Dictionary domainTrack A
Research outputs (expanded)
Modern outputs taxonomy beyond articles — preprints, datasets, models, protocols, more.
For implementers
Operational deployment checklist for Research outputs (expanded): prerequisites, five deploy steps, integration notes for Pure, Symplectic Elements, Worktribe, DSpace, and more, plus the pitfalls that recur in the field.
Terms in this domain
108 terms
Funnel Plot
A funnel plot is a scatter plot used in meta-analysis in which each included study's effect estimate (x-axis) is plotted against a measure of its precision -- typically standard error, with precision increasing up the y-axis, or sometimes sample size directly. Under no bias and no meaningful heterogeneity, the plot should form a roughly symmetric, inverted funnel: small, low-precision studies scatter widely near the bottom, while large, high-precision studies cluster narrowly near the top, close to the pooled effect. Funnel plots are a diagnostic tool for so-called 'small-study effects' -- the tendency for smaller studies in a meta-analysis to report systematically different (usually larger) effects than larger studies -- not a direct measurement of publication bias itself.
JOSS (Journal of Open Source Software)
JOSS is a peer-reviewed, diamond open-access academic journal, founded in 2016 under the Open Journals umbrella, that publishes short papers (roughly 750-1750 words) about research software rather than the software itself. Acceptance requires an OSI-approved open-source licence, substantial and feature-complete engineering work, adequate documentation and tests, and a version-specific DOI from an archiving service (e.g. Zenodo or figshare) obtained after review; accepted papers receive their own Crossref DOI.
Citation File Format (CITATION.cff)
A CITATION.cff file is a plain-text, YAML-formatted metadata file, conforming to the Citation File Format schema, placed in the root of a code (or dataset) repository to record machine- and human-readable citation information -- authors (ideally with ORCID iDs), title, version, release date, identifiers such as a DOI, and licence -- so tools and humans can produce a correct, consistent citation without guesswork.
SocArXiv
<p><strong>SocArXiv</strong> is a free, open-access preprint repository for the social sciences. It was founded in 2016 by sociologist Philip N. Cohen in partnership with the nonprofit <a href='/guides/center-for-open-science'>Center for Open Science (COS)</a> and runs on the <a href='/dictionary/term/open-science-framework-osf'>Open Science Framework (OSF)</a> — the same underlying infrastructure that hosts <a href='/dictionary/term/osf-preprints'>OSF Preprints</a> and sibling branded servers such as <a href='/dictionary/term/psyarxiv'>PsyArXiv</a> (psychology) and engrXiv (engineering). SocArXiv launched alongside those two services on December 5, 2016, as part of COS's branded-server model, in which a scholarly community operates its own named, separately moderated preprint service on shared OSF backend infrastructure rather than building hosting from scratch.</p> <p>SocArXiv is not a COS-run editorial operation in the way a journal is. It is governed by a volunteer steering committee of scholars and library professionals under the banner "SocOpen," and since 2021 its institutional home has been the University of Maryland Libraries, which provides the administrative and legal footing for the service as an ongoing academic unit rather than a standalone nonprofit.</p> <h2>Operational definition</h2> <p>A deposit is properly identified as a "SocArXiv preprint" if it meets all of the following:</p> <ul> <li>It was submitted through the SocArXiv service on OSF (osf.io/preprints/socarxiv), not simply cross-listed or mirrored from another repository such as <a href='/guides/arxiv-preprints-what-they-are-and-how-to-use-them'>arXiv</a> or SSRN.</li> <li>It falls within sociology or a closely related social-science field — SocArXiv accepts working papers, preprints, published-paper copies, data, and code across the social sciences broadly, not sociology alone.</li> <li>It has passed SocOpen's moderation screen, which is a scope-and-completeness check, not peer review: moderators confirm the item is scholarly, falls within a supported research area, is plausibly categorized, is correctly attributed to its stated authors, is in a moderated language, and is submitted in a text-searchable format (PDF or DOCX, not a scanned image).</li> <li>It has received an automatically assigned, persistent <a href='/dictionary/term/doi'>DOI</a> on upload, making it citable independent of eventual journal publication; a prior DOI issued by another publisher can also be linked to the same record.</li> <li>It carries one of SocArXiv's permitted reuse terms — CC BY 4.0, CC0 (public-domain dedication), or no license — selected by the author at deposit.</li> </ul> <h2>What SocArXiv is not</h2> <p>Posting to SocArXiv is explicitly not peer review, and a SocArXiv record is not, by itself, evidence that a manuscript has been formally accepted anywhere. Moderation checks scope and completeness, not scientific merit, methodology, or novelty. SocArXiv is also free to authors and readers — there is no submission fee or paywall, which distinguishes it from many venues that require an <a href='/dictionary/term/article-processing-charge'>article processing charge (APC)</a> at the journal stage.</p> <h2>Examples</h2> <ul> <li>A sociologist deposits a working paper analyzing survey data on labor-market outcomes to SocArXiv ahead of submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal, receiving a citable DOI immediately and using that DOI in grant reports and CVs while the manuscript is still under review elsewhere.</li> <li>A research team posts the accepted-but-not-yet-typeset version of a political-science article to SocArXiv under a publisher-permitted embargo, satisfying a funder's open-access mandate without waiting for the journal's own publication date.</li> </ul> <h2>Counter-example</h2> <p>A working paper in economics or sociology posted only to SSRN, a university's own institutional repository, or a personal website is <em>not</em> a "SocArXiv preprint," even though it may cover an identical topic and serve a similar function — the term refers specifically to material submitted through and moderated by the SocArXiv service on OSF, not to social-science preprints in general (for that broader category, see <a href='/dictionary/term/preprint'>preprint</a>).</p> <h2>Related terms</h2> <ul> <li><a href='/dictionary/term/preprint'>Preprint</a></li> <li><a href='/dictionary/term/osf-preprints'>OSF Preprints</a></li> <li><a href='/dictionary/term/psyarxiv'>PsyArXiv</a></li> <li><a href='/dictionary/term/open-science-framework-osf'>Open Science Framework (OSF)</a></li> <li><a href='/dictionary/term/doi'>DOI</a></li> <li><a href='/guides/how-to-choose-a-preprint-server'>How to Choose a Preprint Server</a></li> <li><a href='/guides/preprint-servers-explained'>Preprint Servers Explained</a></li> </ul>
Grounded Theory
Grounded theory is a qualitative research methodology in which a theory is generated inductively from data, rather than proposed in advance and tested against it. A study counts as grounded theory only when three things hold together: data collection and analysis proceed simultaneously and iteratively, not sequentially; codes and categories are developed and refined through the constant comparative method, systematically comparing each new piece of data against categories built from earlier data; and further data collection is directed by theoretical sampling -- deliberately seeking cases likely to test, extend, or challenge the emerging categories -- continuing until theoretical saturation, the point at which new data stops adding new properties to the core categories. The output is a substantive theory: interrelated concepts explaining a process or pattern of social action, grounded in and traceable back to the data itself.
