FLoRA-Notify: A Protocol for a Cluster-Randomised Controlled Trial to Assess the Impact of Notifying Preprint Authors About Replication Studies

Background: Many fields suffer from low replicability, yet unsuccessful replications often fail to affectcitations of original studies. This disconnect is likely due in part to limited awareness: replications are notconsistently linked to original studies in discovery tools, and many appear only as preprints or withinlarge meta-scientific reports. Moreover, many journals are hesitant to publish replications, so that theyare rarely published in the same journal as the original study. Therefore, authors might not be aware ofreplications of articles they are citing.Design: This is a cluster-randomised controlled trial with clusters defined as connected components in anauthor co-authorship graph.Methods: All eligible preprints from OSF-hosted preprint servers will be assigned to either theintervention (an email notifying authors that their preprint cites studies with known replicationattempts) or the control group (no notification email), based on the cluster assignment of their authors.Outcomes: The primary outcome will be whether, at follow-up, the preprint shows improvement for anybaseline-flagged citation (defined as citing at least one relevant replication attempt, or dropping theoriginal citation that was replicated). We will also report survey responses on perceived usefulness, priorawareness, and intended action among the intervention group.Conclusions: This trial will investigate whether notifying preprint authors about replication attemptspotentially relevant to their cited work increases engagement with replication evidence.