Do organisms need an impact factor? Citations of key biological resources including model organisms reveal usage patterns and impact.

Abstract

Research resources like transgenic animals and antibodies are the workhorses of biomedicine, enabling investigators to relatively easily study specific disease conditions. As key biological resources, transgenic animals and antibodies are often validated, maintained, and distributed from university based stock centers. As these centers heavily rely largely on grant funding, it is critical that they are cited by investigators so that usage can be tracked. However, unlike systems for tracking the impact of papers, the conventions and systems for tracking key resource usage and impact lag behind. Previous studies have shown that about 50% of the resources are not findable, making the studies they are supporting irreproducible, but also makes tracking resources difficult. The RRID project is filling this gap by working with journals and resource providers to improve citation practices and to track the usage of these key resources. Here, we reviewed 10 years of citation practices for five university based stock centers, characterizing each reference into two broad categories: findable (authors could use the RRID, stock number, or full name) and not findable (authors could use a nickname or a common name that is not unique to the resource). The data revealed that when stock centers asked their communities to cite resources by RRID, in addition to helping stock centers more easily track resource usage by increasing the number of RRID papers, authors shifted from citing resources predominantly by nickname (~50% of the time) to citing them by one of the findable categories (~85%) in a matter of several years. In the case of one stock center, the MMRRC, the improvement in findability is also associated with improvements in the adherence to NIH rigor criteria, as determined by a significant increase in the Rigor and Transparency Index for studies using MMRRC mice. From this data, it was not possible to determine whether outreach to authors or changes to stock center websites drove better citation practices, but findability of research resources and rigor adherence was improved.

Competing Interest Statement

Agata Piekniewska COI: AP is an analyst at SciCrunch Inc Nathan Anderson COI: NA is a curator at SciCrunch Inc Martijn Roelandse COI: MR serves as an independent contractor for SciCrunch. Jeffery S. Grethe COI: Part of this work was supported by the University of California, San Diego, Center for Research in Biological Systems and grants from NIH (Award #U24DK097771). Dr. Grethe has an equity interest in SciCrunch, Inc., a company that may potentially benefit from the research results. The terms of this arrangement have been reviewed and approved by the University of California, San Diego in accordance with its conflict of interest policies. Anita Bandrowski COI: Dr. Bandrowski is a co-founder and current CEO of SciCrunch, Inc., a company that may potentially benefit from the research results. The terms of this arrangement have been reviewed and approved by the University of California, San Diego in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.