Research Manuscript
<p>A <strong>research manuscript</strong> is the complete, submission-ready written account of a study — background, methods, results, and discussion (or the equivalent structure for the field) — that an author submits to a journal, conference, or other venue for editorial and peer review, before it has been accepted, copyedited, or published. The term marks a <em>stage</em> in the publication lifecycle, not a content type: the same underlying work is a manuscript from first submission through any round of revision, and stops being called a manuscript once it is accepted and moves toward publication, at which point more specific terms apply — <a href='/dictionary/term/author-accepted-manuscript'>author accepted manuscript (AAM)</a> for the peer-reviewed, accepted-but-not-yet-typeset version, and <a href='/dictionary/term/version-of-record'>version of record (VoR)</a> for the final published form. A document only counts as a research manuscript if it is (a) a structured, complete write-up of original research or scholarship, and (b) has been or is intended to be submitted somewhere for editorial evaluation. A rough draft circulated only among co-authors, or a <a href='/dictionary/term/preprint'>preprint</a> posted to a server outside any journal's review process, are related but distinct in most editorial and funder usage — see the counter-examples below.</p>
Network Meta-Analysis (NMA)
Network meta-analysis (NMA) is a statistical technique that estimates the comparative effectiveness of three or more interventions within a single unified model by combining two kinds of evidence: direct evidence, from trials that compared two of the interventions head-to-head, and indirect evidence, inferred through one or more common comparators (such as a shared placebo or standard-of-care arm) that connect trials which never compared those two interventions directly. A body of evidence qualifies as an NMA, rather than a standard pairwise meta-analysis, when it (1) includes three or more interventions across the included trials, (2) links those trials into a connected network via shared comparators, and (3) produces relative-effect estimates for treatment pairs even when no trial tested that pair directly. NMA rests on an assumption called transitivity — that trials contributing indirect evidence are similar enough in patient population, setting, and other effect modifiers that comparisons through a common comparator are valid — and its statistical counterpart, consistency, which checks that direct and indirect estimates for the same pair of interventions agree.
Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions
The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions is the methodological standard maintained by Cochrane (founded 1993, named after epidemiologist Archie Cochrane) that specifies how a systematic review of a health intervention must be planned, conducted, and reported to qualify as a Cochrane Review. It requires a registered protocol with a PICO-structured question, a comprehensive pre-specified search strategy across multiple databases, dual independent screening and data extraction, formal risk-of-bias assessment (the RoB 2 tool for randomized trials, ROBINS-I for non-randomized studies), GRADE-based certainty-of-evidence rating, and, where studies are sufficiently similar, meta-analysis. Reviews that follow the Handbook are published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) within the Cochrane Library and are maintained as living documents, updated as new evidence emerges.
ACM Artifact Review and Badging
ACM Artifact Review and Badging is a formal peer-evaluation process, run alongside conventional paper peer review at ACM-sponsored conferences and in ACM journals, in which authors of a computer-science research paper voluntarily submit their supporting 'artifacts' -- source code, datasets, containers, build scripts, or other digital objects needed to run the reported experiments -- to a separate Artifact Evaluation Committee (AEC). The AEC checks whether the artifact is documented and runnable, and in stricter tracks, whether running it actually reproduces the paper's reported results. A paper that passes earns one or more standardized badge icons (Artifacts Available, Artifacts Evaluated -- Functional, Artifacts Evaluated -- Reusable, Results Reproduced, Results Replicated), printed on the published paper itself as a visible, per-paper certification distinct from the paper's own peer-review outcome.
Co-Editor-in-Chief
A co-editor-in-chief structure exists when a journal names two or more individuals to jointly hold the editor-in-chief role, sharing final editorial authority over the journal (policy, contested decisions, ethics escalations) rather than one editor-in-chief delegating subordinate work to associate or section editors beneath a single top authority. Journals use this model to distribute workload, cover distinct subject-area or methodological expertise, manage a leadership transition, or reflect shared governance across co-publishing institutions. The title is applied inconsistently across publishers -- some co-editors-in-chief hold fully independent, co-equal sign-off authority; others function as a senior deputy to one lead editor-in-chief -- so a journal's own editorial policy or masthead documentation, not the title alone, determines actual decision authority.
Types of Variables
"Types of variables" is not one classification but shorthand for two independent frameworks used to describe any variable in a study. The first, measurement level (or scale of measurement), classifies a variable by the mathematical properties of the values it can take: nominal (unordered categories), ordinal (ordered categories without equal spacing), interval (equal spacing, no true zero), or ratio (equal spacing with a true zero). The second, design role, classifies a variable by the function it plays in a specific study's causal or descriptive structure: independent/dependent (manipulated or predictor vs. measured outcome in an experimental design), explanatory/response (the same relationship in an observational or correlational design), and confounding (a third variable associated with both that can distort the apparent relationship). Every variable in a study is classified along both dimensions at once -- measurement level is a property of how the variable was recorded, while design role is a property of what a specific analysis is asking the variable to do.
Title Page (Research Paper)
<p>A <strong>title page</strong> is the first page of an academic manuscript that identifies the work and its authors before the reader reaches the abstract or main text. What makes a page function as a title page — as opposed to just a cover sheet — is that it carries a defined, checkable set of identifying elements: at minimum the full title, the author byline, and institutional affiliation. Beyond that minimum, exactly which additional elements are required, and where each one goes, is set by whichever style guide or journal the manuscript is being formatted for — not by a single universal template. A style manual such as APA's 7th edition and an individual journal's author guidelines can require different elements in different positions, and where they conflict, the target journal's own instructions take precedence over the general style guide.</p>
P-Value
The p-value is the probability of observing a result at least as extreme as the one found in a sample, calculated on the assumption that the null hypothesis is true. It is not the probability that the null hypothesis is true, and it does not measure effect size or practical importance — only how surprising the observed data would be if there truly were no effect.
Critical Literature Review
A critical literature review is a form of literature review whose organizing purpose is evaluative and argumentative rather than descriptive: the writer selects significant sources on a topic, appraises the quality, validity, and coherence of the claims and evidence in each, and uses that appraisal to identify gaps, contradictions, and unresolved debates, ultimately advancing the writer's own interpretation, argument, or conceptual position. It is distinguished from a systematic or scoping review by search strategy (selective and purposive rather than exhaustive and reproducible) and from a purely descriptive literature review by its explicit evaluative stance: a critical review does not just summarize what each source found, it judges the strength of the evidence and the soundness of the reasoning behind it.
