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Reproducible research practices, openness and transparency in health economic evaluations: study protocol for a cross-sectional comparative analysis

Authors : Ferrán Catalá-López, Lisa Caulley, Manuel Ridao, Brian Hutton, Don Husereau, Michael F Drummond, Adolfo Alonso-Arroyo, Manuel Pardo-Fernández, Enrique Bernal-Delgado, Ricard Meneu, Rafael Tabarés-Seisdedos, José Ramón Repullo, David Moher

Introduction

There has been a growing awareness of the need for rigorously and transparent reported health research, to ensure the reproducibility of studies by future researchers.

Health economic evaluations, the comparative analysis of alternative interventions in terms of their costs and consequences, have been promoted as an important tool to inform decision-making.

The objective of this study will be to investigate the extent to which articles of economic evaluations of healthcare interventions indexed in MEDLINE incorporate research practices that promote transparency, openness and reproducibility.

Methods and analysis

This is the study protocol for a cross-sectional comparative analysis. We registered the study protocol within the Open Science Framework (osf.io/gzaxr). We will evaluate a random sample of 600 cost-effectiveness analysis publications, a specific form of health economic evaluations, indexed in MEDLINE during 2012 (n=200), 2019 (n=200) and 2022 (n=200).

We will include published papers written in English reporting an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio in terms of costs per life years gained, quality-adjusted life years and/or disability-adjusted life years. Screening and selection of articles will be conducted by at least two researchers.

Reproducible research practices, openness and transparency in each article will be extracted using a standardised data extraction form by multiple researchers, with a 33% random sample (n=200) extracted in duplicate.

Information on general, methodological and reproducibility items will be reported, stratified by year, citation of the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) statement and journal. Risk ratios with 95% CIs will be calculated to represent changes in reporting between 2012–2019 and 2019–2022.

Ethics and dissemination

Due to the nature of the proposed study, no ethical approval will be required. All data will be deposited in a cross-disciplinary public repository.

It is anticipated the study findings could be relevant to a variety of audiences. Study findings will be disseminated at scientific conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals.

URL : Reproducible research practices, openness and transparency in health economic evaluations: study protocol for a cross-sectional comparative analysis

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-034463

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Science through Wikipedia: A novel representation of open knowledge through co-citation networks

Authors : Wenceslao Arroyo-Machado, Daniel Torres-Salinas, Enrique Herrera-Viedma, Esteban Romero-Frías

This study provides an overview of science from the Wikipedia perspective. A methodology has been established for the analysis of how Wikipedia editors regard science through their references to scientific papers.

The method of co-citation has been adapted to this context in order to generate Pathfinder networks (PFNET) that highlight the most relevant scientific journals and categories, and their interactions in order to find out how scientific literature is consumed through this open encyclopaedia.

In addition to this, their obsolescence has been studied through Price index. A total of 1 433 457 references available at this http URL have been initially taken into account. After pre-processing and linking them to the data from Elsevier’s CiteScore Metrics the sample was reduced to 847 512 references made by 193 802 Wikipedia articles to 598 746 scientific articles belonging to 14 149 journals indexed in Scopus.

As highlighted results we found a significative presence of « Medicine » and « Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology » papers and that the most important journals are multidisciplinary in nature, suggesting also that high-impact factor journals were more likely to be cited. Furthermore, only 13.44% of Wikipedia citations are to Open Access journals.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.04347

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The extent and drivers of gender imbalance in neuroscience reference lists

Authors : Jordan D. Dworkin, Kristin A. Linn, Erin G. Teich, Perry Zurn, Russell T. Shinohara, Danielle S. Bassett

Like many scientific disciplines, neuroscience has increasingly attempted to confront pervasive gender imbalances within the field. While much of the conversation has centered around publishing and conference participation, recent research in other fields has called attention to the prevalence of gender bias in citation practices.

Because of the downstream effects that citations can have on visibility and career advancement, understanding and eliminating gender bias in citation practices is vital for addressing inequity in a scientific community. In this study, we sought to determine whether there is evidence of gender bias in the citation practices of neuroscientists.

Utilizing data from five top neuroscience journals, we indeed find that reference lists tend to include more papers with men as first and last author than would be expected if gender was not a factor in referencing. Importantly, we show that this overcitation of men and undercitation of women is driven largely by the citation practices of men, and is increasing with time despite greater diversity in the academy.

We develop a co-authorship network to determine the degree to which homophily in researchers’ social networks explains gendered citation practices and we find that men tend to overcite other men even when their social networks are representative of the field.

We discuss possible mechanisms and consider how individual researchers might incorporate these findings into their own referencing practices.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.03.894378

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Change in Format, Register and Narration Style in the Biomedical Literature: A 1948 Example

Authors : Carlo Galli, Stefano Guizzardi

Scientific communication has evolved over time and the formats of scientific writing, including its stylistic modules, have changed accordingly.

Research articles from the past fit a research world that had not been taken over by the internet, electronic searches, the new media and even the science mass production of today and reflect a reality where scientific publications were designed to be read and appreciated by actual readers.

