How publishing replication studies and negative results helps science

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Replication Studiesand Negative Results
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What do journals hesitate to publish?
Lets understand these two types of submissions
better.
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Replication studies
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What are replication studies?

• A replication study involves
• repeating a study using the same methods but with
  different subjects and experimenters.

• Replication studies
• Ensure that results are reliable and valid
• Apply the previous results to new situations
• Inspire new research that builds upon previous
  findings from related studies

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Importance of replication studies

• Scientific experiments must be reproducible!
• If you cannot repeat a trial using a different
  set of parameters, your scientific method has
  failed.

Did you know? The results of a landmark study,
which had been cited over 1,900 times, could not
be reproduced even by the original researchers in
their own laboratory.

• Validation of research findings is the
  cornerstone of science.
• If you cannot replicate the results of a study,
  you must report it. This can lead to new
  discoveries and a better understanding of the
  original study.

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Why most journals do not favor replication studies

• Replication studies may not interest some
  journals because their publishers
• Are biased towards publishing original research
• Feel that this will give authors an easy way to
  get published
• Believe that replication studies dont reveal new
  information
• Think the results are not dramatic enough to
  attract the journals readership
• Want to avoid any potential controversy regarding
  the
• results of the replication
• Prefer to publish successful replication results,
  and not all replication studies are successful

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This is a problem

• If journals do not publish replication studies
• Fewer researchers will choose to perform
  reproducibility experiments.
• Scientific development could be at stake.
• In the case of clinical trials, in particular,
  this could lead to serious health care
  consequences.

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Some solutions

• Journals could publish yearly special
  issues/include regular sections dedicated to
  replication studies.

Publishers could set up forums that encourage
alternative forms of publishing, e.g., a
website/blog that publishes replication studies.
We need tools to validate scientific research
data. One such tool is CrossMark, which validates
content with a unique approval stamp and displays
most updated data readers can assume that
information without the approval stamp is not up
to date/has not yet been taken up for a
replication check and that the results may be
inaccurate.
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Negative results
NEGATIVE RESULTS
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What are negative results?
When a hypothesis turns out to be incorrect, the
study is considered to have produced negative
results.

• Example
• A researcher conducts a study to prove that drug
  X can destroy cancerous cells in the human body.
• But the researcher finds out that drug X is
  incapable of fighting cancerous cells.
• Thus, he ends up with a negative result.

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Why journals do not favor negative results

• Negative findings have lesser impact than
  positive results.
• Papers with negative results may not have a high
  number of citations, affecting the journals
  impact factor.
• Readers may not be as interested in reading
  about negative results as they would be in
  breakthrough results.

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Proportion of negative and positive results in
the literature
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Did you know this about negative results?

• More than 60 of research experiments fail to
  produce results or expected discoveries.
• Negative results have been gradually disappearing
  from academic literature over the past two
  decades.
• Articles primarily and clearly stating positive
  results have grown by 22 between 1990 and 2007.
  Annual odds of a positive result getting
  published have increased by around 6 every year.

This is a problem! Just because an experiment
failed, it does not mean that it should not be
shared/published. In fact, publishing negative
results will only give other researchers the
opportunity to build upon the data and make
further discoveries.
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How can we solve this problem?
Together! Every member of the academic
publishing community should work towards
embracing negative results and their publication.

• The perspective towards negative results can be
  changed by
• Creating awareness (among authors, journals, and
  publishers) about the importance of publishing
  negative results
• Increased focus on journals that publish negative
  results (e.g. Journal of Negative Results in
  Biomedicine, PLoS ONE, The All Results Journals) 
• Universities, funding committees, and companies
  backing researchers for publishing important
  negative findings

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Moving towards scientific progress
Authors
Publishers

• The next time you want to replicate an experiment
• OR
• Publish negative results of your study
• Go ahead and submit it
• because

The next time you receive a replication
study OR A paper that describes negative
results Give it a fair chance because
By doing so, youre helping science grow!
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References

• http//scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/07/18/a-pr
  oposed-list-60-things-journal-publishers-do/
• http//scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org//?swhatdojou
  rnalsconsiderwhenacceptingapaperforpublicat
  ion
• https//becker.wustl.edu/sites/default/files/archi
  ved-pdfs/preparepub.pdf
• http//jech.bmj.com/content/65/2/119
• http//scx.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/01/24/10
  75547012472684.abstract
• http//www.nature.com/news/replication-studies-bad
  -copy-1.10634
• http//andrewgelman.com/2011/06/13/how_should_jour
  /
• http//www.crossref.org/crossmark/
• http//blogs.nature.com/news/2012/12/is-the-scient
  ific-literature-self-correcting.html

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