Statistical Test
A statistical test is a formal procedure for deciding whether a pattern observed in sample data is likely to reflect a genuine feature of the population it was drawn from, or could plausibly have arisen from random sampling variation alone. Every statistical test works the same way at a structural level: it states a null hypothesis (typically 'no effect' or 'no difference'), computes a test statistic from the observed data, and compares that statistic (via its p-value) against a pre-specified significance threshold to decide whether the null hypothesis can be rejected. A specific procedure only counts as 'the right statistical test' for a given analysis if its underlying assumptions match the data actually collected: the measurement type (categorical vs. continuous), the number of groups or variables being compared, the study design (independent vs. paired/repeated observations), and, for parametric tests, the shape of the sampling distribution.
Sampling Methods: Probability and Non-Probability Types Explained
A sampling method is the defined procedure a study uses to select which members of a population are observed or measured. It qualifies as a probability method only if every population member has a known, non-zero chance of selection via a defined chance mechanism (simple random, stratified, systematic, or cluster sampling) -- this is what supports formal statistical inference and generalizability claims back to the population. Non-probability methods (convenience, purposive/judgmental, snowball, quota sampling) select participants without a defined chance mechanism, which is legitimate and standard in qualitative and exploratory research but does not, on its own, support formal population-level generalization.
Descriptive Research
Descriptive research is a research design category whose goal is to accurately describe the characteristics, behaviours, or conditions of a population, phenomenon, or situation as they naturally exist, without manipulating any variable and without attempting to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between variables. A study qualifies as descriptive research if it answers 'what is/are the characteristics of X' rather than 'does X cause Y' -- the researcher observes and records rather than intervenes. Common forms include case studies (in-depth examination of a single individual, group, organisation, or event), cross-sectional surveys (data collected from a population at one point in time), observational studies, and case series/ecological studies in clinical and public-health research. Because it does not involve random assignment to conditions or control of independent variables, descriptive research cannot by itself support causal claims -- it can identify patterns, prevalence, and associations that generate hypotheses for later experimental or quasi-experimental testing, but it cannot confirm them.
Figure Legend
A figure legend (also called a figure caption) is the block of text accompanying a figure -- typically placed directly beneath it, or grouped on a separate legends page/section depending on the target journal's submission format -- that must let a reader understand the figure entirely on its own, without needing to reread the Methods or Results text. To meet that standalone-comprehension bar, a complete figure legend generally includes: a short declarative title sentence stating the figure's main point or finding; a description of what each panel shows (for multi-panel figures, keyed to the panel letters used in the image); definitions of every abbreviation, symbol, and color/line code used in the figure; the statistical test applied and what error bars or shaded regions represent (e.g., SD, SEM, 95% CI); and the relevant sample size (n). A figure legend is distinct from an in-text figure reference or callout (e.g., 'as shown in Figure 2', 'see Fig. 3B'), which is a pointer embedded in the manuscript's running prose directing the reader to look at the figure -- the legend is the self-contained explanatory text that travels with the figure itself.
Research Questionnaire
A research questionnaire is a structured written instrument consisting of a fixed, standardized set of questions (items) with defined response formats, administered identically to every respondent so their answers can be compared and analyzed. It is distinct from a survey, which is the broader data-collection methodology (sampling, administration mode, response-rate reporting) built around the questionnaire; a questionnaire's quality is judged on item wording, question-type selection (closed- vs. open-ended, Likert-type vs. dichotomous), and validity and reliability established through pilot testing before the full study fields it.
Confidence Interval
A confidence interval is a range of values, calculated from sample data using a defined estimation procedure (point estimate plus a margin of error derived from the sampling distribution of the estimator), constructed at a stated confidence level (commonly 95%). The confidence level describes the long-run reliability of the construction procedure across repeated sampling -- the proportion of such intervals that would contain the true, fixed population parameter if the sampling were repeated many times -- not the probability that this specific interval contains the parameter. A range lacking a stated confidence level and a defined estimation procedure (e.g. a bare sample min-max) is not a confidence interval.
Forest plot
A forest plot is the standard graphical display for a meta-analysis: each included study is shown as a point estimate (a square, sized in proportion to that study's weight in the pooled analysis) with a horizontal line marking its confidence interval, stacked one row per study, with a vertical reference line at the value of no effect. A diamond at the bottom of the plot shows the pooled summary estimate across all studies, with the diamond's width representing the pooled estimate's confidence interval. A forest plot is used to visually assess both the direction/size of each individual study's effect and how consistent (or heterogeneous) those effects are with one another before and after pooling.
Chi-Square Test (χ²)
A hypothesis test for categorical data that compares observed category counts to the counts expected under a null hypothesis — either testing whether two categorical variables are independent (chi-square test of independence) or whether one categorical variable's observed distribution matches a specified expected distribution (goodness-of-fit). Distinct from t-tests and ANOVA, which test differences in a continuous outcome's mean rather than differences in categorical counts.
Confounding Variable
A confounding variable (confounder) is a third factor that is associated with both the independent variable (or exposure) and the dependent variable (or outcome) under study, and is not simply a step on the causal path between them. Because it moves with the presumed cause and also influences the presumed effect, an unaccounted-for confounder can produce, inflate, mask, or reverse an apparent association -- meaning a manuscript's reported effect is partly or wholly attributable to the confounder rather than the variable of interest. A factor only qualifies as a confounder for a given design if it meets all three conditions: it is associated with the independent variable, it independently affects the dependent variable, and it is not a mediator (a variable that lies on the causal pathway between the two, which requires different handling in analysis and reporting).
Effect Size
Effect size is a standardized, quantitative measure of the magnitude of a difference, relationship, or association observed in a study, reported independently of sample size and distinct from statistical significance. Where a p-value indicates only whether an observed effect is unlikely to be due to chance, an effect size (e.g., Cohen's d, Pearson's r, an odds ratio) indicates how large or practically meaningful that effect actually is. The APA Publication Manual (7th edition, Section 6.5) requires reporting an effect size and confidence interval for each primary outcome, and most major journals across the behavioral, social, and biomedical sciences hold manuscripts to an equivalent expectation.
ANOVA (Analysis of Variance)
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is an inferential statistical test used to compare the means of a continuous outcome across three or more groups, or across the combined levels of two or more categorical factors, by partitioning total observed variance into a between-group component and a within-group (error) component. The ratio of those two components produces an F-statistic: a study is using ANOVA, rather than a t-test, whenever it is testing for a difference among three or more group means (or a factorial combination of grouping variables) using that between/within variance ratio, rather than comparing exactly two means directly.
Experimental Design
A study’s design counts as experimental when the researcher manipulates the independent variable, assigns participants or units to at least one comparison/control condition (ideally via randomization), and builds in mechanisms — randomization, blinding, standardized protocol — to control extraneous and confounding variables, so that any resulting difference in the dependent variable can be attributed to the manipulation rather than to a pre-existing group difference.
