The publication facts label: A public and professional guide for research articles

The expansion of open access entails a responsibility for supporting this public access with a guide to why, in an ‘Age of Misinformation’, research may be trustworthy. Such a guide can also provide a check on predatory journals, a fear of which may be unduly limiting researchers tapping into the expanding global scale of research activity. Journal publishing platforms offer opportunities for automating the gathering and presenting of relevant data for assessing journal adherence to scholarly standards. Industry organizations, such as ORCID, Crossref, and DOAJ, offer trust and verification networks that can be employed to further strengthen scholarly publishing integrity.


INTRODUCTION
Let us set the stage for this case study with two seemingly different questions: At a time when most internet users are troubled by the fake news flooding the web, one might expect the growing public access to research might offer a ray of hope (Knuutila et al., 2022a(Knuutila et al., , 2022b)). 1 But then how is the public, on coming across journal articles in their searches, to know why such work is worth consulting after encountering, for example, the frequent online denials of the scientific consensus on global warming that many people now believe (Funk & Kennedy, 2016)?The second question arises from information-quality issues that beset the world of scholarly publishing, which includes the widespread alarm raised over the invasive threat of predatory journals (Beall, 2012). 2   How are researchers to know, on coming across a seemingly relevant study for their work in an unfamiliar journal, whether it is worth a second look?A problem only likely to grow with higher education's considerable expansion in the Global South leading to more research that may be overlooked as a result? 3   These two questions-on public concerns over misinformation and academic apprehensions over journal and article quality-reflect a spirit of distrust that we, as former school teachers now involved in scholarly publishing, have felt was too important an instructional opportunity for us to leave to others.As a result, we are prototyping an educational strategy to help readers, both the "common reader," as Virginia Woolf named them (1925)  While it is true that many of the elements can be found somewhere on the website of most journals today, they can be difficult to locate, even for experienced readers, with few conventions on how to handle them.The PFL is intended to assemble facts about the editorial process and the backgrounds of those involved.It is meant to present those facts on articles in every field across all journals in a common format that can be readily consulted when a question arises about a work or the publication.
As will be demonstrated, the PFL provides an information modal (or pop-up) for each element intended to foster a broader understanding of scholarly publishing practices among the public, as well as less experienced researchers.While the PFL is not yet ready for widespread use, as we continue its development and assessment, we judge the prototype to be far enough along to introduce it to readers of this journal.In what follows, we share the rationale for its design and workings, our strategies for assessing its effectiveness, and our plans in approaching the question of its scalability within the larger world of scholarly publishing.

