{"id":10150,"date":"2025-09-11T10:28:46","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T09:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/?p=10150"},"modified":"2025-09-11T10:28:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T09:28:47","slug":"reproducible-protocols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2025\/09\/11\/reproducible-protocols\/","title":{"rendered":"Reproducible protocols"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A fundamental feature of science is reproducibility and having study methods and data openly available enables researchers to replicate and verify their results.&nbsp; It is not just making methodologies fully open, they need to be fully documented and placed in a location that is accessible.<\/p>\n<p>Open methodologies are concerned with creating records which detail research plans, rationale and\/or hypotheses prior to the commencement of a research study. &nbsp;One of the best ways to increase transparency in research through open methodologies is the use of study protocols. This assures robustness in the scientific method, that a hypothesis and the methods used to prove it are set out before data collection.&nbsp; This avoids the practices of HARKing and p-hacking which see a hypothesis and methodology emerge through data collection to cement a positive result.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2025\/09\/Reproducibility-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10151\" style=\"width:713px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2025\/09\/Reproducibility-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2025\/09\/Reproducibility-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2025\/09\/Reproducibility-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2025\/09\/Reproducibility.jpg 1079w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>A protocol is a full description of the research study and sets out to researchers on the project team the methods which need to be adhered too. As the study gets underway, it can then be used to monitor the study\u2019s progress and evaluate its outcomes.\u00a0 By publishing the protocol publicly, the methods cannot be changed or adapted by what comes out in the data, without the research community being aware of this change.\u00a0 Protocols are being more widely used, especially in clinical trials.\u00a0 In some cases, main funders, such as the MRC are now making it mandatory for study protocols to be made public by the start of the study.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"859\" height=\"120\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2025\/09\/protocols_platforms.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10152\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2025\/09\/protocols_platforms.jpg 859w, https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2025\/09\/protocols_platforms-300x42.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2025\/09\/protocols_platforms-768x107.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 859px) 100vw, 859px\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>To accommodate the sharing of study protocols, platforms are available for researchers to both deposit and retrieve.\u00a0 These include Octopus, Open Science Framework, clinicaltrials.gov and Protocol.io.\u00a0 The latter is specifically for recording and sharing study protocols.\u00a0 Protocol.io is a secure platform for sharing reproducible methods, enabling researchers to create, publish, and read public protocols.\u00a0 It also allows a research project team or an institution to create their own private workspaces, to share research, SOPs and even teaching materials. However, these additional work spaces come with a cost. By placing protocols on platforms such as these, enables version control, so researchers can link the version used in a given experiment to meet the need for reproducibility. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A fundamental feature of science is reproducibility and having study methods and data openly available&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81944],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-research","odd"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Reproducible protocols - Library, Archive &amp; Open Research Services blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2025\/09\/11\/reproducible-protocols\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reproducible protocols - Library, Archive &amp; 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