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.

University of Minnesota School of Public Health Assistant Professor Julian Wolfson was named an associate editor for reproducibility for the Journal of the American Statistical Association (JASA). The appointment is in support of the journal’s new requirement for authors to submit scientific code and data for review along with their papers.

Amid discussions around scientific reproducibility, the leading biomedical journal Cell will introduce a redesigned methods section to help authors clearly communicate how experiments are conducted. The first papers using Structured, Transparent, Accessible Reporting (STAR) Methods, which promotes guidelines encouraged by reagent labeling and animal experimentation initiatives, appear in Cell on August 25. The format will then be adopted by other Cell Press journals over the next year, starting with Cell Systems in the fall.

Finding a relevant reporting guideline for a study can be very difficult. Here we introduce a pilot experiment starting for some of the BMC-series journals which aims to overcome this issue.

The new Meta-Research Section in PLOS Biology is not the only example of how PLOS strives to improve the scientific endeavor through innovative communication efforts. PLOS has always recognized that publication of studies that reproduce published work or null results, either confirming or refuting the original result, is essential for progress in research. In fact, the largest journal at PLOS, PLOS ONE, is one of only a handful of publications that actively encourage these types of submissions with The Missing Pieces Collection.

The journal Science has named a major attempt to replicate 100 papers published in top-tier psychology journals as one of the "breakthroughs of the year" for 2015.