Patria Hume and I have been discussing this idea of a publication process
based on peer-reviewed proposals and assured publication of the resulting
research, provide that it doesn’t deviate too much from the accepted
proposal.  We're feeling quite optimistic about it.  Can we have some more
feedback from people on this list about perceived pros and cons, or just
email to state whether you support or oppose the idea in principle?  Either
to us or to the list.

A couple of new matters arising…

I can think of several studies I have been involved with lately where the
proposals were perfectly reasonable and where you would be really interested
to hear the outcome, yet the manuscripts were rejected, either because the
reviewers didn’t like the stats, the outcome or the interpretation, or
because the associate editor had to keep up his or her quota of rejections. 
I’m also encountering the dreadful problem of a manuscript going back
apparently to the same hostile reviewer when we resubmit to another
journal.  All this would be history with a system of peer-reviewed
proposals.

If we had a single archive for all the original research in a discipline,
the issue of journal impact factors would also be history.  What matters is
the impact of the paper itself, which is best if imperfectly measured by the
number of citations the paper gets, not what the journal gets on average. 
Let the paper speak for itself.

If we started something like this and it was successful, a likely scenario
is that the existing journals would adopt the same process.  Then, of
course, the “best” journals would accept only the best proposals, so we
would not eliminate the impact-factor problem.  Such an outcome would be a
second best, in my view, but it would still be way better than the current
system. If you accept the findings of John Ioannidis and his colleagues, you
have to conclude that the current publication process has failed
systemically.

Another problem is logistic:  we would need a user-friendly low-cost on-line
submission and publication system.  It can’t be free, because it will need
staff to spend time administering the high volume of submissions and doing
some copy editing. We suggest that researchers would have to pay the article
charge at the time of acceptance of the proposal.  That would provide
further incentive to get the study done as proposed, and it would generate a
cash flow in advance of the paper flow.  What would you be prepared to pay? 
Hakan Gur’s Journal of Sports Science and Medicine charges US$500 per
article.  Surely that could be brought down a lot, if we could get hosting
from some appropriate non-profit institution like Cornell, which hosts
http://arxiv.org.  Note that arxiv.org is a pre-publication archive, so it’s
not quite what we want.  Can anyone suggest any other possibilities?

Will and Patria

I have also followed the thread over recent days.  I have to say that Carl
Foster's response is spot on for me.

I just cannot see how that adding a formal proposal review process would improve
either the quantity of system throughput, or the ultimate quality of
publications, to be honest.  A new review step gets added, to be performed by
the same scientists who we argue are already failing to provide timely reviews
of manuscripts.  Being one of the links in this chain, I don't want a system
that further increases my review load.  As it is, I figure with a 25% acceptance
rate, I "owe" the system about 4 thoughtful reviews per accepted manuscript of
my own. If my reviewing load goes up, I know that the quality of my reviews will
go down.

As an author, I have recently suffered the indignity of having what I thought
was some of my most relevant work thrown back in my face by an associate editor
who clearly did not even read my manuscript abstract. This rocked my confidence
in the peer review system to the core.  But, I don't see how that problem goes
away with the current proposal, for all of its good intentions.  Too many
studies, too few print pages.


Stephen Seiler



Professor
Faculty of Health and Sport
Service Box 422
University of Agder
4604 Kristiansand
Norway
stephen.seiler@...
+47 3814 1347
+47 9161 4587

My comments to Will with his responses below:

From: Paul Laursen
Sent: Monday, 1 November 2010 9:52 p.m.
To: Will Hopkins
Subject: FW: Bias in research, and a solution

Hi Will,

I know I promised I'd get back to you regarding this post.  Like everyone
probably, I too am routinely disappointed and frustrated when my work, and that
of my colleagues, is rejected by reviewers and/or editors, and sometimes even
when the reviewer's comments seem generally positive.  The exercise can really
leave you wondering.  I must also admit that your new concept has taken me a
while to digest, mostly because the traditional research process is fairly well
engrained in me now. After following your new concepts, the thoughts that came
into my head mirror at least two of Carl's points.  Carl's second point
highlights the reviewer issue, which adds to the admin load for everyone.
[Will] I don't think so.  The proposal will be a short document, and largely
done on a form with prompts (assays for dependent variable, predictors,
mechanism variables, subject characteristics; design; analysis...). Also, would
you turn down invitations to see what research others are proposing?

And for students already on tight timelines, further holdups mean setbacks in
starting the research, and inevitably delays in completion.
[Will] Two-week turnaround.

