Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine - CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Issue on "Reproducibility and Quality Assurance"

Sometimes it is difficult or even impossible to reproduce published scientific results, either due to lack of information about the experimental details or due to shortcomings of the original approach itself. The importance of reproducibility was already formulated by scientists in the first half of the last century. Nevertheless, the reproducibility problem continued to grow as the complexity of experimental design, data collection, and data analysis increased. Over the recent years, several measures have been proposed to improve the reproducibility of scientific findings. The (non-interchangeable) terms Reproducibility, Replicability and Repeatability have become more and more relevant, especially in the field of (bio)medical imaging research. This goes hand in hand with an ever-growing awareness and need for dedicated Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control procedures in order to quantify experimental stability, detect outliers, minimize variability of outcome measures and thereby improve the significance of results and thus enhancing reproducibility. We strongly support these advances and believe that their importance and implications more than justifies devoting a MAGMA Special Issue to Reproducibility and QA. Contributions to the special issue should address best practices, make readers aware of existing methods and tools, and/or identify current issues and unmet needs, all to improve reproducibility in MRI. We invite submission of original research on this overarching topic in the many areas of MR method development - such as hardware and phantoms, pulse sequences, reconstruction algorithms, image analysis and image/data visualization - as well as in the context of application-oriented approaches such as the design of longitudinal single- and multi-center studies, imaging of specific organs, or studies aiming to replicate the results of previously published papers. It goes without saying that all efforts to enhance reproducibility, especially the willingness to share implementation details (e.g. source code), are highly appreciated for this special issue!

We invite manuscripts on topics pertinent to the scope of the Special Issue. In order to meet the timeline, papers should be submitted not later than 1st October 2024 (and preferably sooner) using the normal submission procedure using the MAGMA portal (this opens in a new tab). Authors should indicate in their cover letter that the manuscript is submitted "For inclusion in the Special Issue on Reproducibility and Quality Assurance”.

In parallel to this one, a separate Special Issue on Open Science is also open. If your study is focusing on novel open source methods or open data, rather than reproducibility, please check the description (this opens in a new tab).

Issue Editors: Tony Stöcker, Katy Keenan, Florian Knoll, Martin Uecker, Maxim Zaitsev