for the first time, the materials and the dataset should be archived in an open repository (for example, open science framework) and cited in the paper.

Data sharing

Data must be stored and shared in a trusted repository, for example, open science framework (https://osf.io) or the like. Exceptions must be identified at article submission in the cover letter to the editors. Naturally, researchers are expected to follow the General Data Protection Regulations and institutional review board restrictions, which might restrict openly sharing the data. For example, exceptions may include data that could easily identify participants, such as video or voice recordings, or other data that contain information about identities of participants.

Analytic methods

If the data analysis relies on quantitative methods, the analysis code must be stored and shared in a trusted repository. Exceptions must be identified at article submission in the cover letter to the editors.

Research materials

Research materials, including stimulus materials, questionnaires, and the like, must be stored and shared in a trusted repository. Exceptions must be identified at article submission in the cover letter to the editors. Some exceptions may include, for example, previously published materials (in which case a citation to that publication is needed), copyrighted materials, or test materials that cannot be openly shared for other reasons.

Design and analysis methods

Authors should adhere to the APA’s journal article reporting standards (American Psychological Association [APA], 2021) that are suitable for their research. There are specific standards for reporting quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, and meta-analytic research (see https://apastyle.apa.org/jars). When submitting their article, authors should state in the cover letter that they have reviewed the APA journal article reporting standards, indicate which specific standards are relevant to their work, and that they have followed those standards when preparing the manuscript.

Study preregistration

Authors should state in the manuscript whether a preregistration of the study exists. If it does, then authors should give access to the preregistration during peer review for verification. If the study was not preregistered, authors should state this.

Analysis plan preregistration

Authors should state in the manuscript whether a preregistration of the analysis plan exists or not. If so, then authors should give access to the preregistration during peer review for verification. If the analysis plan was not preregistered, authors should state this.

Replication studies

In addition to regular papers, Discourse Processes also publishes preregistered studies. These are studies that have passed a “results-blind” peer review, meaning authors submit a manuscript that includes introduction and method sections before they start data collection or the analyses for the study. Reviewers may suggest improvements to the study design and analysis plan and ask the authors to revise their manuscript. Studies that pass the review will be conditionally accepted for publication, meaning that if the authors follow the accepted study plan, the paper will be published regardless of the results.

Conclusion

We hope these guidelines will help to move the field toward more transparent and open research practices and that this will benefit the whole community by producing more robust and replicable research. We also hope that this increases the impact of the exciting research being conducted by those who publish in Discourse Processes, as others will be able to cite and replicate your work. Of course, these guidelines are only one small act that may or may not have an effect on how research in the field is conducted. In the end, it is the individual researchers and research groups who complete the important work, forming our vibrant research community.

Thank you for your work, and please continue to consider Discourse Processes as an outlet for your research! As always, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have suggestions for how we can best serve this community.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).