The other issue that I must admit immediately came to mind, was Carl's last
point.  When I go back through my publications, I too can see that at least half
arose from data collected, where I found something I didn't expect to find, that
maybe hadn't been reported previously.
[Will] I am disappointed that you and Carl think that what I am proposing
precludes publication of serendipitous findings.  A guarantee of publication
applies to the main question you have proposed to answer.  Of course you can
publish other stuff, but a meta-analyst will probably assign it a lower weight,
because it is likely to be biased: interesting and unexpected findings are more
likely to be Type 1 errors. That's one of John Ioannidis's main points.

Anyway, I too applaud yourself and Patria for attempting to think outside the
box here to try to solve this issue, but I'm not sure it will work at the
proposal registry stage.  Finally, if as Carl mentions, it is really a
throughput issue, that we have more papers than journals to publish them, do we
then need more journals in the Sport Sciences?
[Will] I am suggesting LESS journals: ONE, but I know that won't happen. Anyway,
with publication on the Web and not in print, the volume can be as high as you
like.  It pays for itself on a per paper basis.

Best wishes,
Paul

Paul Laursen |Performance Physiologist
NZ Academy of Sport North Island

Hi Will and others

Some interesting ideas and arguments coming through on this one. I agree that
the current system is not working, especially for us sports scientists, but I
also agree with many of the ideas of others already posted especially Carl
Foster. I hate paying page charges, not only because I find it difficult to
actually get the funds from my small institution but because I don't think I
should be paying for others to print my work. What of the authors who cannot
afford these page charges are they to lose out?

I am surprised by Carl's comment on volume of material for publication. He
suggests that a major reason for editors not accepting publications is due to
the limitations of the journal to get them edited and printed. This would
suggest that some papers are rejected not because they are poor papers but
because the journal publishers have filled their quota of "accepted"
publications for that month and can't take on any more. I might be naive here
but I would like to think that all publishable articles were published.

I like the idea of a publication process based on peer-reviewed proposals, but
how would you handle retrospective papers, for instance you might find through a
study that a certain bio-marker is a good indicator of training performance but
this may not have been the major emphasis of the study when initially proposed.
I guess you might get around this by stating out front that the findings were
not the initial intent of the study but as they are
unique/interesting/challenging you have decided to use them. Perhaps have a
separate paragraph at the start of the paper which is compulsory in which
authors have to say if the paper is within the scope of the original proposal
and if not, why not. You could state your case here.

After reading Alan's comments, you might actually have different areas within
the journal, e.g. proposal-related research publications in one section and
another section for publications arising from proposed research. Look forward to
more comments.

Mike Hamlin
Associate Professor of Exercise and Sport Science

Department of Social Science, Parks, Recreation, Tourism & Sport
6th Floor Forbes Building
P O Box 84
Lincoln University 7647
Christchurch, New Zealand

p +64 3 325 3838 extn: 8565 | m +64 021 257-2600 | f +64 3 325 3857
e mike.hamlin@... | w http://www.lincoln.ac.nz

Hi All,
This is an invitation to attend or watch online the Cricket Australia inaugural
Innovation Seminar, next Monday 8 November at 2pm (Brisbane time).

The topic of this seminar is entitled "The Power of Positive Screening". It will
provide an insight into Cricket Australia's national standards program in
Physiotherapy which involves the development of a national musculoskeletal
screening protocol, the development of test norms and predictors of injury in
Australia's professional cricketing population.

The seminar will be presented by Dr Kevin Sims, Cricket Australia's Case and
Rehabilitation Manager, and Mr David Beakley, Cricket Australia's Centre of
Excellence Physiotherapist.

The seminar will be held at the Cricket Australia Centre of Excellence at 1
Bogan Street, Albion, Brisbane, QLD, or webcast live via the Cricket Australia
website.

To attend or watch online please register your interest with Rian Crowther on
rian.crowther@...

Regards,
Marc Portus
Manager, Sport Science Sport Medicine Unit
Cricket Australia

Sarah Siebert ^{(AMM, CEM)}

Conference Manager

Massey University

Conference Services

Private Bag 11 222, Palmerston North, 4442

NEW ZEALAND

Tel: +64 6 350 5117 |Fax: +64 6 350 5669 | Mob: +64  27 294 2474

Thanks to all those who have contributed to the discussion about a new way
to publish research, according to which the proposal is peer reviewed and
the journal is obliged to publish the project, if it is carried out in
accordance with the accepted proposal.  The fact the Lancet has been doing
something similar since 1997 is encouraging, although it turns out that only
a small proportion (apparently ~5%) of original research in the Lancet has
got into print in this manner.  See
http://www.thelancet.com/protocol-reviews and
http://www.thelancet.com/protocol-reviews-list .

