MBoC Introduces Author Checklist to Enhance Research Reproducibility

Molecular Biology of the Cell (MBoC) has developed a checklist for authors to help them ensure that their work can be reproduced by others. In so doing, the journal is mboc logofollowing the recommendations in the 2015 whitepaper by the ASCB Reproducibility Task Force.

The checklist was developed by a committee of MBoC Editorial Board members chaired by Editor Jean Schwarzbauer and including Associate Editors Rick Fehon, Carole Parent, Greg Matera, Alex Mogilner, and Fred Chang with input from Editor-in-Chief David Drubin and other members of the board.

In an editorial to appear soon in MBoC, Schwarzbauer, W. Mark Leader, and Drubin explain that the checklist is intended to be a tool for authors, not a burden. “Rather than being yet another hurdle that scientists must overcome to publish their work, the checklist is intended to be a formal reminder of the research and data presentation practices that most of us use routinely anyway,” the authors state. And the checklist will be easy to use: “There are four sections: Data Presentation, Methodology and Statistics, Reagents and Model Systems, and Data Accessibility. When submitting a manuscript, authors will be asked to answer only four questions confirming that their paper meets the applicable requirements for each section or, if it does not, to provide an explanation. The answers to the questions and the explanations will be available to editors and reviewers.”

The checklist is available at www.ascb.org/files/mboc-checklist.pdf. Authors who submit Articles or Brief Reports to MBoC on or after November 15, 2016, will be required to use it.

About the Author:


Mark Leader is ASCB's Director of Publications.