Demystifying Open Science in health psychology and behavioral medicine: a practical guide to Registered Reports and Data Notes

Figures & data

Figure 1. Registered Reports process. Figure reproduced from the Center for Open Science (www.cos.io/rr), without adaptations, under a CC-BY 4.0 license.

Five blue arrows pointing to the right show different stages of the Registered Reports publishing process, with two red arrows showing where Stage 1 and 2 peer review happens. Fig. 1 Long Description: Five blue arrows pointing to the right. The first arrow reads ‘Develop Idea’, the second arrow reads ‘Design Study’, the third arrow reads ‘Collect & Analyze Data’, the forth arrow reads ‘Write Report’ and the fifth arrow reads ‘Publish Report’. There is a red arrow pointing up to the blue arrows in between the second and third blue arrows that reads ‘Stage 1 Peer Review’. There is a red arrow pointing up to the blue arrows in between the forth and fifth blue arrows that reads ‘Stage 2 Peer Review’.

Table 1. Practical considerations of Registered Reports.

For Authors

For Reviewers

Check your chosen journal and research institution's respective policies on when to apply for ethical approval (e.g. before or after Stage 1 acceptance) (Henderson & Chambers, 2022) Communicate any deviations from your accepted Stage 1 manuscript with the journal editor (Henderson & Chambers, 2022) Transparently document any changes by updating your preregistration or online repository documentation on Open Science Framework, or your chosen repository (Henderson & Chambers, 2022) Your introduction and methods section in your Stage 2 manuscript should not change unnecessarily from your approved Stage 1 manuscript (Henderson & Chambers, 2022)

At Stage 1, assess the scientific validity and rationale of the proposed research plan, as well as the soundness, feasibility and clarity of the proposed methodology and analysis (Peer Community-In, 2023b) At Stage 2, consider whether the data truly tests the originally proposed hypotheses, and whether the introduction, rationale, and stated hypotheses are the same as the Stage 1 submission (Peer Community-In, 2023b) At Stage 2, consider whether the authors adhered to the procedures outlined in the Stage 1 submission, and assess the appropriateness of justifications for any deviations (Peer Community-In, 2023b) Do not reject papers at Stage 2 submission based on the direction or significance of the results obtained (Chambers & Tzavella, 2022)

Figure 2. How Data Notes (also called Data Papers) fit within the research and dissemination ecosystem. Figure adapted from McGillivray et al. (2022).

Four rounded rectangles from small to big reading ‘Research paper’, ‘Data Note / Data paper’, ‘Dataset’ and ‘Project Repository e.g GitHub, Open Science Framework’.

Figure 3. Research workflow for integrating Registered Reports and Data Notes within a study. Demonstration of how to integrate both Registered Reports and Data Notes within a study.

A downward series of twelve rounded rectangles depicting a research process from ‘Develop research proposal’ to ‘Publication of Registered Report & Data Note’.

Table 2. Practical considerations of Data Notes.

For Authors

For Reviewers

Consider the value of publishing a Data Note in addition to lodging your data in a repository. For example, clear documentation of a rich longitudinal dataset, for which the effort to collect the data has been immense, could be particularly beneficial (Taylor & Francis, 2024) Ensure that ethical approval and participant informed consent is granted on the basis that the resulting data can be made open. Ensure any requirements of de-identification and anonymization of data are performed, as required by ethical approval Aim to describe the data clearly and in such a way that it can be understood by a non-specialist reader (BMC, 2024). Description of the data includes when, where and how the data was collected Additional details that can be described include the names of all variables in the dataset, how each variable was measured, values for each number in the dataset, how new variables were generated within the dataset, and origins of measures used in the dataset When describing the data, do not include any interpretations of the data, analyzed results, or conclusions. The aim is to be purely descriptive (BMC, 2024)

Assess how clearly and thoroughly the methods and dataset are described Assess whether the data quality is sufficient, and whether the dataset is substantive enough and of sufficient value for the research community to make re-use likely

Henderson, E. L., & Chambers, C. D. (2022). Ten simple rules for writing a registered report. PLoS Computational Biology, 18(10), e1010571. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010571

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Data availability statement

No data is associated with this paper.