In spite of the concerns some of you raised, I think it's the way of the
future: it will help researchers design better studies, it will turn the
culture of manuscript rejection into a culture of manuscript acceptance, and
it will all but eliminate publication bias.  The only problem will be
getting researchers to buy into it, and it really will have to be "buy".
Again, it's encouraging that Hakan Gur's team has made a success out of the
web-only Journal of Sports Science and Medicine http://www.jssm.org/ , with
an article charge of $US500.  I would hope we can get something going for
less than that.  For various reasons there will need to be an up-front
non-refundable fee for the review of the proposal.  Reviewers could be paid
from that fee, but I doubt if there will be any shortage of experts willing
to review proposals for free: it will be much easier than reviewing
manuscripts, and the reviewers will find out what others are doing a year or
two earlier than happens now via conferences and manuscript reviewing.  The
authors' priority with an idea will be established by publication of the
proposal as soon as the proposal is accepted.  Authors will have to make a
legally binding commitment to publish the study in the archive (let's call
it that, rather than a journal), otherwise the archive would end up with
only the "uninteresting" studies.  So there will be a signing over of
copyright until the study is published, when the copyright will revert to
the authors. And of course, the archive will also have a legally binding
commitment to publish the study, provided the study is performed as
proposed, to the satisfaction of a majority of reviewers.

Other suggestions for discussion...

. There will be non-blinded review of the proposal and final manuscript, or
certainly un-blinding after the proposal is published and after the final
manuscript is published.  Reviewers need to be acknowledged publicly for
their work and made more accountable for their decisions.
. Authors will upload a copy of the approval of an institutional ethics
committee soon after acceptance of the proposal. Acceptance of the proposal
by the archive will obviously help the study get ethics approval.  Certainly
the review of the proposal by the archive will represent a better review
than that provided by most ethics committees.
. Authors will try to convince their ethics committee to give approval for
uploading of the depersonalized original data to the archive. This practice
will reduce the risk of fraud and will permit much better meta-analyses,
including meta-analyses of individual differences and responses.  It's
unethical for an ethics committee to refuse this request.
. When the final study is submitted, authors will upload a document signed
by all authors and by a senior colleague, departmental head or chair of a
board of studies, asserting that the study did indeed appear to have been
performed as stated. This requirement will further reduce the risk of fraud.
Note that the final study protocol can depart from the original proposal,
but publication is not then guaranteed.
. The archive will never apply for an impact factor. Published articles will
have their own impact determined by citations in Google Scholar or other
bibliographic databases.  Authors and their publications should be judged
partly by the citations of their work, not by the journals they publish in.

Please get back to me or Patria with any more comments.  We've heard mainly
from the greybeards so far (thanks, guys-it's been a really good
discussion).  What about some of you younger emerging researchers?  If this
idea is going to work, it will need your support.  You must be as fed up as
we are with a good proposal turning into an unpublishable manuscript, either
because a reviewer didn't like the analysis, the result, or the
interpretation, or because the journal can accept only interesting studies
(usually those with biased big effects, in other words) if it is to keep
within the publisher's page limit for each issue.

Will
Will G Hopkins, PhD FACSM
Contact info: http://sportsci.org/will
Sportscience: http://sportsci.org
Statistics: http://newstats.org
Be creative: break rules.

Dear Colleagues,

The School of Biomedical & Health Sciences at the University of Western Sydney
(Campbelltown, Australia) has just advertised a position for Lecturer/Senior
Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Science, specialization Strength & Conditioning. 
Please kindly forward this advert to anyone who may be interested:
http://tinyurl.com/2e7axzq

Please note:  Positions in Human Physiology, Biochemistry, Biostatistics, and
Physical Activity and Health Promotion are also currently advertised:

https://uws.nga.net.au/cp/

All queries can be directed to our Head of School, Professor Gregory Kolt:
G.Kolt@...

Many thanks,
Chris

Chris Lonsdale, PhD
Senior Lecturer

School of Biomedical and Health Sciences
University of Western Sydney
Locked Bag 1797
Penrith, NSW 2751, AUSTRALIA
Phone:+61-2-9852-5403
Skype: cslonsdale

UNCLASSIFIED

IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Department of Defence and is subject to the jurisdiction of section 70 of the Crimes Act 1914. If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact the sender and delete the email.

Hello,

Please note that Advanced Fitness Designs, LLC recently launched the latest
version of its AthleteMonitoring.com web application.

