Peer-review activists push psychology journals towards open data; Nature, March 1, 2017

Gautam Naik, Nature; 

Peer-review activists push psychology journals towards open data

"An editor on the board of a journal published by the prestigious American Psychological Association (APA) has been asked to resign in a controversy over data sharing in peer review.

Gert Storms — who says he won’t step down — is one of a few hundred scientists who have vowed that, from the start of this year, they will begin rejecting papers if authors won’t publicly share the underlying data, or explain why they can’t.

The idea, called the Peer Reviewers’ Openness Initiative, was launched by psychologists hoping to increase transparency in a field beset by reports of fraud and dubious research practices. And the APA, which does not ask that data be made available to peer reviewers or shared openly online, seems set to become an early testing ground for the initiative’s influence. With Storms’ situation still unresolved, the society’s council of editors will discuss whether it should change its policies at a meeting in late March."