Use as directed? A comparison of software tools intended to check rigor and transparency of published work
Compares 11 automated tools across nine rigor and transparency criteria to identify where individual tools or combinations perform best.
Open-science resources
- Open access: Free full text (PMC)
- Shared data: Shared comparison data
- Shared code: Analysis code
- Preprint: Earlier preprint
Resource verification & source notes
- Free full text (PMC): The complete article body was retrieved from the public NCBI PMC JATS endpoint. This confirms free access; reuse permissions depend on the individual article license.
- Shared comparison data: The article explicitly links this repository for its comparison data and code. The public GitHub tree contains result CSVs and Python comparison scripts.
- Analysis code: The article explicitly links this repository for its comparison data and code. The public GitHub tree contains result CSVs and Python comparison scripts.
- Earlier preprint: Matched title / source version grouping.
Publication details
Research themes
Research toolsReporting transparency
Author affiliations & identifiers
- Peter Eckmann: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, UC San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America. · ORCID 0000-0002-5388-9451
- Adrian Barnett: School of Public Health and Social Work, Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove, Queensland, Australia.
- Alexandra Bannach-Brown: QUEST Center for Responsible Research, Berlin Institute of Health at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany. · ORCID 0000-0002-3161-1395
- Elisa Pilar Bascunan Atria: QUEST Center for Responsible Research, Berlin Institute of Health at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
- Guillaume Cabanac: Université de Toulouse & Institut Universitaire de France, Toulouse, France.
- Louise Delwen Owen Franzen: QUEST Center for Responsible Research, Berlin Institute of Health at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
- Małgorzata Anna Gazda: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada. · ORCID 0000-0001-8369-1350
- Kaitlyn Hair: UCL Social Research Institute, University College London, London, United Kingdom. · ORCID 0000-0003-0180-7343
- James Howison: Information School of the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America. · ORCID 0000-0002-5702-149X
- Halil Kilicoglu: School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, United States of America.
- Cyril Labbe: Université Grenoble Alpes, Saint-Martin-d'Hères, France.
- Sarah McCann: QUEST Center for Responsible Research, Berlin Institute of Health at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
- Vladislav Nachev: QUEST Center for Responsible Research, Berlin Institute of Health at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
- Martijn Roelandse: martijnroelandse.dev, Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, Netherlands.
- Maia Salholz-Hillel: QUEST Center for Responsible Research, Berlin Institute of Health at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
- Robert Schulz: QUEST Center for Responsible Research, Berlin Institute of Health at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany. · ORCID 0000-0002-4830-309X
- Gerben Ter Riet: Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam, Netherlands. · ORCID 0000-0002-2231-7637
- Colby Vorland: Indiana University School of Public Health, Bloomington, Indiana, United States of America.
- Anita Bandrowski: Department of Neuroscience, UC San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States of America.; SciCrunch Inc., San Diego, California, United States of America.
- Tracey Weissgerber: QUEST Center for Responsible Research, Berlin Institute of Health at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.; CIBB, Center for Innovative Biomedicine and Biotechnology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.; CNC-UC, Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal. · ORCID 0000-0002-7490-2600
Preprint & version links
Source notes
- CV abbreviates the ordered author list with ellipses; replace with complete authoritative list before displaying full authors.
- Final 2026 PLOS ONE publication exists, DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0342225; merge with preprint family.