The new version includes new training charts and reports for coaches and
athletes, revamped injury tracking and fitness testing modules, and a new
well-being questionnaire module.

Available at a fraction of the cost of similar products, AthleteMonitoring.com
allows coaches, performance specialists and sport scientists to collect,
aggregate and analyse sport-specific training load, training monotony, training
volume and duration, session RPE, satisfaction, GPS and heart rate data and
pre/post training weight. Rest measurements such as quality of sleep, muscle
soreness, morning body weight, heart rate can also been tracked and analyzed on
a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis.

These analyzes can be performed on an individual, position or team basis.
Advanced feedback analysis, injury tracking and fitness testing modules are also
part of this package.

Data can be entered from anywhere by athletes, coaches, team physician or
training staff and accessed 24/7, using a simple Internet browser or mobile
devices. Initially designed for use by ice-hockey, rugby and soccer teams,
AthleteMonitoring.com is entirely customizable and can be tailored for any
sport.

To learn more about AthleteMonitoring, please call +1(302)384-9936 or visit 
http://www.athletemonitoring.com - Free demo available.

François Gazzano
fgazzano@...

Dear Colleagues,

The following position is available at the German Sport University Cologne in
the Department of Neurology, Psychosomatic Medicine, and Psychiatry at the
Institute of Health Promotion and Clinical Movement Science:

Research Assistant

for the development of analysis procedures for the automatic recognition of
gestures. This will be a part time position (19 hrs and 55 minutes/week), German
wage classification up to 13 TV-L. The employment is limited to 12 months. An
extension of the employment of up to 6 years will be possible if corresponding
funds (third-party funds) are available. Optional the position can also be
full-time for half a year.

Responsibilities:

• Development of analysis procedures and graphical user interfaces for the
analysis of 2-D and 3-D video data of gestures

Education/Experience:
• Graduation from University
• Strong Matlab (or comparable) programming skills (+3 years)
• Experience with media/video formats and their programmatic procession
• Experience with 3D kinematic data
• C/C++ GUI-programming experience desirable
• Experience with machine vision desirable

The successful applicant will work in close collaboration with the
Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics in Njimegen (Netherlands) and the
Institute of Photogrammetry at the Technical University Dresden (Germany). The
German Sport University Cologne is Germanys only sport university with more than
5000 students from 59 countries. 19 institutes provide a vibrant environment for
research with great opportunities for collaborations across campus.

Preliminary inquiries concerning the responsibilities are welcome (Univ.-Prof.
Dr. Hedda Lausberg, tel. +49 221-4982-4710 or email: h.lausberg@...).

In case of equal qualifications, severely handicapped persons will receive
priority consideration.

The German Sport University cologne aspires to increase its share of women in
the academic field and especially invites qualified female scientists to apply
for this position. In case of equal qualification, women will receive priority
consideration, unless there is no good reason for giving priority consideration
to a competitor.

Please send your written application indicating number 1031/wMA-Reha-Por with
your certificates and your CV until November 25, 2010 to: Personalabteilung
(Abteilung 2.2) der Deutschen Sporthochschule Köln, Am Sportpark Müngersdorf 6,
50933 Köln, Germany or as a pdf-package via e-mail to bewerbung@....

Please send only copies, no original documents and no files in folders as files
are destroyed after finishing the application procedure.

Dear Sportsci list members,

Having followed this discussion, I have been reflecting on the merits of the
approach proposed by Will and Patria, and also some of the obstacles that might
stand in the way of the adoption of such a system. To be clear, I believe that
the existing system is flawed, and that the system proposed by Will and Patria,
if it could be made to work in practice, would be better. I am writing this with
a 'black hat' pulled firmly down over my head, because I think it is worthwhile
thinking through how things might pan out in practice. I appreciate that some of
the points I make below have been touched upon already by others.

First, I think that some of the key points of John Ioannidis's research into the
trustworthiness of research bear repeating. There *is* bias in research
publications. Bigger, more surprising results are more likely to be published
than studies reporting smaller effects for the same phenomenon. In areas where
there is considerable activity into a research issue, this can lead to a
slanting of the apparent size of an effect towards the 'few but big effect'
studies and away from the 'many but trivial or small effect' studies.

Not only are the investigations reporting larger effects more likely to be
published at all, they are more likely to be published in more prestigious
journals, where the message they contain becomes disseminated to a wider
audience more quickly than is the case with lesser known journals (over time,
the combination of preferential publication of large effects in the scientific
literature and alarmist media reporting will serve to diminish the credibility
of any new scientific facts - even those that are correct. I guess the Bayesians
of the world just ratchet down their 'priors' for everything).

