File this one under “Hoorah for promotion of open & understandable research reporting”

A new journal, the Archives of Scientific Psychology is under development by the American Psychological Association. According to a recent Chronicle article, the journal aims to combat the seemingly common occurrence of disreputable research reports. It should be interesting to see if this journal, which strives to require transparency to extent I’ve not seen in other journals, even those that are open-access, will transform the world of ‘academic’ research reporting.

What does this have to do with actionable data? I believe that transparency of methodical detail, and even data itself, should lend itself to action as a result of research reporting. And it’s easy to argue that making research understandable (such as by stripping away uber-technical terminology) should only support use.  Further, open-access journals remove a barrier that should further support actionability — with a wider audience to engage with research (and even data itself!) there’s greater potential for someone, somewhere, taking action (such as in conducting further research).