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Avani C Modi, Editorial: Increasing Transparency, Accountability, and Usability in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology, Journal of Pediatric Psychology, Volume 48, Issue 2, February 2023, Pages 105–107, https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsac093
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As we begin the new year, I am excited to announce several recent and upcoming changes to the Journal of Pediatric Psychology (JPP), with the goal of increasing transparency, accountability, and usability of the journal. Specifically, I would like to review four key changes to the journal for 2023: (1) Data Availability Statements, (2) CRediT reporting, (3) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion data collection for authors and reviewers, and (4) New Instructions to Authors.
Data Availability Statements
In alignment with recent editorials and recommendations (Freedland, 2021; Nosek et al., 2015), journals are adopting Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOPS) Guidelines, which enhances transparency around how research studies were developed and conducted. One of the standards is to increase data availability for manuscripts based on the TOPS guidelines. Journals are encouraged to implement one of three levels. The highest rigor is Level III which ensures studies are pre-registered and all data, analytic codes, and study materials are posted to repositories. As a first step in transparency, as of January 2022, JPP adheres to Level II reporting of data availability, which is defined as: “The journal encourages all authors, where ethically possible, to publicly release all data underlying any published paper. Authors must include a Data Availability Statement in their published article.” Please see https://academic.oup.com/jpepsy/pages/research-data-policy-statement for examples of Data Availability Statements, one of which must be integrated in every manuscript. Implementation of these standards over time will enhance the scientific rigor of papers published in JPP.
CRediT Reporting
Many medical journals have used detailed authorship contribution forms as a part of the submission process, including one created by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html). Upon acceptance of manuscripts in JPP, authors were previously asked to complete an Author Contribution form, which had approximately eight levels of contribution. In December 2022, JPP began using the contributor roles taxonomy (CRediT; https://credit.niso.org/), which allows authors to describe the contributions of each author in a standardized, transparent, and accurate way. Fourteen roles are outlined within CRediT, including Conceptualization, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project Administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing—Original Draft, Writing—Review and Editing. Notably, authors can have multiple contributor roles. Where multiple individuals serve in the same role, the degree of contribution should be specified as “lead,” “equal,” or “supporting.” Corresponding authors should assume responsibility for role assignment, and all contributors should be given the opportunity to review and confirm assigned roles prior to submission. We believe use of CRediT will standardize and provide appropriate credit to authors for their individual role as authors for manuscripts.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Data Collection
Oxford University Press is a partner of the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications, which adheres to their Joint Statement of Principles (https://c4disc.org/principles/). In 2023, JPP will institute the Coalition’s standardized questions to collect diversity data about authors and reviewers for the journal. Three questions will be asked regarding (1) gender, (2) ethnic origin, and (3) race (see Table I). These questions were agreed upon and are being implemented across journals that are published by publishers who are a part of the Joint Commitment for Action on Inclusion and Diversity in Publishing, which originally launched by the Royal Society of Chemistry (https://www.rsc.org/new-perspectives/talent/joint-commitment-for-action-inclusion-and-diversity-in-publishing/).
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Data Collection Items for Oxford Journals
| Topic . | Question . | Response options . |
|---|---|---|
| Gender identity | With which gender do you most identify? Please select one option |
|
| Ethnicity | What are your ethnic origins or ancestry? Please select ALL the geographic areas from which your family’s ancestors first originated: |
|
| Race | How would you identify yourself in terms of race? Please select ALL the groups that apply to you: |
|
| Topic . | Question . | Response options . |
|---|---|---|
| Gender identity | With which gender do you most identify? Please select one option |
|
| Ethnicity | What are your ethnic origins or ancestry? Please select ALL the geographic areas from which your family’s ancestors first originated: |
|
| Race | How would you identify yourself in terms of race? Please select ALL the groups that apply to you: |
|
*Represents open text field.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Data Collection Items for Oxford Journals
| Topic . | Question . | Response options . |
|---|---|---|
| Gender identity | With which gender do you most identify? Please select one option |
|
| Ethnicity | What are your ethnic origins or ancestry? Please select ALL the geographic areas from which your family’s ancestors first originated: |
|
| Race | How would you identify yourself in terms of race? Please select ALL the groups that apply to you: |
|
| Topic . | Question . | Response options . |
|---|---|---|
| Gender identity | With which gender do you most identify? Please select one option |
|
| Ethnicity | What are your ethnic origins or ancestry? Please select ALL the geographic areas from which your family’s ancestors first originated: |
|
| Race | How would you identify yourself in terms of race? Please select ALL the groups that apply to you: |
|
*Represents open text field.
Authors and reviewers will be asked these questions when they log-in to Manuscript Central, and individuals can opt out or select the “prefer not to disclose” option. These data will be stored separate from manuscript submissions. The goal of DEI-related data collection is to gauge and track the success of Oxford and JPP in reducing bias in scholarly publishing. I am optimistic that we will be able to use these data in the future to ensure that JPP editorial process are equitable across gender, ethnic origin, and race.
New Instruction to Authors and Administrative Improvements
With all the new initiatives to improve transparency and accountability, I felt it was important to integrate this information into our instruction for authors. In doing so, we have completely updated the instruction to authors. The revised author guidelines provide clear guidance on requirements for the submission process, including a checklist that mirrors Manuscript Central requirements, so authors are prepared with all the necessary information prior to submission. Of special interest to authors is newly increased length limits for manuscripts. Specifically, the journal is now using word count (instead of pages), and word count limits do not include title pages, abstracts, figure legends, and references. We anticipate that authors will appreciate the increased limits. I encourage authors to visit the instructions to authors with new manuscript submissions in 2023 and beyond.
In addition, administrative processes at submission and acceptance have been streamlined. Manuscript Central has been modified to reduce redundancies and to make the submission process easier for authors. Finally, we updated required publication forms to fillable PDFs to reduce burden on authors when manuscripts are accepted.
In sum, I hope these updates facilitate the process of publishing in JPP and continue to strengthen the quality and impact of pediatric psychology research.
Conflicts of interest: None declared.
Data Availability
No new data were generated or analyzed in support of this research.