Even today's meta-analyses do not capture a full picture of the size of effects,
simply because some of the data are missing - they have been excluded from
publication - either withheld by the researchers who conducted the study on the
grounds that there were no 'significant' findings, or they are rejected by
editors or reviewers who deem them of insufficient interest to the readers of
journals. 'Nothing to see here folks, so just move along...'

Having access to the effect of x on y from all (appropriately designed and
conducted) studies would give a better fix on the 'true' size of the effect, and
would be an outcome of the approach endorsed by Will and Patria were it to be
adopted. This point seems to have been lost on some of the respondents who have
posed objections to the original posting by Will.

The objections raised by Carl Foster regarding reviewing load, would not, I
think, be an insuperable problem under a system of proposal review and an
archive of science as outlined by Will and Patria. In my opinion there are more
fundamental obstacles to overcome before such a system could, or would, be
successful.

For a start, there is the issue of inertia. People will not change from one
system to another unless there is a compelling reason to do so. There are
numerous examples in which a demonstrably worse system has endured and
proliferated in the face of better alternatives, simply because a critical
fraction of the community had adopted it - think VHS versus BETA, or computer
operating systems.

The research articles that are published in journals represent only a small
fraction of the activities that comprise the scientific enterprise. Science and
research in the modern era are typically social activities. In my opinion
science is riddled with cliques, claques, factions and hierarchies. These exist
both within and between disciplines. There are significant pressures to be seen
as being a 'good' scientist (hence the publish or perish phenomenon), and the
rewards and plaudits that come from being at the top of one's field are
typically substantial.

At present, publication of articles in more prestigious journals enhances the
career prospects of scientists - and in fact can be career defining. Tenured
positions, winning contestable research funds, editorial positions and positions
on administrative or advisory boards and scientific prizes are all linked to
recognition and reputations built largely upon publications, (and to a lesser
extent via conference attendance/presentations and other social networking
forums).

In its most radical incarnation, the proposed new system would eliminate journal
prestige, by eliminating journals and creating an archive. Without journal
prestige, people and organisations who provide funding for science would find it
more difficult to appraise the quality of research published. Presumably
citation counts would play a part in assessing how important particular works
are, but such counts are a pretty blunt instrument (for example methods papers
can accrue many citations, but may not represent anything particularly
insightful about the research phenomena they are associated with). The prestige
of a journal is, of course, an even blunter instrument to assess specific papers
published in the journal.

Others have written about the strengths and weaknesses of the current peer
review system. One of the weaknesses is that the data and analyses upon which
the results are based are rarely provided to other scientists working in the
area (although technically they are 'available' in most cases). I imagine that
under the proposed system, the raw data for the study, along with statistical
programs used to analyze the data and the results from the analysis would be
archived along with the paper discussing the implications of the research.

The pressures to produce exciting, original research are such that, in some
instances, scientific fraud takes place. If fraud in the scientific community is
similar to that in other professions, then it can be presumed that a large
amount is simply never identified as such. The steps outlined above with respect
to routinely providing the raw data and analyses would help in reducing fraud,
and assist in meta-analyses.

Although I have not picked it up from the discussion to date, I presume that
there would be peer review of papers (as well as proposals) under the new
system, and that a fraction of the papers would be rejected on editorial grounds
or failure to comply with the already reviewed proposal. This would serve to
maintain quality of publications.

To me, the issue becomes "what's good for science, versus what's good for
scientists?" I suspect that any attempt to tinker with the status quo with
respect to journal prestige will meet with rapid and violent opposition from
those who have vested interests in seeing it continue - i.e. most of the
successful scientists in each field who have worked hard to get to the top.
Being human, scientists who comprise the existing hegemony will find as many
reasons as possible to oppose the proposed system, even though it would
practically eliminate bias.

I think the issue of bias in research is a real concern, and I applaud Will and
Patria for thinking creatively about means to mitigate it. I am also of the view
that some clever thinking will be needed to effect the type of sea-change
required for moving from the existing system to the adoption of a system that
would be better. The incentives for scientists at an individual level to adopt
the new system would need to be aligned with the objective of improving the
trustworthiness of research overall. The methods outlined in The Lancet seem to
be a step in the right direction, but would need to be extended and adopted much
more widely to have any real impact upon the publication bias that is inherent
in the current system. I believe, however, that any real change in the existing
social structures will need to be adopted and driven by those in positions of
influence, and would hence have to be led from within.