RATIONALE
The idea for having publishing platforms generate a label accom- experience as a librarian on a public library reference desk.While this support will enable the development and piloting of a working PFL, the larger goal is to explore whether there might be interest and appetite for the application of such a device across scholarly publishers and platforms.As noted, this would greatly strengthen the label's effectiveness as an educational and informative tool that people trust and turn to, and learn about in schools, as they do with the Nutrition Facts label.For that to be possible, its development, maintenance, and governance would require an organization, such as Crossref, ORCID, or DOAJ, which are already involved in advancing research integrity, to take responsibility for it.As a preliminary step, we have involved these organizations at an early stage and kept them informed of the PFL's progress.They would be able to convene publishers to set standards for such matters as 'acceptance rate', as well as for considering label changes and handling the 'other' journals' and articles' data.Such an organization might also consider implementing and running data authentication checks with the participating publishing platforms to strengthen the label's integrity.
The PFL is intended not only to inform readers about any given article's and journal's adherence to scholarly publishing standards, but to educate readers about the standards that set scholarly publishing apart on the very trustworthiness of the information.In deciding what data points would be included in the label, the trade off at issue is between comprehensiveness and comprehension.The more data on the scholarly publishing process included in the label, the less effective the label is likely to be with the public.While there are industry organizations concerned with a complex array of scholarly publishing standards and practices, we decided to limit the PFL to the most basic facts, as well as the editorial context, for each publication. 5While the assessment and consultation process now underway may lead to adding or subtracting label elements, those on the current PFL form part of the evolution of scientific practices, as well as its breakthroughs and scandals.
Foremost among them is the soliciting of reviews of scientific papers from comparable experts, which is to say 'peer review'.It played a part in the earliest days of the Philosophical Transactions, which began in 1645, with its first systematic application said to have taken place in a Royal Society of Edinburgh publication from 1731 (Spier, 2002).More relevant for the PFL, peer review became a scholarly publishing standard that formed part of science's public accountability during the Cold War, as researchers pursued government funding and researcher autonomy (Baldwin, 2018).In the 1980s, researchers' systematic sharing of data began to take hold, first in astronomy and genomics (Giani et al., 2020;Henneken, 2015).In the 1990s, the value of having competing-interest or conflict-of-interest disclosures became all too apparent in the biomedical field (Guidelines, 1990).Also during that period, indexing biases favouring the Global North was made apparent and slowly began to be addressed (Cetto & Alonso-Gamboa, 1998).In the 21st century, standards for identifying researcher identities and profiles, such as ORCID, and funders, such as the Open Funder Registry, began to emerge for better tracking of who supports what.
No less a part of this history is how the elements selected for the PFL are still evolving in their application across the disciplines.Taking that into account is part of the scalability plans for the PFL.Note that its design includes aggregated data drawn from 'other journals' and from 'other articles' for each element, as shown on the right-hand side of the label.This data is gathered from other journals using the PFL and provides a point of relative comparison between the article one is reading and other articles and journals.The list of which journals are consulted is available through the information link [i] associated with 'other journals'.As the number of journals using the PFL grows, it will be possible to organize the results by discipline to reflect differences in, say, proportion of articles with data availability or funding.In addition to forming an educational aspect for the public, these comparison sets might serve as a prompt to authors on data availability or to funders on the extent of research support.
In demonstrating to readers the ways in which an article and journal adhere to scholarly publishing standards, the PFL is not intended to offer readers simple answers to the integrity question.It does not provide a 'trust' badge or an 'approved' stamp.In that regard, at least one study has shown that using integrity ratings, gauges, and checkmarks (as well as red exclamation points) proved less useful than simply presenting the underlying data (Løvlie et al., 2023).Nor does the PFL rely on a close reading of the study by knowledgeable readers, although for such readers, a research evaluation checklist has proven effective with preprints (Turoman et al., 2023).The PRL provides just the facts, including the authors' competing interest statements and a link to board-member profiles.It is intended to educate readers on the article's editorial and publishing context in relation to that of other articles and journals.The PFL will not, then, guarantee the integrity of an article's methodology, data set, or conclusions.It will not do the work of the blog site Retraction Watch in exposing 'paper mills', author gifting, data manipulation and/or reviewer scams, nor that of STM's Integrity Hub in admirably seeking to detect these issues prior to publication. 6Instead, the PFL might be thought of as a necessary but insufficient initiative in extending and communicating research integrity in scholarly publishing to interested readers.
It acts as but one countermeasure to the misinformation malaise in its support for the public communication of science, complementing the important role played by science journalists.
5 NISO (National Information Standards Organization), for example, provides standards for the more technical aspects of peer review and author contribution terminology; COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) offers detailed guidelines for editorial board membership roles and the conduct of peer reviews.
The PFL also has a bearing on science education efforts to address the 'Age of Misinformation', which in one report calls for 'building the knowledge and capabilities required for digital media and information literacy, particularly in the sciences', and cover, most germane to the PFL, 'the social practices the scientific community uses to vet knowledge claims to produce trustworthy knowledge' (Osborne et al., 2022).Encouraging science media literacy in this way has been found, in turn, to 'aid health behavior adoption by contributing to knowledge gain and expectancies' (Austin et al., 2021).That is, if educators are beginning to teach students about scholarly publishing, then it might be said to fall to scholarly publishers to meet them halfway with new levels of transparency around such knowledge-vetting social practices.
The PFL also holds potential value to members of the research community.We see it as especially helpful to researchers facing an unfamiliar journal when considering whether to cite a study it has published or to submit a manuscript to it.Concerns about predatory journals play a large part in this hesitancy around the unknown. 7 The charges are typically that such journals lack scholarly editorial oversight and peer review, which the PFL addresses (while raising the technical bar for duplicitous behaviour).The label displays elements that figure prominently in the 'Think.Check.Submit'.campaign against predatory journals, which calls on authors to check 'reviewers per paper', which journals seldom display.Yet the PFL offers a check on the campaign's limiting and prejudicial trust measure of asking yourself whether 'you or your colleagues know the journal'.While this is directed to considerations of where to submit one's work, it is still recommending familiarity as a measure of journal credibility.It encourages researchers to, in effect, disregard the larger world of research, including work arising from the Global South's expansion of research activity.This potentially xenophobic response to others' research may not bode well for research integrity insofar as it is not clear that all of the relevant work was consulted.The PFL may offer a means of countering that effect.The label may also assist those publishers and scholars who are relatively new to journal publishing, keeping them from inadvertently slipping into what are regarded as predatory practices.

