chris-huggins
commented
5 years ago After a little investigation with the Editorial team, it seems that Authors don't often fail to mention related studies during submission (as far as we know). So if they do not provide links, Editors tend to search or easily find work published elsewhere. In the rare cases that they mention related studies but don't provide links or files, Editors will ask Editorial staff to get in touch with authors to request files for work under consideration at other journals.
However, clear instructions for those that do have related studies might increase the likelihood that they upload the relevant files or links to published work. But this could be considered relatively low priority for now.
Nature, for example, consider it essential to declare related studies with clear instruction on what qualifies. https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.3756
Problem:
Currently we have a line of text to ask authors to specify relevant related studies in the cover letter and upload as supporting files. At this stage it s not clear where the supporting file upload is, so relies on authors understanding this request and remembering to upload as supporting files later... which they may struggle to find. There's also a high chance authors will miss this instruction as it's at the bottom of a long series of instruction, although this hasn't been tested.
The risk is that authors do not inform us of related studies, which helps with assessment and review (i.e. Editors would need this information).
To solve this we could make it a more explicit question in the wizard, with dedicated file upload for "related studies".