OK, so much for the black hat perspective - what about some creative thinking to
overcome the problems outlined?

Ken Quarrie, PhD
Injury Prevention & Performance
New Zealand Rugby Union

Ken


On 2010-11-21, at 1:49 AM, Ken Quarrie wrote:

> Having access to the effect of x on y from all (appropriately designed and
conducted) studies would give a better fix on the 'true' size of the effect, and
would be an outcome of the approach endorsed by Will and Patria were it to be
adopted. This point seems to have been lost on some of the respondents who have
posed objections to the original posting by Will.

I'm not sure I agree. The proposed method does much more than "solve publication
bias", and it is the unintended adverse effects that are the problem.


>
> The objections raised by Carl Foster regarding reviewing load, would not, I
think, be an insuperable problem under a system of proposal review and an
archive of science as outlined by Will and Patria.

The load would be very very large. I agree with Carl.


> The research articles that are published in journals represent only a small
fraction of the activities that comprise the scientific enterprise. Science and
research in the modern era are typically social activities. In my opinion
science is riddled with cliques, claques, factions and hierarchies. These exist
both within and between disciplines.

I agree. But this is natural: people with like-minded ideas are naturally going
to group together. And they will naturally promote the ideas they believe in. In
effect, positivistic (sic?) science creates the factions. I personally see them
as good because it creates the challenges for others. It is only when the
cliques and factions become obstructive that there is a problem. Will and
Patria's ideas will not solve or magnify this problem, so I don't think we
should expect any more of it than it hopes to do.

> Others have written about the strengths and weaknesses of the current peer
review system. One of the weaknesses is that the data and analyses upon which
the results are based are rarely provided to other scientists working in the
area (although technically they are 'available' in most cases). I imagine that
under the proposed system, the raw data for the study, along with statistical
programs used to analyze the data and the results from the analysis would be
archived along with the paper discussing the implications of the research.

Making data available would still be possible under the current review system.
We could just as easily set up the archive for all data without changing the
peer-review system.


>
> The pressures to produce exciting, original research are such that, in some
instances, scientific fraud takes place. If fraud in the scientific community is
similar to that in other professions, then it can be presumed that a large
amount is simply never identified as such. The steps outlined above with respect
to routinely providing the raw data and analyses would help in reducing fraud,
and assist in meta-analyses.

I don't think so. If I were going to commit fraud, I wouldn't do it by simply
changing the estimates I report. I would change the data. Not very hard to do,
so archiving data doesn't help.


>
> Although I have not picked it up from the discussion to date, I presume that
there would be peer review of papers (as well as proposals) under the new
system, and that a fraction of the papers would be rejected on editorial grounds
or failure to comply with the already reviewed proposal. This would serve to
maintain quality of publications.

And here is my biggest problem. Maybe sportscience is different but medical
studies always have to go through a peer-review - either by a funding agency or
by the ethics committee (a study that is based on poor science is unethical
because it exposes patients to risks without any benefit). Therefore, medical
studies go through peer-review at two stages - design and publication. The
proposal by Will and Patria would exclude one of these stages - is that good? It
would theoretically keep workload lower, except that the two review processes in
place now use different sources of reviewers so "reviewers" would not actually
feel a difference.

Also, varying from the "protocol", especially in the analysis stage, is often
appropriate - the data has to fit the underlying assumptions for the analysis to
be valid. Researchers who automatically get to publish their studies because
they followed the protocol may actually be hiding important facts just to
publish. Again, I'm not sure that guaranteeing publication is a good thing.

> Being human, scientists who comprise the existing hegemony will find as many
reasons as possible to oppose the proposed system, even though it would
practically eliminate bias.

I think you overstate the case. All the "bias" is eliminated through starting
the registry and having data made available to everyone. I simply don't see how
starting a journal that guarantees publication reduces bias any further. Rather,
although the guaranteed publication may help get some good research into print
sooner, it will also get poor research published by authors who are not doing
good work (e.g. poor first peer-review), or analyzing their data as completely
as they should (poor first peer-review or lack of knowledge about appropriate
analytical techniques), AND ESPECIALLY providing over-reaching conclusions based
on data that don't support the conclusions (remember, the proposal is that the
publication is guaranteed if the protocol is followed).

It seems to me that the idea really centres around a lot of frustration with
papers being rejected for reasons that authors don't agree with. I've had a lot
of my work rejected and then published later in an improved form because I took
heed of the reviewers' comments and modified the manuscript. I have also
reviewed many manuscripts after the authors "revised" the text to answer the
comments, but they did not answer the comments and kept along in their "clique"
or "faction", continuing to misrepresent the data or more frequently, failing to
address alternative explanations that might contradict their own particular
interests.

