Resource Sharing to Improve Research Quality

TY - JOUR

T1 - Resource Sharing to Improve Research Quality

AU - Hamra, Ghassan B.

AU - Goldstein, Neal D.

AU - Harper, Sam

N1 - Funding Information: Transparency and openness are a vital part of science; the minimum necessary components for achieving this are access to data and analytic code to allow others to assess the reliability of study findings via reproduction. There are resources available to support authors in this task that ensure protection of the data and to support acknowledgment of engagement with open science. Journals and research institutes can and should do more to align incentive structures with resource sharing to improve science. Data preparation is costly in terms of time and money, so providing the data and analytic code at a stage when they are already prepared can help avoid unnecessary use of resources. We have noted the importance of reproducibility to aid in avoiding future replication challenges. Others have noted the efficiency of taking advantage of resources for data and analytic code sharing. Specifically, providing data and analytic code to reproduce results at the time of publication ensures that investigators do not have to repeat steps they have already completed leading up to a publication; this includes preparing data for sharing with interested parties. This additionally opens up the potential for the peer‐review process to vet analytic code in addition to the manuscript. A recent comment suggested that preregistration and eventual sharing of resources (including study data) were vital components of clinical trials to improve transparency and public trust. Resource sharing is a complement to other means of improving biomedical science, the most notable of which is preregistration of clinical trials. Indeed, a study of trials funded by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute showed that the number of reported null findings increased after introduction of preregistration via clinicaltrials.org, which directly addresses the file drawer and p‐hacking problems in publication. In closing, we believe that adopting a culture of transparency and openness will help advance science and, by reducing the number of nonreplicable findings, accelerate the identification of knowledge to inform clinical and population‐level interventions to improve health.

PY - 2019/8/6

Y1 - 2019/8/6

KW - replication

KW - reproducibility

KW - research ethics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85070817342&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85070817342&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1161/JAHA.119.012292

DO - 10.1161/JAHA.119.012292

M3 - Review article

C2 - 31364452

AN - SCOPUS:85070817342

VL - 8

JO - Journal of the American Heart Association

JF - Journal of the American Heart Association

SN - 2047-9980

IS - 15

M1 - e012292

ER -