Descriptive Statistics vs. Inferential Statistics
In a research manuscript, descriptive statistics summarize the data actually collected -- means, medians, standard deviations, frequencies, and proportions that describe the sample in hand -- while inferential statistics use that sample data to draw a conclusion about a larger population, quantifying uncertainty through tools such as p-values, confidence intervals, and hypothesis tests. The distinction is not about which formulas are used but about the claim being made: a descriptive statistic describes only the data collected, while an inferential statistic makes a probabilistic claim that extends beyond it. Manuscripts that report a difference between groups (e.g., a higher mean score in one arm) without an accompanying inferential test are making a descriptive observation, not a generalizable finding -- reviewers routinely flag this conflation in Results sections.
Umbrella Review
An umbrella review (overview of reviews) systematically identifies, appraises, and synthesizes previously published systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses on a broader topic, using those reviews rather than primary studies as its unit of analysis. Included reviews are typically appraised with AMSTAR-2, checked for overlap of underlying primary studies (e.g. via the Corrected Covered Area metric), and the umbrella review itself is reported per PRISMA 2020 or the purpose-built PRIOR statement.
Survey Research Methods
A data-collection methodology in which a standardized instrument (structured questionnaire or interview protocol) is administered consistently to respondents drawn from a defined sampling frame, to measure self-reported attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, or characteristics in quantifiable, comparable form. Distinguished from qualitative interview methods by its fixed, uniform instrument and from experimental designs by the absence of manipulated independent variables; evaluated on sampling procedure, response rate, and the instrument's reliability and validity.
Defining the Population (Study Population)
Defining the population is the step in a research design, before sampling begins, where the researcher states precisely who or what the study's findings are meant to describe or generalize to. It has two working layers that a methods section should distinguish explicitly: the target population (the full group the researcher ultimately wants to draw conclusions about, e.g. "adults with type 2 diabetes") and the accessible or study population (the subset of that target population the researcher can actually reach and sample from, e.g. "adults with type 2 diabetes attending three primary-care clinics in one region between 2024 and 2026"). A population definition is complete only when it specifies inclusion criteria (the characteristics a unit must have to qualify), exclusion criteria (characteristics that disqualify an otherwise-eligible unit), and the relevant time and place boundaries. Defining the population is a distinct step from drawing the sample: the population is the group being described; the sample is the subset actually measured or observed. See <a href='/dictionary/term/independent-vs-dependent-variable'>Independent vs. Dependent Variable</a> and <a href='/dictionary/term/operationalizing-variables'>Operationalizing Variables</a> for the companion steps of specifying a design's other core elements before data collection begins.
Thesis
A formal, original-research document that a student submits, and typically defends before a faculty committee, to satisfy the research requirement of an academic degree. Whether "thesis" denotes master's-level or doctoral-level work depends on country: in the US/Canada it usually means the master's-level document (the doctoral one is a dissertation); in the UK/Commonwealth the convention typically reverses.
Independent vs. Dependent Variable
In a study's methods section, the independent variable is the factor treated as the presumed cause — manipulated in an experiment or selected as the predictor in an observational design — and the dependent variable is the outcome measured to detect whether it changes with the independent variable. The roles are relative to a specific design: manipulation supports causal language, measurement-only designs support only associative language, and a manuscript should state explicitly which applies.
Published Data
<p>Data is 'published' when it has been formally released as a discrete, citable research output: deposited in a repository or registry that assigns it a persistent identifier (typically a DOI), described with metadata sufficient for independent discovery and reuse (at minimum the DataCite mandatory set -- Identifier, Creator, Title, Publisher, PublicationYear, ResourceType), and made accessible under a stated licence. A dataset that is merely stored, backed up, or informally emailed to a collaborator is not 'published' in this sense, even if the underlying files are identical -- publication is a formal act with a fixed citation form, not a description of where the bytes happen to live.</p>
Editorial board
An editorial board is the named group of individuals — typically an editor-in-chief (or co-editors-in-chief), one or more associate/section/deputy editors, and a wider roster of board members — appointed by a journal or its publisher to set editorial policy, uphold publication ethics and peer-review integrity, and make or ratify final accept/reject decisions on submissions. Editorial board members are governance/oversight appointees, not, by default, the pool that performs first-pass external peer review of any given manuscript (that is typically done by invited subject-matter reviewers selected per submission, sometimes including board members but not limited to them). A journal without an identifiable editorial board is treated by indexing/vetting bodies (e.g. DOAJ) as a red flag for undisclosed or absent editorial oversight.
Metadata Format
A metadata format (also called a serialization format) is the concrete syntactic encoding used to write metadata values out as a machine-readable byte stream for storage, exchange, or transmission — for example XML, JSON, RDF/Turtle, or YAML. It answers 'how is this metadata physically written down,' which is a separate question from what a metadata schema answers: 'which fields exist and what do they mean.' A schema (Dublin Core, DataCite, Darwin Core, PROV-O) defines the field set and semantics; a format defines the byte-level syntax those fields get poured into. The same schema is routinely available in more than one format, and the same format is routinely used to carry many unrelated schemas — so 'metadata format' and 'metadata schema' are not interchangeable, even though the two terms get conflated constantly in casual usage.
Journal Editor
A journal editor is a person holding operational editorial authority over a journal or over specific submissions to it: authority to select and manage peer reviewers, and to accept, reject, or request revision of a manuscript. This is distinct from serving on the journal's editorial board in a non-operational capacity, and from acting as an invited peer reviewer on a single manuscript. The role commonly splits into editor-in-chief (overall journal direction and final authority on contested decisions) and associate/handling/section editors (day-to-day management of individual submissions through peer review).
Peer Review
A work is peer reviewed when, before publication, an editor sends it to one or more independent experts in the same field (peer reviewers) who evaluate its methodology, validity, originality, and significance, and the editor uses that written feedback to decide whether to accept, reject, or require revisions. Three elements distinguish genuine peer review from ordinary editorial handling: (1) the reviewers are subject-matter experts external to the editorial staff, not merely copy-editors; (2) the review is documented (recorded reviewer reports, even if reviewer identity is withheld from the author); and (3) the outcome materially gates publication rather than serving as optional feedback offered after the fact. The specific procedure varies by venue — reviewer and author identities may or may not be disclosed to each other (single-anonymized, double-anonymized, or open review), and some venues review a study's protocol before results exist (registered reports) rather than only the finished manuscript — but the core requirement of independent expert gatekeeping prior to publication is common to all forms. A 'peer-reviewed journal' is simply a journal that applies this process, as a matter of documented policy, to the research articles it publishes.
Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS)
Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) is the American Psychological Association's set of manuscript-section reporting requirements, published as part of APA Style and incorporated into the <em>Publication Manual of the APA</em> (7th edition). A manuscript is JARS-compliant when the author has followed the module matching its research design: <strong>JARS-Quant</strong> for quantitative studies (numerical data, statistical analysis), <strong>JARS-Qual</strong> for qualitative studies (natural-language, descriptive, or interview-based data), or <strong>JARS-Mixed</strong> for studies combining both. A cross-cutting fourth module, <strong>JARS-Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (JARS-REC)</strong>, adds reporting expectations for how race, ethnicity, and culture are described and analyzed, and applies regardless of which core module a study uses. Each module specifies, section by section (title/abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion), the minimum information a submission must state -- for example, JARS-Quant requires reporting exact sample-size determination and any data exclusions; JARS-Qual requires describing the researcher's own standpoint and role in relation to the data. JARS is APA's own umbrella framework and is distinct from discipline- or design-specific reporting guidelines such as PRISMA (systematic reviews), CONSORT (randomized trials), or COREQ/SRQR (qualitative research specifically) -- a paper can be asked to satisfy JARS alongside one of those other checklists, not instead of it, since JARS covers general manuscript-section content while the others target a specific study design in more procedural depth.
Desk Rejection
A desk rejection is an editorial decision made by the handling editor (or an in-house editorial team) to decline a submitted manuscript before it is sent out for external peer review. It is issued at the initial screening stage, prior to any reviewer being invited, and is typically driven by one or more of: a scope mismatch with the journal's aims, insufficient apparent novelty or significance for the target venue, failure to meet basic formatting, language-quality, or file-completeness requirements, or failure to meet the journal's baseline reporting standards (missing ethics statements, required disclosures, or a data-availability statement, for example). Because no reviewer has evaluated the manuscript's methods or findings, a desk rejection reflects a judgment about fit and readiness, not a verdict on scientific merit. Some journals and publishers report a desk rejection rate -- the share of submissions declined at this screening stage -- though the figure varies enormously by journal prestige and field and has no universal benchmark.
OSF Preprints
<p>A work counts as an <strong>OSF Preprints</strong> deposit if it is hosted on the preprint infrastructure built and operated by the <a href='https://www.cos.io' rel='nofollow'>Center for Open Science (COS)</a> -- either on the generalist osf.io/preprints server itself, or on one of the branded, discipline-specific community servers (PsyArXiv, SocArXiv, EarthArXiv, and others) that run on the same underlying OSF backend but carry their own name, editorial moderators, and disciplinary scope. It is distinct from an OSF <em>project</em> (the private/public research-management workspace) and from OSF Registries (preregistrations): a preprint is a discrete, versioned, publicly posted manuscript that receives its own Crossref-registered DOI, separate from any OSF project it may have originated in.</p>
Library Publishing Coalition (LPC)
The Library Publishing Coalition (LPC) is an independent, community-led membership association of academic and research libraries and library consortia that operate or are developing scholarly publishing programs -- library presses, journal-hosting platforms, open monograph publishing, and related services. It was formed between January 2013 and December 2014 when 61 academic libraries, working with the Educopia Institute, organized around a shared professional forum for developing best practices and shared expertise in library-based publishing; the founding conversation originated among Purdue University, the University of North Texas, and Virginia Tech, building on an earlier IMLS-funded planning project. LPC is not a publisher, a certification body, or a standards-setting organization in the way NISO or DOAJ are -- it is a community of practice: a membership association whose value is peer knowledge-sharing, an annual member directory, a professional development curriculum, and an annual forum, run day-to-day through Educopia Institute (Atlanta, Georgia), which provides LPC's operational and staff support.
Conference Proceedings
Conference proceedings are the published collection of papers, abstracts, or extended abstracts presented at an academic or professional conference, typically compiled and released around the time of the event by the organizing society, a commercial publisher, or the conference itself. They are a distinct scholarly-output type from the journal article, the scholarly monograph, and the preprint: a proceedings paper is tied to a specific dated event and its program committee, not to a journal's rolling editorial process, and unlike a preprint it has already been through whatever acceptance process that specific conference uses -- which ranges from rigorous full-paper peer review to a light abstract screen, depending entirely on the venue.
Scholarly Monograph
A scholarly monograph is a book-length, single-authored (occasionally co-authored, rarely multi-contributor) work that presents an original, sustained scholarly argument or body of research on one subject, published by an academic or university press after external peer review of the proposal and, typically, the full manuscript. An output counts as a scholarly monograph, rather than a textbook, trade book, or edited volume, only if all of the following hold: (1) it advances a new argument or original research contribution rather than synthesizing existing knowledge for instructional use; (2) it is reviewed by independent subject-matter experts external to the press, evaluating the manuscript or proposal as a coherent scholarly work, not by press editorial staff alone; (3) it is the product of one sustained authorial voice across the whole book (co-authored monographs still meet this test; a collection of separately authored chapters compiled by an editor does not, and is instead an edited volume); and (4) it is published by a press with an identifiable scholarly-monograph series or list, typically a university press or a recognized academic imprint of a commercial publisher.
MEDLINE Database
MEDLINE is the U.S. National Library of Medicine's core bibliographic database of biomedical and life-sciences journal literature: a curated set of article citations, indexed with MeSH controlled-vocabulary terms, drawn only from journals that have individually passed NLM's formal journal-selection review. It is distinct from PubMed (NCBI's free search interface, which includes MEDLINE plus some non-MEDLINE records) and from PubMed Central/PMC (NLM's separate full-text repository, with its own, less restrictive inclusion criteria).
Sole Authorship
The condition of a scholarly or scientific work having exactly one author: a single named individual who alone satisfies the full authorship criteria a publisher or field applies (most commonly the ICMJE's four-part test -- substantial contribution to conception or design, drafting or critically revising the work, final approval of the published version, and accountability for its accuracy and integrity), with no co-authors to share credit, order, or accountability with. Because there is only one contributor, none of the coordination questions that dominate multi-author authorship management -- author order, corresponding-author designation, CRediT role-splitting, gift or ghost authorship, or authorship disputes -- apply: the sole author is, by definition, first author, last author, and corresponding author simultaneously, and carries full responsibility for the entire work rather than a delineated share of it.
