This seems like a tough problem to solve, but given the article states 75% of researchers are _willing_ to publish the null results at least that's something to build on. Making publishing compulsory could lead to other, worse problems given humans are involved.
I realize as I'm writing this that I don't really understand what "publishing" means. It's more than just making the paper available, right? Is there a formal definition, or just a colloquial one in science?
“Publishing” in academia usually refers to being accepted in a “peer-reviewed” journal or conference. So your paper is not just uploaded somewhere – it is sent to 2-3 domain experts, who criticize your work and force you to jump through lots hoops before it’s either “accepted for publication” or “rejected”.
When this works well, it’s a good filter to prevent spam, fraud, methodological errors, etc. from being published, while improving the quality of the accepted research papers via feedback from other domain experts.
When it doesn’t work well, the referees can take it upon themselves to reject papers for subjective reasons, including that the work is “not novel enough”, that they don’t like the model you used, or that they are just not excited by the research field you work in. It also happens that they require you extend your work in a way that takes an order of magnitude more time before they’ll accept it. For the authors, it’s often difficult to defend themselves from this kind of attacks, since the referees in many journals don’t need to justify their claims much, and often feel free to be extra harsh since they tend to be anonymous.
Since going through the publication process can take months to years of work depending on your field, some researchers would not be willing to put in that effort for a negative result (which is unlikely to be cited and thus doesn’t help your career).
It is however possible to just upload a paper (e.g. to arXiv). These “manuscripts” are often useful and can be cited normally, but researchers tend to be a bit more wary of citing them unless the authors are well-respected due to the lack of peer review.
> I realize as I'm writing this that I don't really understand what "publishing" means.
1. Fully gather and analyse the data, no stopping early when you realise it isn't working
2. Write the paper, read those background papers you hadn't got to yet so you can cite them, chase down references for things you know from memory.
3. Realise there's a gap in your table because you tested A, B and D at three levels each but C you only tested at the low and high level, not at the medium level. Go set up your test equipment again to fill in the blank space.
4. Run the paper by your collaborators and your boss, all of whom will feel obliged to suggest at least some improvements, which you'll make.
5. Choose a journal, apply the journal's template and style, send it in.
6. Wait for as much as several months for peer review.
7. The first peer reviewer suggests you retest with a slightly different protocol for cleaning your equipment before the test. You do so.
8. The second peer reviewer replies suggesting you test combinations of A, B, C and D, not just one at a time....
From my experience, there's no definition as such but having your study "published" implies that it went through a peer-review process featuring at least two qualified referees and an editor. The implication being that the claims from the study are valid as reference for future studies, to varying extent depending on the quality of the journal etc.
It does not work as standard anyway. The publishing practices are different from field to field. Also journals have different policies and practices. So it is hard to get a real representative definition other than making paper available. In which case arxiv will be a publishing mechanism that does not provide editor, peer-reviewed and does not cost money.
I realize as I'm writing this that I don't really understand what "publishing" means. It's more than just making the paper available, right? Is there a formal definition, or just a colloquial one in science?