Now, I would personally be in favour of the registry and making the data
available. As the data is available for meta-analysis along with the protocol,
all publication and reporting biases are eliminated. Authors who want to use
this data will have to come to their own conclusions about strengths and
weaknesses, which represents more work, which is probably a good thing if the
authors could not get the paper published in any journal.

As a final note, for medical RCTs, the registry exists. Making data available is
being promoted by many (including myself), but is opposed by many as well.
Opposition includes many reasons that I don't agree with but some that are
important. One main reason is recognition of work. In medicine, large RCTs
usually generate many papers on tangential topics. If you make all the data
available, the original researchers get to publish one study and then the other
ideas can easily be "stolen". I think there are safeguards that could be put in
place, but regardless, solutions need to be found. For observational studies,
the problem is greater because secondary data analyses are common and important,
and therefore recognition of work becomes a greater issue.

Ian Shrier MD, PhD

International Rock Climbing Research Congress
28th November - 2nd December, 2011
College of Education
University of Canterbury
Christchurch, New Zealand

Programmes will include
• Keynote addresses
• Poster sessions
• Interest group meetings
o Biomechanics
o Coaching and Performance
o Environmental Sustainability
o Injuries/Treatment
o Inter-disciplinary
o Physiology
o Psychology
• Practical sessions, field trip and entertainment options
• Of interest to all researchers, coaches and rock climbers
Call for Proposals - now open
Proposals by Friday 30th September 2011 to nick.draper@...
• Proposals are invited from climbers, researchers and coaches in the field of
rock climbing research for 30 minute presentations to be followed by 20 minutes
of facilitated discussion (Abstracts of up to 200 words).
• Proposals are also invited for poster presentations (abstracts of up to 200
words).
Indicate clearly whether you are proposing a poster or an oral presentation and
include your name and email address.
Proposals - Criteria for acceptance
• Relevance to conference theme.
• Theory supporting the research.
• Implications for practice.
• Identification of discussion issues and questions.
• Importance of the research in the current environment.

http://www.education.canterbury.ac.nz/rock/

Hello all,

I have been pointed out to teach a course „Advanced statistical methods" to
masters students at the German Sport University Cologne.
As I haven't taught this course before I was wondering what is considered
necessary for a typical masters in sport science. Thus, I wanted to kick-off a
little discussion about what the minimal level of statistical understanding for
a masters student should be.

The course at our university is divided into a lecture and lab session. As I
grew quite fond of R, I would like base the course on R instead of SPSS. From my
experience, figuring out stats stuff by toying around is much easier in R
compared to SPSS/Excel, also you don't have the licensing hassle and you can
produce proper graphics.
At the moment, my ideas are mainly based on "Applied Linear Statistical Models"
by Kutner, Nachtsheim, Neter, & Li and "Linear models in statistics" by Rencher.
Thus, introducing the linear model and showing that regression and ANOVA are
just two special cases of this model:

- Quick introduction to R
- General introduction/Recap
      + Probability
      + Distributions
      + Hypothesis testing
      + Effect sizes
- General linear model
      + Regresssion
	 - univariate
	 - multivariate
	 - diagnostics
      + ANOVA (1-/2-Faktor, Repeated measures)
	 - equal-/unequal group sizes
	 - contrasts
	 - problems Type I/II/III SSQ
      + ANCOVA (maybe)
      + Mixed-effects models (if time allows)
-  Cluster analysis and Factor analysis (to have something alternative)

I want to intersperse the lectures with examples from "Introduction to
statistics through resampling methods and R/S-Plus" by Good, as I found it quite
informative to simulate and analyze data. Just to get a better grip on what is
actually happening. During the lectures I would present the "facts" and then
subsequently the students get exercises and datasets, which they have to analyze
during their lab sessions.

I would really appreciate some suggestions/comments.
Regards
Robert

Applied Anatomy (Kinesiology / Anatomy / Physiology Faculty Openings

The Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences at Ithaca College is seeking two,
full-time non-tenure-eligible Instructors or Assistant Professors.  One position
is a two-year non-renewable appointment and the other is a one-year appointment
with the possibility for an additional one year appointment pending departmental
needs; both begin on August 16, 2011.  The successful candidates will teach
applied anatomy lecture and labs, and anatomy and physiology labs.  Scholarly
activity is encouraged, but not required.  Qualifications:  Master's degree
required (Ph.D. desired) in the field of exercise science or a related field
with an emphasis in applied anatomy; strong commitment to teaching required. 
Evidence of college-level teaching preferred.  Interested candidates should
apply online at www.icjobs.org. For questions about the online application,
contact the office of Human Resources at (607) 274-1207.  Inquiries about either
position may be made to Chris Hummel MS, ATC at chummel@....  Review of
applications will begin immediately and will continue until both positions are
filled.   Ithaca College is committed to building a diverse academic community
and encourages members of underrepresented groups to apply.  Experience that
contributes to the diversity of the college is appreciated.