PsyArXiv
<p><strong>PsyArXiv</strong> is a free, open-access preprint repository for psychology and related behavioral-science research. It was created by the <a href='https://improvingpsych.org/'>Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS)</a> and is hosted on the Open Science Framework (OSF), the infrastructure built and maintained by the <a href='https://www.cos.io/'>Center for Open Science (COS)</a>. A PsyArXiv Scientific Advisory Board oversees policy, and the service is funded by contributions from member institution libraries rather than author or reader fees.</p><p>Authors upload working papers, preprints, registered reports, and author copies of accepted journal articles covering any area of psychology — clinical, cognitive, developmental, social, and beyond — without going through the peer review a journal would require before an editor even sees the manuscript. Accepted submissions receive a persistent <a href='/dictionary/term/doi'>DOI</a>, making the preprint citable on its own before, or independent of, eventual journal publication.</p><h2>Operational definition</h2><p>A deposit is properly identified as a "PsyArXiv preprint" if it meets all of the following:</p><ul><li>It was submitted through the PsyArXiv service on OSF (osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv), not simply cross-listed or mirrored from another preprint server.</li><li>It falls within psychology or a closely related behavioral/social-science discipline, per PsyArXiv's scope.</li><li>Since PsyArXiv moved from post-moderation to <strong>pre-moderation in August 2025</strong>, it has passed moderator screening confirming the work is scholarly, psychology-focused, and internally consistent (matching author names, titles, and abstracts across the uploaded documents) — moderators do not evaluate scientific merit or methodology, only these threshold, non-substantive criteria.</li><li>It has not been withdrawn; a withdrawn preprint is replaced by a "tombstone" page that preserves the metadata and DOI but removes the full text.</li></ul><h2>What PsyArXiv is not</h2><p>PsyArXiv posting is explicitly not peer review. A preprint deposited there has not been evaluated by independent subject-matter reviewers the way a journal submission is — pre-moderation checks scope and completeness, not scientific validity. It is also distinct from a journal's own author-manuscript archive: PsyArXiv is a standalone, discipline-specific repository within OSF's family of subject-area preprint servers (alongside services such as SocArXiv for sociology and EdArXiv for education), not a publisher.</p><h2>Examples</h2><ul><li>A cognitive psychology lab posts a working paper on PsyArXiv ahead of journal submission so collaborators and the field can cite and comment on it via its DOI while formal peer review is still underway elsewhere.</li><li>A research team deposits a registered report's Stage 1 protocol on PsyArXiv as part of an open-science workflow, alongside data and materials hosted in a linked OSF project.</li></ul><h2>Counter-examples</h2><ul><li>Describing a PsyArXiv preprint as "peer reviewed" based on its presence on the server — pre-moderation screens for scope and completeness, not for methodological or scientific rigor, which only happens if and when the manuscript goes through a journal's own review process.</li><li>Treating a preprint that was later formally published in a journal as unchanged from its PsyArXiv version — journal peer review frequently produces revisions between the preprint and the version of record, so the two should not be cited interchangeably without checking which version is being referenced.</li></ul>
Journal Registration (ISSN Registration)
Journal registration is the process of obtaining an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) for a serial publication -- an 8-digit identifier assigned exclusively by the ISSN Network (a national ISSN Centre, or the ISSN International Centre for countries without one) that uniquely identifies a specific title in a specific medium. A publication counts as "registered" only once the relevant Centre has verified the title, publisher, and format and formally assigned it an ISSN through the ISSN Portal -- not merely because a publisher claims or advertises one. It is a bibliographic-identification step, distinct from peer-review vetting, DOAJ inclusion, database indexing, or any copyright/trademark filing.
Operationalizing Variables
Operationalization is the process of translating an abstract theoretical construct that cannot be observed or measured directly (for example, “job satisfaction” or “research productivity”) into a concrete, specific operational definition: a stated procedure or instrument, a defined unit or range of values, and a rule precise enough that a researcher who did not design the study could apply it to new data and get a comparable result. A variable is operationalized only when all three hold together — naming the construct, or describing it in general terms, is not the same as operationalizing it.
Cover Letter for Journal Submission
A short letter addressed to a journal's editor that accompanies a manuscript submission, as a separate document from the manuscript itself, in which the corresponding author states the manuscript's novelty and significance in their own words, confirms it is not simultaneously under consideration elsewhere, discloses relevant conflicts of interest (or confirms none exist), confirms all authors have approved the submission, and — where the specific journal's instructions permit — suggests or excludes potential peer reviewers.
Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD)
A thesis or dissertation prepared, submitted, and archived in digital form (typically a PDF plus any supplementary files) rather than only as a bound print copy, submitted to satisfy a degree requirement. A work qualifies as an ETD once digital deposit — most often to an institutional repository, and often onward to a national or international aggregator such as NDLTD — is the accepted or required submission format, even if the institution also retains a print copy alongside it.
Academic Journal
A publication counts as an academic (scholarly) journal when it is issued on a continuing basis under a stable title and ISSN, publishes original research or scholarship vetted through a documented peer-review or formal editorial-review process, is overseen by a named editorial board of subject-matter experts, states an explicit aims-and-scope, and is cited within and indexed by the scholarly literature — as distinct from a magazine (general audience, no peer review), a trade publication (practitioner audience, editorial but not scholarly peer review), or a blog/preprint server (no editorial board, no peer review).
Research Study Types
A research study's design type is the structural classification of how it relates to the exposure or intervention under study, decided at the protocol stage: whether the researcher assigns the exposure (experimental) or only observes it occurring naturally (observational), and, for observational designs, whether data collection looks forward from exposure (cohort), backward from outcome (case-control), or captures exposure and outcome at a single point in time (cross-sectional). It is a separate axis from research methodology (qualitative vs. quantitative vs. mixed methods, which describes data type, not design structure).
Qualitative Data Collection Techniques
A qualitative data collection technique is the specific, repeatable procedure a researcher uses to generate or capture non-numeric primary data within a qualitative study — distinct from the broader methodological tradition (ethnography, phenomenology, grounded theory, narrative research, case study) that determines how techniques are combined, sequenced, and interpreted. Four techniques account for most qualitative primary data: the semi-structured interview (a predetermined but flexible guide of open-ended questions, allowing probes and reordering); the focus group (a facilitated discussion among roughly 6-10 participants per group, in which group interaction itself, not just individual answers, is the data source); participant observation (the researcher observes, and to a chosen degree takes part in, a setting's ordinary activities, recording field notes); and document or artifact analysis (systematic review of pre-existing texts, records, or images the researcher did not create). A single technique can appear inside more than one tradition — semi-structured interviews show up in phenomenology, grounded theory, and case-study designs alike — so naming the technique alone does not establish a study's overall methodological design.
Mixed Methods Research
Mixed methods research is a study design in which a researcher deliberately collects and analyzes both quantitative and qualitative data within a single study and integrates the two strands at one or more defined points in the design (through merging, connecting, or embedding) for a stated rationale such as triangulation, complementarity, or development — not a study that simply uses one method for one question and a different method for an unrelated question, and not a study that collects both data types but reports them independently without ever connecting them.
IMRaD Structure
The four-part sectional structure -- Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion -- used to organize a manuscript reporting original empirical research. A paper qualifies as IMRaD-structured when: (1) the Introduction states the research question against existing background without previewing findings, (2) the Methods (or Materials and Methods) section describes the procedure in enough detail to permit assessment or replication and contains no findings, (3) the Results section reports what was found without interpreting it, and (4) the Discussion interprets those findings against the research question and prior literature. Content placed in the wrong section -- most commonly, interpretation appearing in Results instead of Discussion -- is a structural defect even when all four section headings are present.
