There are two categories of journal adoption: PCI RR-friendly and PCI RR-interested. Which category is most appropriate for your journal will depend on the degree of alignment between the journal policy and the operating requirements of PCI RR.

 

These issues are explored in depth in the Editor's Questionnaire. However, before completing this questionnaire we recommend reviewing the following key PCI RR policies:

 

Once you are familiar with these policies, the following seven questions will determine which adoption category is the best fit for your journal. If you can answer YES to the questions below then your journal is likely to be PCI RR-friendly.

1. Does your journal accept regular empirical articles when the authors have already published their manuscript on a preprint server prior to submission? If you are not sure, you can check the preprint-friendly status of your journal using the Sherpa Romeo tool.

 

2. Are you satisfied that the PCI RR review criteria are sufficient to assess of the quality and publishability of a Stage 1 and Stage 2 RR in your journal? *Note that your journal does not need to currently offer RRs to answer YES to this or any of these questions.

 

3. The PCI RR Stage 1 Criterion 1A (scientific validity of the research question) emphasises the following: "Note that subjective judgments about the importance, novelty or timeliness of a research question are NOT a relevant criterion at PCI RR and do not form part of this assessment". Would you be satisfied with this policy being implemented for RRs that are published in your journal?

 

4. Would you be happy for PCI RR specialist recommenders (equivalent to action editors) and the PCI RR Managing Board (equivalent to senior editors) to decide, based on PCI RR peer reviews and the PCI RR review criteria, which RRs are eligible to be published in your journal? *Note that editors from a PCI RR-friendly journal are welcome to join the PCI RR team of recommenders, although there is no guarantee that they will handle all of the submissions that would be eligible for publication in their own journal. Because PCI RR operates at a suprajournal level, a PCI RR-friendly journal trades some of the power it has to determine which RRs are published in its own journal in return for the power to determine which RRs are eligible for publication across a range of PCI RR-friendly journals.

 

5. A PCI RR-friendly journal commits to accepting the judgment of PCI RR as to whether a manuscript received by PCI RR falls within the disciplinary scope of the journal. If you were to supply PCI RR with information concerning the disciplinary scope and boundaries of the journal (including detailed inclusion/exclusion criteria, as applicable), would your journal be willing to accept the judgment of PCI RR specialist recommenders and the PCI RR Managing Board on this issue without conducting its own internal evaluation? *Note that editors who join PCI RR as recommenders can join a "scope sub-team" that will have the opportunity to evaluate, at the point of Stage 1 acceptance, whether manuscripts that appear to be broadly within the same field as their journal are in fact sufficiently within scope to be eligible for acceptance at the journal. This role can be served separately from being the recommender who oversees the review process for a submission.

 

6. A PCI RR-friendly journal commits to accepting the judgment of PCI RR in (a) deciding whether a manuscript received by PCI RR meets a sufficient preplanned evidence strength to achieve in-principle acceptance, and (b) determining whether the preplanned evidence strength is sufficient to meet any additional requirements set by the journal (e.g. in terms of statistical power). Would your journal be willing to accept the judgment of PCI RR specialist recommenders and the PCI RR Managing Board on this issue without performing its own internal evaluation?

 

7. Journals can decide the minimum level of bias control they (the journal) would consider eligible for their journal under the PCI RR taxonomy. However, a PCI RR-friendly journal commits to accepting the judgment of PCI RR in determining what level of bias control has been achieved in a submission, and therefore whether the RR meets any minimum journal requirements. Would your journal be willing to accept the judgment of PCI RR specialist recommenders and the PCI RR Managing Board on this issue without performing its own internal evaluation?

If you can answer YES to most of the above questions (especially Q1-Q4, Q6 and Q7), then your journal is likely to be eligible to become a PCI RR-friendly adopter. If so, please now complete the Editor's Questionnaire, which explores these points in more detail and will help PCI RR determine the likely entries that would apply for your journal in the list of PCI RR-friendly journals. Your responses to the Editor's Questionnaire do not commit your journal to any future action and will be treated as private and confidential by the PCI RR Managing Board.

 

If you answered NO to most of the above questions, then your journal might be unsuitable as PCI RR-friendly but may still be eligible to become PCI RR-interested. If were able to answer YES to the most of the questions, please complete the Editor's Questionnaire. Alternatively, you can contact PCI RR. Requests for PCI RR-interested adoption are considered on case-by-case basis by the Managing Board.

 

If you have additional questions, please consult the Journal Adopter's FAQ or contact the PCI RR Managing Board.