SciScore to check for adherence to experimental rigor and reporting requirements in several American Heart Association journals
An earlier pilot project found that the use of SciScore, an AI-based tool, to evaluate submitted manuscripts was effective in improving several aspects of rigor of research articles, prompting the expansion of SciScore to more titles.
San Diego, 19 September 2024
The reproducibility crisis in scientific research is a many-sided problem involving ingrained practices, both in laboratory and publication practices. Fortunately, some of the root causes of irreproducibility are known and being addressed by scientists and editors alike through a steadily increasing number of recommendations and requirements used to address different aspects of rigor and reproducibility in the scientific literature, e.g., MDAR, ARRIVE, CONSORT, and RRID standards.
SciScore, a product of SciCrunch Inc. , provides authors and reviewers with both a score and a supporting report of the submitted manuscript to identify if key areas of reproducibility and transparency have been addressed or not in the manuscript. It will look for evidence of randomization, blinded conduct of the experiment, sample size estimation, whether sex is included as a biological characteristic, animal/cell line authentication or contamination, verify the identity of the antibodies used, and various other guideline-specific items.
SciScore, an automated and multifaceted tool based on artificial intelligence, evaluates scientific manuscripts for adherence to several key reporting criteria for rigor and reproducibility. To improve the reproducibility of the research published, SciScore is now integrated into the American Heart Association ’s journal submission workflow. Results from the initial pilot, which ran over a year’s time for the Association’s Circulation Research journal, showed that the average monthly scores for submitted manuscripts rose dramatically by 4% month-over-month, which helped the journal to improve its rigor and reproducibility.?
SciScore helps editors point out the places where authors may have omitted a bit of detail about their study. I know that most researchers, when asked about methodological details, are happy to supply needed information. It is great that SciScore can alert authors and reviewers in advance where things might be missing. It is like spell check but for reagents. - Anita Bandrowski , CEO of SciScore.
Moving forward, the following American Heart Association journals will have SciScore integrated in their journal submission process: Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology?(ATVB), Circulation Research, Stroke, Hypertension, and Stroke: Vascular and Interventional Neurology.
Further reading on reproducibility crisis
Further results with SciScore
Founder and CEO at SciCrunch
5 个月Pretty exciting news for our colleagues from the stroke community, the major journal for this field has now visibly adopted higher rigor and transparency standards! We know from our colleagues in cancer that this should lead to additional #RRIDs in the papers to nail down those key biological resources and improvements in everything from #Data to #Code and general #Rigor criteria presence in manuscripts. Kudos to the AHA and thank you for your support!!! Malcolm Macleod, Sarah McCann, Torsten Rackoll, Tracey Weissgerber, Adam Ferguson, Alexandra Bannach-Brown, PhD, Jeff Lee, Bradley Voytek, Fiona Booth, Hans Constandt, Ilkay Altintas, Ph.D., Laurent Heirendt, PhD, The National Institutes of Health, Philip Bourne,Sarah Siddiqui, Soumilee Chaudhuri, Susanna-Assunta Sansone, UC San Diego, Ulf Toelch, Vinay K. Chaudhri, Zach Chandler, Konrad Kording, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)