Parenthetical Citation
An in-text citation enclosed in parentheses that gives a source's identifying information -- author and date, or author and page number, depending on the governing citation style -- directly within the sentence, as opposed to a superscript footnote/endnote marker or a bracketed numbered reference pointing to a separately numbered list. The exact contents and punctuation inside the parentheses are set by the citation style in use (e.g., APA's author-date system, MLA's author-page system, Chicago's author-date variant); the defining feature is the parenthetical container itself carrying the identifying information, not any one style's specific formatting.
Graphical Abstract
A graphical abstract is a single image (typically one panel combining minimal text with icons, diagrams, or illustrations) that visually summarizes a paper's central finding or methodology, submitted as a separate file from the manuscript and displayed by the publisher alongside the text abstract -- in the online table of contents, search-result listings, and the article page -- to let a reader grasp the paper's core message without reading the full text.
NIH Public Access Policy
A specific NIH funding-compliance requirement — not a general "open access" commitment — under which any peer-reviewed journal article arising in whole or in part from NIH funds must have its Author Accepted Manuscript submitted to PubMed Central (PMC) upon acceptance for publication. For articles accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025, the manuscript must be made publicly available in PMC immediately, with zero embargo, at the article's official date of publication; articles accepted before that date remain governed by the prior policy's 12-month embargo. Compliance is tracked through a PMCID that grant recipients must cite in progress reports and in any subsequent application or progress report referencing that publication.
Open Source Software
Software distributed under a licence that meets the Open Source Initiative's ten-criteria Open Source Definition: the source code is included and modifiable, and the licence permits free redistribution, creation of derivative works, and use for any purpose (including commercial and research use) without discriminating against particular users or fields of endeavour.
Copyediting
The mechanical and stylistic edit applied to an accepted manuscript after peer review and the editorial acceptance decision, and before typesetting/layout — correcting grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and enforcing the journal or publisher's house style (commonly built on a named style guide such as AMA, APA, or Chicago) and internal consistency in terminology, abbreviations, units, and formatting, without altering the manuscript's structure, argument, or content.
Publication Bias
A study's result (statistically significant/positive vs. null/negative) measurably affects its odds of being submitted for and accepted into publication, so the published literature systematically over-represents positive findings relative to everything that was actually studied.
Qualitative Research
An approach to research, not a single method, defined by four things holding together across a whole study: it collects non-numeric data (words, images, observed behavior, or documents) as primary evidence; it asks a meaning- or process-focused question rather than one aimed at measuring a variable or testing a pre-specified hypothesis; its analysis is iterative and inductive, developing codes and themes from the data itself, often while more data is still being collected; and it reports findings as contextualized, thick description rather than a statistical estimate. A study counts as qualitative research only when this bundle governs the design end-to-end, not merely because some of its raw data happens to be text.
Abstract
A standalone summary placed at the start of a research paper that states the study's purpose or background, methods, principal results, and conclusions in enough detail that a reader or an indexing database (e.g. PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science) can judge the paper's relevance and content without reading the full text. An abstract is standalone in a specific operational sense: it must be intelligible on its own, so it does not cite other works by reference number, does not rely on abbreviations defined only in the body text, and does not assume the reader has already read (or will go on to read) any other part of the paper. Journals require either a structured abstract (explicit labeled subsections, e.g. Background, Methods, Results, Conclusions) or an unstructured abstract (a single continuous paragraph covering the same elements), and each journal sets its own word limit, most commonly somewhere in the 150-350 word range.
FORCE11 Software Citation Principles
A citation practice satisfies the FORCE11 Software Citation Principles (Smith, Katz & Niemeyer, 2016, PeerJ Computer Science) to the extent it meets all six: Importance, Credit and Attribution, Unique Identification, Persistence, Accessibility, and Specificity (down to the exact version used). It is a standard for citing software, not for making software FAIR -- see the separate FAIR4RS Principles.
FAIR4RS (FAIR Principles for Research Software)
Software satisfies FAIR4RS to the extent it meets the four adapted FAIR categories -- Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable -- with sub-principles rewritten for software's executable, versioned, dependency-bound nature (RDA/FORCE11/ReSA, 2022, DOI 10.15497/RDA00068). It is a standard for making software FAIR, not for citing it -- see the separate FORCE11 Software Citation Principles.
Container image (as output)
A reproducibility-supporting container image (Docker, Singularity/Apptainer, OCI) packaging a complete computational environment — operating system, dependencies, software, configuration — deposited in a container registry with a persistent identifier and treated as a citable research output.
Workflow (as output)
A computational workflow — a structured description of a multi-step analysis pipeline, expressed in a workflow language (Nextflow, Snakemake, CWL, WDL) or platform-specific format, with dependencies, parameters, and provenance — deposited in a repository with a persistent identifier as a citable research output.
Model (as output)
A trained machine-learning model — including its weights, architecture, training metadata, and accompanying model card — deposited in a model repository (Hugging Face, Zenodo) with a persistent identifier, treated as a citable scholarly output independent of any paper that may describe it.
Dataset (as output)
A research dataset deposited in a FAIR-aligned repository with a persistent identifier (typically a DataCite DOI), metadata, licence, and access conditions, treated as a citable scholarly output in its own right rather than only as supporting material for a paper.
Translation (work)
A scholarly publication that renders a previously-published work from one natural language into another, with the translator(s) credited and the original work referenced, treated as a distinct research output for purposes of credit, citation, and intellectual contribution.
White paper
An authoritative document — published by a government, industry body, or research organisation — that provides analysis and recommendations on a specific issue, typically intended to inform a policy decision, state the issuing body's position, or guide implementation, with a more formal and longer treatment than a policy brief and a policy/decision-maker audience rather than a technical-practitioner one.
Technical report
A scholarly document published by a research-performing organisation (a laboratory, government agency, or company) reporting technical work in detail — full methods, data, and often extensive appendices — typically not peer-reviewed in the journal sense but vetted internally, bearing an institutional report number for citation, and aimed primarily at a technical-practitioner audience rather than a policy or decision-maker one.
Policy brief
A short document — typically 2-8 pages — synthesising research evidence for a policy-maker audience, with explicit policy implications or recommendations, structured for accessibility rather than for academic readers, and issued by research institutions, NGOs, or government-aligned bodies.
Discussion paper
A scholarly document — published by institutions, learned societies, think-tanks, or government bodies — that presents an argued perspective, policy proposal, or position for community deliberation, sometimes formally inviting a structured response, rather than reporting original empirical research findings for the first time.
Working paper
A scholarly document circulated through an institutional working-paper series (such as NBER, IZA, or CEPR), an academic website, or a repository, presenting research in progress for community feedback prior to — or sometimes instead of — formal peer review and journal publication. The defining feature is dissemination through an established institutional series with its own numbering and identity, distinct from a one-off self-posted draft.
Conference abstract
A short summary of research findings or planned work submitted to a conference for selection of oral or poster presentation, published in a conference abstract book or supplement, citable as a publication but typically lacking full peer review of the underlying research.
