The Resource Identification Initiative: A cultural shift in publishing

Anita Bandrowski, Matthew Brush, Jeffery S. Grethe, Melissa A. Haendel, David N. Kennedy, Sean Hill, Patrick R. Hof, Maryann E. Martone, Maaike Pols, Serena C. Tan, Nicole Washington, Elena Zudilova-Seinstra, Nicole Vasilevsky

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

28 Scopus citations

Abstract

A central tenet in support of research reproducibility is the ability to uniquely identify research resources, i.e., reagents, tools, and materials that are used to perform experiments. However, current reporting practices for research resources are insufficient to identify the exact resources that are reported or to answer basic questions such as "How did other studies use resource X?" To address this issue, the Resource Identification Initiative was launched as a pilot project to improve the reporting standards for research resources in the Methods sections of articles and thereby improve identifiability and scientific reproducibility. The pilot engaged over 25 biomedical journal editors from most major publishers, as well as scientists and funding officials. Authors were asked to include Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) in their articles prior to publication for three resource types: antibodies, model organisms, and tools (i.e., software and databases). RRIDs are assigned by an authoritative database, for example, a model organism database for each type of resource. To make it easier for authors to obtain RRIDs, resources were aggregated from the appropriate databases and their RRIDs made available in a central Web portal (http://scicrunch.org/resources). RRIDs meet three key criteria: they are machine-readable, free to generate and access, and are consistent across publishers and journals. The pilot was launched in February of 2014 and over 300 articles have appeared that report RRIDs. The number of journals participating has expanded from the original 25 to more than 40, with RRIDs appearing in 62 different journals to date. Here we present an overview of the pilot project and its outcomes to date. We show that authors are able to identify resources and are supportive of the goals of the project. Identifiability of the resources post-pilot showed a dramatic improvement for all three resource types, suggesting that the project has had a significant impact on identifiability of research resources.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)8-22
Number of pages15
JournalJournal of Comparative Neurology
Volume524
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2016

Keywords

  • Identifiability
  • Research resources
  • Resource Identification Initiative

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Neuroscience

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The Resource Identification Initiative: A cultural shift in publishing'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this