title: The Resource Identification Initiative: A Cultural Shift in Publishing.
abstract: A central tenet in support of research reproducibility is the ability to uniquely identify research resources, i.e., reagents, tools, and materials that are used to perform experiments. However, current reporting practices for research resources are insufficient to identify the exact resources that are reported or to answer basic questions such as "How did other studies use resource X?" To address this issue, the Resource Identification Initiative was launched as a pilot project to improve the reporting standards for research resources in the Methods sections of articles and thereby improve identifiability and scientific reproducibility. The pilot engaged over 25 biomedical journal editors from most major publishers, as well as scientists and funding officials. Authors were asked to include Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) in their articles prior to publication for three resource types: antibodies, model organisms, and tools (i.e., software and databases). RRIDs are assigned by an authoritative database, for example, a model organism database for each type of resource. To make it easier for authors to obtain RRIDs, resources were aggregated from the appropriate databases and their RRIDs made available in a central Web portal (http://scicrunch.org/resources). RRIDs meet three key criteria: they are machine-readable, free to generate and access, and are consistent across publishers and journals. The pilot was launched in February of 2014 and over 300 articles have appeared that report RRIDs. The number of journals participating has expanded from the original 25 to more than 40, with RRIDs appearing in 62 different journals to date. Here we present an overview of the pilot project and its outcomes to date. We show that authors are able to identify resources and are supportive of the goals of the project. Identifiability of the resources post-pilot showed a dramatic improvement for all three resource types, suggesting that the project has had a significant impact on identifiability of research resources.
authors.affiliation: Center for Research in Biological Systems, UCSD, La Jolla, California, USA.
authors.forename: Anita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bandrowski
authors.affiliation: Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Library, Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, Portland, Oregon, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brush
authors.affiliation: Center for Research in Biological Systems, UCSD, La Jolla, California, USA.
authors.forename: Jeffery S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Grethe
authors.affiliation: Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Library, Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, Portland, Oregon, USA.
authors.forename: Melissa A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Haendel
authors.affiliation: University of Massachusetts Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: David N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Kennedy
authors.affiliation: Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Sean
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hill
authors.affiliation: Fishberg Department of Neuroscience and Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Patrick R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Hof
authors.affiliation: Center for Research in Biological Systems, UCSD, La Jolla, California, USA.
authors.forename: Maryann E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Martone
authors.affiliation: Scientific Outreach Executive, London, UK.
authors.forename: Maaike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pols
authors.affiliation: John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey, USA.
authors.forename: Serena C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA.
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Washington
authors.affiliation: Elsevier, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Zudilova-Seinstra
authors.affiliation: Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Library, Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, Portland, Oregon, USA.
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Vasilevsky
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000906:Antibodies; D000068598:Data Accuracy; D066289:Data Curation / Q000379:methods*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D020407:Internet; D023421:Models, Animal; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011643:Publishing; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D000906:Antibodies
keywords: Resource Identification Initiative; identifiability; research resources