Conference proceeding
A peer-reviewed scholarly publication appearing in the published proceedings of a conference, workshop, or symposium, typically representing original research presented at the meeting, with a citation that includes the conference name, date, and proceedings location.
Null result publication
A peer-reviewed publication reporting that a study's primary analysis returned results statistically consistent with no effect (or, in equivalence/non-inferiority designs, consistent with no clinically meaningful difference), explicitly framed and interpreted as informative about the absence of effect.
Negative result paper
A peer-reviewed publication whose primary finding is that a tested hypothesis was not supported, an intervention did not produce the predicted effect, or an expected relationship was not observed, framed as a contribution to evidence rather than as a failure.
Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN)
An electronic lab notebook (ELN) is software that replaces the paper laboratory notebook as the primary record of experimental work. An entry qualifies as ELN record-keeping when it is timestamped and attributed at the moment of creation, when edits are versioned rather than overwritten (so a full history remains retrievable), and when the record is structured enough to be searched, exported in a non-proprietary format, and -- increasingly -- assigned a DOI and deposited as a citable research output.
Living systematic review
A systematic review that is continuously updated — typically by re-running the registered search, screening newly-identified studies, and incorporating eligible ones into the synthesis — with explicit triggers for major versus minor updates and a publicly maintained version history.
Living review
A review article — systematic or otherwise — that is continuously or periodically updated as new evidence emerges, maintained as a single citable resource with version history rather than being supplanted by a fresh standalone review on each update.
Narrative review
A literature review that synthesises existing scholarship on a topic through expert judgement and discursive argument, without using the pre-specified protocols, reproducible search strategies, or formal quality-appraisal frameworks that characterise systematic and scoping reviews. Search is selective and purposive (focused on what the author judges to be the significant work in the field) rather than exhaustive, and the output is typically a conceptual synthesis or argued perspective rather than a protocol-governed answer to a narrowly defined question.
Meta-analysis
A quantitative synthesis of effect estimates from multiple studies on a common question, using statistical methods (typically random-effects models) to compute a pooled estimate with confidence interval and heterogeneity diagnostics.
Scoping review
A literature review that maps the breadth and nature of evidence on a broad topic — characterising what exists, where, and in what form — using systematic search methods but without typically appraising study quality or synthesising effect estimates, following PRISMA-ScR.
Systematic review
A literature review that follows a pre-specified, registered protocol to systematically identify, appraise, and synthesise all evidence relevant to a focused research question, using reproducible methods for searching, screening, data extraction, and quality assessment.
Case report
A peer-reviewed publication describing in detail one or a small number of individual cases — typically clinical, sometimes legal or social — for educational, hypothesis-generating, or rare-presentation-documenting purposes, structured according to discipline-specific reporting standards (e.g., CARE guidelines for clinical cases).
Brief report
A peer-reviewed publication format for compact original research findings, particularly in clinical and applied fields, with tight word and figure limits, used for results that warrant rapid or focused communication of a single result or small study.
Short communication
A peer-reviewed publication format for compact original research findings, typically with word limits below those of full original articles (2,000-3,000 words) but greater than letters or research letters, used for results meriting publication but not requiring full-article treatment.
Research letter
A short, peer-reviewed publication presenting original research findings in a compressed format — typically under 1,000 words with limited tables/figures and abbreviated methods — used by a journal as a formally categorised publication type for results that warrant rapid or concise communication rather than a full-length original article.
Letter to editor
A short scholarly communication submitted to a journal in response to a previously-published article in that journal, raising questions, corrections, alternative interpretations, or additional evidence, typically published with a reply from the original authors.
Commentary
A short scholarly publication that responds to, contextualises, or critiques other recently-published work or a current development in the field, presenting an argued perspective rather than original empirical findings.
Methods paper
A peer-reviewed publication whose primary subject is a research methodology — a new analytic technique, experimental procedure, instrumentation approach, or computational method — described in sufficient detail for independent reuse by other researchers, sometimes with worked examples or benchmarking against existing techniques. The method itself, not a specific planned study using it, is the paper's contribution.
Protocol paper
A peer-reviewed publication that fully describes the methodology of a planned or ongoing research study (clinical trial, systematic review, cohort study, laboratory protocol) prior to or alongside execution, sufficient to enable replication and to fix the methods against post-hoc revision.
Software paper
A peer-reviewed scholarly publication whose primary subject is a research software package — describing its functionality, architecture, dependencies, testing, and intended uses — published in a venue that issues this format (JOSS, SoftwareX), accompanying the software release in a citable repository.
Data paper
A data paper (or data descriptor) is a peer-reviewed publication describing a dataset — its collection methods, structure, and quality — rather than presenting novel scientific analysis or findings from that data, giving citable scholarly credit for the work of producing a reusable dataset.
Replication study
A replication study is a new study that repeats the design and procedures of a prior study, using an independently collected sample, to test whether the original result recurs.
Stage-2 results paper
The completed registered report submitted after data collection, containing the results, discussion, and any exploratory (clearly labelled) analyses beyond the pre-registered plan, peer-reviewed only for adherence to the Stage 1 protocol and quality of conclusions — not for the direction of findings.
Stage-1 protocol
The introduction, methods, and analysis plan submitted as the first of two stages of a registered report, peer-reviewed for theoretical motivation, design adequacy, and analytic appropriateness, and (if accepted) granted in-principle acceptance for publication.
Registered Report
A publication format in which peer review of a study's rationale, hypotheses, and methodology happens before data collection (or before outcomes are known). If reviewers judge the protocol sound, the journal grants in-principle acceptance (IPA) — a binding editorial commitment to publish the completed study once it is executed as approved, regardless of whether the results are statistically significant or match the original hypotheses.
Version of record (VoR)
The final, formally published version of a scholarly work as issued by the publisher — including typesetting, pagination, copy-editing, and an assigned bibliographic citation — which is the canonical citable form of the work absent subsequent corrections.
Postprint
The author-accepted version of a manuscript after peer review and editorial decision of acceptance but before publisher typesetting and final layout — synonymous with 'author-accepted manuscript' (AAM) in many usage contexts.
Preprint
A scholarly manuscript posted to a public preprint server prior to formal peer review and journal publication, made openly accessible, citable via a persistent identifier (typically a DOI), and bearing a clearly identified version state.
Read only
Online content (data or information) that is capable of being displayed but not modified or deleted.
Publish
A broad process or system that involves, at minimum, scholarship and writing, certification (most commonly via peer review), registration (commonly formal publishing in a journal or some other version of record), dissemination (awareness, making accessible, distribution), and archiving.
Pre-print
Preliminary version of an article that has not undergone peer review but that may be shared for comment.
Post-print
A manuscript draft after it has been peer reviewed.
Author accepted manuscript
The author's final, peer reviewed and corrected manuscript, usually created in Word or LaTeX.