DESIGN
There was nothing whimsical about modelling the PFL after the Nutrition Facts label.While the particular design is used only in the United States and Canada, it has a rare standing as a proven science communication instrument in a lauded design.The label, which was first introduced in 1993 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, represented a recognition of consumers' 'right to be informed', which became a prominent theme in the 1960's (Frohlich, 2023, pp. 55-60).The label's development was influenced by public surveys and expert hearings on how to improve the healthy quality of the public's eating habits.The result, with legislative backing that ensured its take up across the foods industry, was a food label that presented a limited number of salient nutritional measures, most prominently for calories, fats, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates, and protein.The label's simple black and white design was deemed a 'masterpiece' by Massimo Vignelli, designer of the NYC subway map at the time (Vignelli, 1996).The Nutrition Facts label soon proved its effectiveness in informing the public with studies demonstrating it was influencing health-conscious food purchases (Frohlich, 2023, p. 152;Kessler et al., 2003, p. 23).Adoptions of the label followed around the world, although in different forms (Christoph et al., 2018;Post et al., 2010).Although scholarly publications are admittedly a long way from food products, the Nutrition Facts label appeared to offer a promising starting point as a trusted and familiar guide to factual information about the quality of a consumer good that was worth consulting.For example, in considering how "the public can be protected against disinformation", a number of scholars working on this topic have pointed to "nutrition labels" as instances of a publicly trusted source (Lewandowsky et al., 2024).Similarly, when it comes to alerting the public to artificial intelligence-generated content, Tiffany Hsu describes efforts by companies like Google, Adobe, BBC, Microsoft, and Sony to develop digital credentials as, "a sort of 'nutrition label'" (Hsu, 2024).
The PFL is designed to be an integral part of the publishing platform.It will pull data from different components, resulting from counts kept of articles accepted and reviews submitted, as well as from querying authors, indexes, and ORCID.It will generate and update the masthead and display compiled data from other journals using the PFL.The PFL's eight elements are divided between those 'for this journal' and 'for this article', as well as for 'other journals' and 'other articles'.The PFL makes extensive use of information modals [i] to provide explanations of each standard (Fig. 2).These modals speak to the context and process behind the element, with the complete set available here.
The PFL appears in two places.At the bottom of the journal home page, a Publication Facts link appears that, when clicked on, presents the information for the journal, in relation to 'other journals'.At the bottom of each article's landing page, a Publication Facts link appears, which when clicked presents the PFL (Fig. 3).The PFL is kept out of sight until clicked as it is imagined that this is something that will only be consulted on occasion, when an article is of particular interest, or in advance of circulating an article, or with a journal encountered for the first time.
The eight PFL elements 1. Publisher: Leading to the publisher homepage, this is one thing that journals typically make easy to ascertain, yet can reveal a lot about the nature of the journal's operations.2. Editorial team: Linked to the journal masthead, where editors' and editorial board members' ORCIDs lead to their profiles of their academic expertise and achievements.The platform requires users to log into ORCID to provide the journal with their ID, which serves to verify their identity, while editors are asked to list their editorship on their ORCID profile to further 7 Our inquiries into the process of identifying predatory journals only emphasizes the sense in which it is, at best, a guessing game (Khanna & Willinsky, 2023). of the data verification strategies. 5. Peer reviewers: Provides the number who submitted reviews to the platform for the article, while the link leads to the masthead which includes the complete set of reviewers, with names, affiliations, and ORCIDs, for the previous volume, which has the effect of protecting review anonymity while providing access to reviewer competencies.6. Competing interests: If 'yes' for authors, the link leads to their competing interests or conflict of interests statement, which they are asked about in the submission process.When a journal implements the PFL, authors will be asked about this and the next two elements in the submission process for the journal.The percentage that is displayed for 'other articles' reflect the proportion of articles for which authors have declared competing interests to provide readers with a sense of how common this is, which as the use of the PFL grows will be filtered by discipline.7. Data availability: If 'yes', the link leads to the author's data availability statement and access to the research study's data sets, which authors are also asked about in the submission process.
8. Funders: Includes abbreviations and links for agencies identified by authors during the submission process, using Crossref's Open Funder Registry to standardize funder identities, allowing for funders to better track the publications resulting from their investments.

ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES
In 2022, an earlier version of the PFL was first publicly introduced by Daniel Pimentel to a senior high school science class in California.After a short lesson on the nature of scholarly publishing that touched on editorial expertise, peer review, and competing interests, among other aspects, the students were asked to visit a number of online research articles to locate indications of these processes.They did this first without and then with the PFL in place.The students' comments indicated that they welcomed the convenience of the PFL and how it provided data specific to articles they had not been able to otherwise locate.The students also didn't hesitate to suggest further refinements to the PFL's wording and structure.After some of those changes were incorporated, the design was also shared with a publisher advisory committee for the project, where the PFL was favourably received as a good idea, by those who responded.At this point, to further ensure that the PFL is useful to a wide range of public readers, we have designed a series of focus groups with different communities of potential users.These assessments are concerned with the design, clarity, and value of the PFL.Those who will be involved include (a) journalism students and science journalists, in light of the role that journal articles have played and will increasingly play in their work, with concerns expressed about journalists' need for 'bespoke digital support' (Fleerackers et al., 2021;Maiden et al., 2020); (b) English-and Spanish-language journal editors and researchers will have an opportunity to consider what the PFL might bring to the publications in which they are involved; and (c) high school students, who through an action research model, will explore the potential contribution of research bearing a PFL with members of their communities (Goodnough, 2003).It is worth adding, in this regard, that with the Nutrition Facts label, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration mounted educational campaigns to increase its effectiveness in informing and guiding the public (Frohlich, 2023, p. 145).
These studies will address whether a label has merit as a concept and meets a need; and if so, whether elements are needed or could be dropped; whether further or better explanations are needed to ensure the helpfulness of the data provided; whether it will have value for the general public, the professions (such as journalism, but also educators, physicians, lawyers), and academics.The Learned Publishing reviewers have been interested enough to suggest further elements to consider, including on peer review, indexing, and acceptance rates.It is already clear that difficult decisions will have to be made between a level of detail that academics would appreciate (e.g., acceptance rate by article type) and that would confuse or put off general public audiences.Readers of this article are certainly welcome to contact us with their suggestions.
The initial public exposure to the PFL in the two classes of California high school students was encouraging.We are currently collecting and analysing commentary on the label from editors and journalists.The PFL will then be revised in light of these responses before we release it, as a pilot, in the area of 100 journals that are using OJS.This piloting would involve a wider assessment of readers' responses to the PFL, with the plan at this point to embed a single pop-up question that will appear for those who open the PFL and for a control group that visits journals using OJS without the PFL.Examples of the questions will along these lines: 1. Can access to research serve the public as a check on misinformation?2. Do journals inform readers about their sticking to the standards for publishing research?
3. Does the public have an interest in knowing why a journal is to be trusted?
The expectation would be that if the PFL is 'working' as intended, then participants would increase their agreement with one or more of the statements as a result of their use of this digital innovation.

