How to stop the errors and retain the real: Researchers need transparency, better indexing, and a willingness to look again at the paper they intend to cite

Papers are cited for years after they are retracted, usually without any indication that they are no longer officially part of the scientific literature. Many people citing these works likely do not know about the retractions: once a citation is recorded in researchers’ reference-tracking software, they may never look at it again. Journals and indices need to do a better job of flagging papers that have been retracted or corrected, and abstracts, indexing and related surveys need to do a better job propagating that information. Once a researcher does find a flag, it is not always clear what to do. One potential solution is for journals to include a recommendation within a retraction notice about whether and how it should be cited. The ideal solution is to provide a much transparency around a retraction as possible, including the cause, whether there is consensus between authors and between authors and editors, who initiated the retraction, and the role of any post-publication review. Of course, the value of such transparency still depends on researchers’ ability to find retraction notices and their willingness to read them.Ope

Reporting animal research:Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0

Improving the reproducibility of biomedical research is a major challenge. Transparent and accurate reporting is vital to this process; it allows readers to assess the reliability of the findings and repeat or build upon the work of other researchers. The ARRIVE guidelines (Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) were developed in 2010 to help authors and journals identify the minimum information necessary to report in publications describing in vivo experiments. Despite widespread endorsement by the scientific community, the impact of ARRIVE on the transparency of reporting in animal research publications has been limited. We have revised the ARRIVE guidelines to update them and facilitate their use in practice. The revised guidelines are published alongside this paper. This explanation and elaboration document was developed as part of the revision. It provides further information about each of the 21 items in ARRIVE 2.0, including the rationale and supporting evidence for their inclusion in the guidelines, elaboration of details to report, and examples of good reporting from the published literature. This document also covers advice and best practice in the design and conduct of animal studies to support researchers in improving standards from the start of the experimental design process through to publication