These materials are sent out for Stage 1 review, where peer reviewers evaluate the proposal and based on these reviews the editor recommends rejection, revision, or offers an in-principle acceptance. A registered report involves submission of an introduction, methods, and analysis plan before data collection begins, or in the case of secondary analysis, before data is analyzed. This process differs from preregistration, where researchers submit their hypotheses and data analysis plan to a registry, rather than a journal, prior to collecting data (Wagenmakers et al., 2012). We conclude with future directions and implications for authors of registered reports, journals that have already adopted registered reports, and journals that may consider adopting registered reports in the future.įirst adopted in 2013 by Cortex and Perspectives in Psychological Science, registered reports are a new publication workflow where the decision about acceptance at the journal occurs before data is collected, or, in the case of secondary data, before researchers have analyzed the data (Chambers, 2013). Though the majority of journals allow authors to be anonymous during the review process, a sizable portion do not, which could also be a barrier to submission. Overall, many journals did not include many of the fields coded by the research team, which could be a barrier to submission for some authors. Additionally, other open science practices are commonly encouraged or required as part of the registered report process, especially open data and materials. Many journals do not include concrete information about policies that address concerns about registered reports (e.g., exploratory analysis) however, those that do typically allow these practices with some restrictions.

There is high variability in impact of journals adopting registered reports. Still, many journals have not published their first registered report. Our results show that the majority of journals adopting registered reports are in psychology, and it typically takes about a year to publish the first registered report after adopting. We conducted a census of journals publishing registered reports ( N = 278) using independent coders to collect information from submission guidelines, with the goal of documenting journals’ early adoption of registered reports. An increasing number of journals have adopted this new mechanism, but previous research suggests that submission rates are still relatively low. Registered reports are a new publication workflow where the decision to publish is made prior to data collection and analysis and thus cannot be dependent on the outcome of the study.

Ampps journal impact factor