Do organisms need an impact factor? Citations of key biological resources including model organisms reveal usage patterns and impact.
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| Title: | Do organisms need an impact factor? Citations of key biological resources including model organisms reveal usage patterns and impact. |
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| Authors: | Piekniewska A; SciCrunch Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America., Roelandse M; SciCrunch Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America.; martijnroelandse.dev, Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, The Netherlands., Lloyd KCK; Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Mouse Biology Program, Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California Davis, Davis, California, United States of America., Korf I; Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, UC Davis Genome Center, University of California Davis, Davis, California, United States of America., Voss SR; Ambystoma Genetic Stock Center, Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, United States of America., de Castro G; Department of Medicine, UMass Chan Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America., Magnani DM; Department of Medicine, UMass Chan Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America., Varga Z; Zebrafish International Resource Center, Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, United States of America., James-Zorn C; Division of Developmental Biology, Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America., Horb M; National Xenopus Resource, Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering, Marine Biological Laboratory, Falmouth, Massachusetts, United States of America., Grethe JS; Department of Neuroscience, School of Medicine, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California, United States of America., Bandrowski A; SciCrunch Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America.; Department of Neuroscience, School of Medicine, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California, United States of America. |
| Source: | PloS one [PLoS One] 2025 Aug 13; Vol. 20 (8), pp. e0327344. Date of Electronic Publication: 2025 Aug 13 (Print Publication: 2025). |
| Publication Type: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Journal Info: | Publisher: Public Library of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101285081 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1932-6203 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 19326203 NLM ISO Abbreviation: PLoS One Subsets: MEDLINE |
| Imprint Name(s): | Original Publication: San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science |
| MeSH Terms: | Journal Impact Factor* , Biomedical Research*, Animals ; Animals, Genetically Modified ; Humans |
| Abstract: | Competing Interests: COI: AP is an analyst at SciCrunch Inc COI: MR serves as an independent contractor for SciCrunch. COI: Part of this work was supported by the University of California, San Diego, Center for Research in Biological Systems and grants from NIH (Award #U24DK097771). Dr. Grethe has an equity interest in SciCrunch, Inc., a company that may potentially benet from the research results. The terms of this arrangement have been reviewed and approved by the University of California, San Diego in accordance with its conict of interest policies. COI: Dr. Bandrowski is a co-founder and current CEO of SciCrunch, Inc., a company that may potentially benet from the research results. The terms of this arrangement have been reviewed and approved by the University of California, San Diego in accordance with its conict of interest policies. Research resources like transgenic animals and antibodies are the workhorses of biomedicine, enabling investigators to relatively easily study specific disease conditions. As key biological resources, transgenic animals and antibodies are often validated, maintained, and distributed from university-based stock centers. As these centers heavily rely on grant funding, it is critical that they are cited by investigators so that usage can be tracked. However, unlike systems for tracking the impact of papers, the conventions and systems for tracking key resource usage and impact lag. Previous studies have shown that about 50% of the resources are not findable, making the studies they support irreproducible, but also makes tracking resources difficult. The RRID (Research Resource Identifiers) project is filling this gap by working with journals and resource providers to improve citation practices and to track the usage of these key resources. Here, we reviewed 10 years of citation practices for five university based stock centers, characterizing each reference into two broad categories: findable (authors could use the RRID, stock number, or full name) and not findable (authors could use a nickname or a common name that is not unique to the resource). The data revealed that when stock centers asked their communities to cite resources by RRID, in addition to helping stock centers more easily track resource usage by increasing the number of RRID papers, authors shifted from citing resources predominantly by nickname (~50% of the time) to citing them by one of the findable categories (~85%) in a matter of several years. In the case of one stock center, the MMRRC, the improvement in findability is also associated with improvements in the adherence to NIH rigor criteria, as determined by a significant increase in the Rigor and Transparency Index for studies using MMRRC mice. From these data, it was not possible to determine whether outreach to authors or changes to stock center websites drove better citation practices, but findability of research resources and rigor adherence were improved. (Copyright: © 2025 Piekniewska et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.) |