Call for abstracts 1st International Conference - Science and Football*,
Palermo, Sicily, Italy 15-17 April 2011.
http://www.conisicilia.it/international-projects/international-conference-scienc\
e-football/

Key World football personalities will be attending the event and several leading
scientists will be giving key note speeches. The Opening Ceremony will take
place in the Royal Palace Palermo, 15th April, whereas the main Conference will
take place in the Steri Palace 16th-17th April. Both venues are classified
historical buildings. The programme contains also social activities and dinner
gala.

Authors could submitt abstarcts for posters’presentations. See guidelines for
authors. Deadline 27th February 2011. Several young investigators awards will be
attributed to the best posters.

*: Organised in partnership between the Scuola Regionale dello Sport Sicilia
(CONI Sicilia), the University of Palermo, University of Greenwich, FIGC
(Federazione Italina Giuoco Calcio, Comitato Regionale Sicilia) and the LND
(Lega Nazionale Dilettanti, Comitato Regionale Sicilia).

Thank you

Dr Mončm Jemni Ph.D.
Principal Lecturer - Programme Leader
Sport Science with Professional Football Coaching
University of Greenwich
Central Avenue. Chatham Maritime
Kent ME4 4TB
UK - Europe
Email: m.jemni@... - monemj@...
Tel:  +44 (0)20 8331 8336
Fax: +44 (0)20 8331 9805

NZAS/Rowing Performance Monitoring Physiologist

Based in Cambridge, we offer an outstanding opportunity in Performance
Monitoring Physiology.  This full time role is perfectly suited to someone who
is passionate about high performance sport and views it as a strong career
option.

This position is responsible for delivering performance monitoring and providing
physiology support to Rowing NZ elite athletes and coaches, as well as
conducting innovative applied research that guides practice.  The successful
candidate will be experienced in making a positive contribution to all aspects
of the high performance environment.

The successful candidate will help Rowing NZ build on its recent successes at
the 2010 World Championships (10 medals) and the Beijing Olympics (3 medals), in
order to fulfil its priority goal of converting the current crop of top 8
world-ranked crews into multiple medals at the London 2012 Olympic Games, with
younger athletes working towards the 2016/2020 Olympic Games.

Working for the NZ Academy of Sport and the opportunity to be immersed within
the Rowing NZhigh performance programme provides an outstanding opportunity to
directly impact NZ’s future sporting success.  You will immediately be an
integral part of a well developed high performance environment and enviable
culture.

For more information and position description please contact
Holly Thompson, email: hollyt@...<mailto:hollyt@...>, phone
09 477 5433

Applications must include a covering letter, CV and completed application form. 
The role will close Monday 19 January 2011

Paul Laursen |Performance Physiologist
NZ Academy of Sport North Island
Physical Address: Millennium Institute of Sport & Health, Antares Place,
Mairangi Bay 0632
Postal Address: PO Box 18444, Glen Innes, Auckland 1743
Tel: +64 9 477 5427
Mob:  021 303 153
Fax: +64 9 479 1486
Email: PaulL@...

My copy of this message from the list was truncated.  (Does Bill
Gates/Microsoft own Yahoo?)  Here it is again in plain text, with a few more
embellishments.

Rob (and the list), I almost forgot to reply to your message.  Check out my
paper on linear models and effect magnitudes
http://sportsci.org/2010/wghlinmod.htm in the latest issue of Sportscience
http://sportsci.org . You might also get some useful ideas from
understanding stats via simulations
http://www.sportsci.org/2007/wghstats.htm , although it is of course written
for Excel. I recently used both these for a 4-day mini-course at the masters
level that was reasonably successful.

I think you have to include generalized linear modeling at this level.  Kids
have to know how to interpret risk, risk differences, and risk, odds and
hazard ratios.

Please post to the list a summary of any other replies you received.

Will
Will G Hopkins, PhD FACSM
Contact info: http://sportsci.org/will
Sportscience: http://sportsci.org
Statistics: http://newstats.org
Be creative: break rules.