It is therefore useful to have a look back to what science looked like in the past and examine the biomedical literature from older archives because several features of those publications may actually harbor vital insights for today’s communication.

Maintaining a vivid awareness of the evolution of science language and modalities of communication may ensure a better and steadfast progression and ameliorate academic writing in the years to come.

With this goal in mind, the present commentary set out to review a 1948 scientific report by I.L. Bennett Jr, entitled “A study on the relationship between the fevers caused by bacterial pyrogens and by the intravenous injection of the sterile exudates of acute inflammation”, which appeared in the Journal of Experimental Medicine in September 1948.

URL : Change in Format, Register and Narration Style in the Biomedical Literature: A 1948 Example

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8010010

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Envisioning the scientific paper of the future

Authors : Natalie M. Sopinka, Laura E. Coristine, Maria C. DeRosa, Chelsea M. Rochman, Brian L. Owens, Steven J. Cooke

Consider for a moment the rate of advancement in the scientific understanding of DNA. It is formidable; from Fredrich Miescher’s nuclein extraction in the 1860s to Rosalind Franklin’s double helix X-ray in the 1950s to revolutionary next-generation sequencing in the late 2000s.

Now consider the scientific paper, the medium used to describe and publish these advances. How is the scientific paper advancing to meet the needs of those who generate and use scientific information?

We review four essential qualities for the scientific paper of the future: (i) a robust source of trustworthy information that remains peer reviewed and is (ii) communicated to diverse users in diverse ways, (iii) open access, and (iv) has a measurable impact beyond Impact Factor.

Since its inception, scientific literature has proliferated. We discuss the continuation and expansion of practices already in place including: freely accessible data and analytical code, living research and reviews, changes to peer review to improve representation of under-represented groups, plain language summaries, preprint servers, evidence-informed decision-making, and altmetrics.

URL : Envisioning the scientific paper of the future

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2019-0012

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Towards a Research Integrity Culture at Universities: From Recommendations to Implementation

Authors : Inge Lerouge, Ton Hol

This advice paper identifies ways in which universities can develop a research integrity culture within their institutions. At a time when public trust in information is increasingly challenged by misinformation, the need for sound and trustworthy research has never been so important.

Universities have a key role in supporting research integrity as this maintains and strengthens confidence in their researchers’ work. This paper shows how this could be achieved.

The paper first examines how universities can tackle the issues of ‘sloppy science’ or ‘questionable research practices’ by improving research design, conduct and reporting, then identifies how researchers could be educated about research integrity.

It then gives ideas on the internal structures that could be put in place to deal with research integrity and incidents of research misconduct. It highlights the benefits of transparency and accountability at universities, and what universities can do to instil a culture of research integrity within their institutions.

The paper includes a section giving examples of how LERU universities are developing research integrity policies which may act as inspiration for other universities wishing to develop or further strengthen their own research integrity practices.

A summary of recommendations is included, this can be used by readers to identify elements of the paper which they may be particularly interested in, or act as a quick check list by which an individual university’s research integrity strategy can be assessed.

The paper’s key message is that research integrity is a vital issue for universities and that there are a number of ways in which this could be realised. The options employed by universities will differ based on their individual circumstances.

URL : Towards a Research Integrity Culture at Universities: From Recommendations to Implementation

Original location : https://www.leru.org/publications/towards-a-research-integrity-culture-at-universities-from-recommendations-to-implementation

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Enhancing Content Discovery of Open Repositories: An Analytics-Based Evaluation of Repository

Author : George Macgregor

Ensuring open repositories fulfil the discovery needs of both human and machine users is of growing importance and essential to validate the continued relevance of open repositories to users, and as nodes within open scholarly communication infrastructure.

Following positive preliminary results reported elsewhere, this submission analyses the longer-term impact of a series of discovery optimization approaches deployed on an open repository.

These approaches were designed to enhance content discovery and user engagement, thereby improving content usage. Using Strathprints, the University of Strathclyde repository as a case study, this article will briefly review the techniques and technical changes implemented and evaluate the impact of these changes by studying analytics relating to web impact, COUNTER usage and web traffic over a 4-year period.

The principal contribution of the article is to report on the insights this longitudinal dataset provides about repository visibility and discoverability, and to deliver robust conclusions which can inform similar strategies at other institutions. Analysis of the unique longitudinal dataset provides persuasive evidence that specific enhancements to the technical configuration of a repository can generate substantial improvements in its content discovery potential and ergo its content usage, especially over several years.

In this case study, COUNTER usage grew by 62%. Increases in Google ‘impressions’ (266%) and ‘clicks’ (104%) were a notable finding too, with high levels of statistical significance found in the correlation between clicks and usage ( t=14.30,df=11,p<0.0005 ).

Web traffic to Strathprints from Google and Google Scholar (GS) was found to increase significantly with growth on some metrics exceeding 1300%. Although some of these results warrant further research, the article nevertheless demonstrates the link between repository optimization and the need for open repositories to assume a proactive development path, especially one that prioritises web impact and discovery.

URL : Enhancing Content Discovery of Open Repositories: An Analytics-Based Evaluation of Repository

Original location : https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/8/1/9