| Comments: | Update of: bioRxiv. 2024 Jan 16:2024.01.15.575636. doi: 10.1101/2024.01.15.575636.. (PMID: 38293091) |
| References: | Adv Exp Med Biol. 2022;1354:335-343. (PMID: 34807450) Gigascience. 2022 Jun 14;11:. (PMID: 35701373) iScience. 2020 Oct 20;23(11):101698. (PMID: 33196023) J Cereb Blood Flow Metab. 2020 Sep;40(9):1769-1777. (PMID: 32663096) Cell. 2016 Aug 25;166(5):1059-1060. (PMID: 27565332) J Prev Med Hyg. 2022 Oct 17;63(2 Suppl 3):E255-E266. (PMID: 36479489) F1000Res. 2015 May 29;4:134. (PMID: 26594330) J Med Internet Res. 2022 Jun 27;24(6):e37324. (PMID: 35759334) Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Apr 27;118(17):. (PMID: 33893240) Adv Exp Med Biol. 2020;1236:1-38. (PMID: 32304067) F1000Res. 2017 May 2;6:604. (PMID: 28620458) |
| Grant Information: | P40 OD028116 United States OD NIH HHS; R24 GM144308 United States GM NIGMS NIH HHS; U24 AI126683 United States AI NIAID NIH HHS; U24 DK097771 United States DK NIDDK NIH HHS |
| Entry Date(s): | Date Created: 20250813 Date Completed: 20250827 Latest Revision: 20250827 |
| Update Code: | 20250903 |
| PubMed Central ID: | PMC12349098 |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0327344 |
| PMID: | 40802618 |
| Database: | MEDLINE |
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Nájsť tento článok vo Web of Science | Abstract: | Competing Interests: COI: AP is an analyst at SciCrunch Inc COI: MR serves as an independent contractor for SciCrunch. COI: Part of this work was supported by the University of California, San Diego, Center for Research in Biological Systems and grants from NIH (Award #U24DK097771). Dr. Grethe has an equity interest in SciCrunch, Inc., a company that may potentially benet from the research results. The terms of this arrangement have been reviewed and approved by the University of California, San Diego in accordance with its conict of interest policies. COI: Dr. Bandrowski is a co-founder and current CEO of SciCrunch, Inc., a company that may potentially benet from the research results. The terms of this arrangement have been reviewed and approved by the University of California, San Diego in accordance with its conict of interest policies.<br />Research resources like transgenic animals and antibodies are the workhorses of biomedicine, enabling investigators to relatively easily study specific disease conditions. As key biological resources, transgenic animals and antibodies are often validated, maintained, and distributed from university-based stock centers. As these centers heavily rely on grant funding, it is critical that they are cited by investigators so that usage can be tracked. However, unlike systems for tracking the impact of papers, the conventions and systems for tracking key resource usage and impact lag. Previous studies have shown that about 50% of the resources are not findable, making the studies they support irreproducible, but also makes tracking resources difficult. The RRID (Research Resource Identifiers) project is filling this gap by working with journals and resource providers to improve citation practices and to track the usage of these key resources. Here, we reviewed 10 years of citation practices for five university based stock centers, characterizing each reference into two broad categories: findable (authors could use the RRID, stock number, or full name) and not findable (authors could use a nickname or a common name that is not unique to the resource). The data revealed that when stock centers asked their communities to cite resources by RRID, in addition to helping stock centers more easily track resource usage by increasing the number of RRID papers, authors shifted from citing resources predominantly by nickname (~50% of the time) to citing them by one of the findable categories (~85%) in a matter of several years. In the case of one stock center, the MMRRC, the improvement in findability is also associated with improvements in the adherence to NIH rigor criteria, as determined by a significant increase in the Rigor and Transparency Index for studies using MMRRC mice. From these data, it was not possible to determine whether outreach to authors or changes to stock center websites drove better citation practices, but findability of research resources and rigor adherence were improved.<br /> (Copyright: © 2025 Piekniewska et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.) |
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| ISSN: | 1932-6203 |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0327344 |