CONCLUSIONS
In 2024, Tracy Bergstrom and colleagues at Ithaka S+R announced "the second digital transformation of scholarly publishing".They call for renewed efforts "to ensure the trustworthiness of the scholarly record" by having, for example, publishing organizations, universities, and infrastructure providers share trust signals with one another".They also call on "scholarly publishing organizations [to] dramatically increase their advocacy for investments that help the broader public understand scholarship and help them engage with trustworthy science" (Bergstrom et al., 2024, emphasis added).We would hold that the PFL offers just such a trust signal, capable of informing and encouraging both public and researcher engagement with this larger world of potentially trustworthy publications.Finally, we would point to three lessons that can be drawn from the rationale, design, and assessment strategies employed in developing a PFL that is intended to contribute to, as well as increase, public awareness of journal integrity: 1. Scholarly publishers need to find ways of addressing the increasing public access to research and expanding global research activity to ensure that science and society do not miss out on the benefits of these developments.
2. The publishing platforms commonly used for online journal publishing are capable of automating the assembly and standardized presentation of key indicators in a journal's adherence to scholarly practices.
3. Scholarly publishing organizations, such as Crossref, ORCID, and DOAJ, can be utilized as trust networks that contribute to the verification of academic identities and publishing practices that contribute to journal integrity.
and researchers, learn a little more about what to make of work in the unfamiliar journals that come to their attention.We are calling it a publication facts label (PFL).It is intended to appear with each research article.It emulates the look and feel of the Nutrition Facts label on food products in the United States.At this point in its development, the PFL draws data and links from the journal's publishing platform on eight critical elements for scholarly publishing and presents to readers: (a) the publisher's identity; (b) the journal's scholarly editorial oversight; (c) the journal's article acceptance rate; (d) the indexing of the journal; (e) the article's number of peer reviewers and reviewer backgrounds; (f) the article authors' competing interests;(g) the research study's data availability; and (h) the funders of the research (Fig.1).Taken together, these elements serve to distinguish research publications from other sources of information.They are fundamental to the distinct integrity of scholarly publishing, which has to do with the impartial application of specialized expertise to the selection, revision, and publication of research and scholarship.

Figure 1
Figure1The current model of the publication facts label, with data and links for the journal and the article beside which it appears, along with comparable data for other journals and articles.
reinforce the authenticity of the appointment.As ORCID is an emerging identity standard, and not a requirement for participation in the journal, the PFL seeks to encourage greater participation by displaying the proportion with ORCIDs among the 'other journals'.3. Articles accepted: Proportion accepted speaks pointedly to the selectivity of the review process that further distinguishes research publications from other information sources, while likely being of interest to potential authors and citers of the journal.4. Indexed: Indicates which of five major open and subscription indexes include the journal, including Directory of Open Access Journals, Google Scholar, Medline, Scopus, and Web of Science, with links to the journal's page in the index as another

Figure 2
Figure2The publication facts label information modal for 'editorial team'.

FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3 Publication facts label expanded after clicking on the title Publication Facts that appears at the bottom of the page below the article abstract.[Correction added on 1 March 2024, after first online publication: Figure 3 has been updated in this version.].