Summary of the recommendations for good dissemination practices
| Dissemination modality | Recommendation |
| Peer-reviewed publication | Avoid predatory journals (researchers, research institutions) |
| Publish all findings, even if ‘negative’ or inconclusive (researchers, research institutions, developers) | |
| Avoid fostering an institutional ‘publish or perish’ culture (research institutions) | |
| Publish open access when possible (researchers, research institutions, developers) | |
| Adopt fair prices for open access publication fees (publishers) | |
| Rigorously ensure compliance with ICMJE requirements, beyond a checklist approach (editors of medical journals) | |
| Rigorously ensure compliance with COPE core practices, beyond a checklist approach (editors of medical journals) | |
| Abstracts | Ensure they are rapidly followed by (preprint and) peer-reviewed publication (researchers, research institutions, developers) |
| Preprints | Ensure they are rapidly followed by peer-reviewed publication (researchers, research institutions, developers) |
| Be transparent about lack of submission to peer-review journals or rejection. On peer-review publication, withdraw preprint or add a link to the final publication (researchers, research institutions, developers). | |
| Present preprints contents as ‘non-confirmed yet’ (researchers, research institutions, developers, mainstream media) | |
| Develop formal ‘Good Preprint Practices’ (scientific community, editors of medical journals) | |
| Agree on a non-ambiguous terminology, such as ‘Not peer-reviewed’ or ‘peer-review pending’ (scientific community, editors of medical journals) | |
| Press releases | Ensure accuracy, clarity and completeness of contents (research, research institutions, developers) |
| Immediately make key information, for example, protocol, analysis plan and detailed results, publicly available (research, research institutions, developers) | |
| Critically appraise press release for ethics, science and biases, and afford coverage to further communications accordingly (mainstream social media, journalists, social media actors, opinion leaders) | |
| Be mindful about personal comments, particularly but not only in social media feeds (researchers, opinion leaders) | |
| Be cautious about disseminating scientists’ opinions shared on personal social media feeds (mainstream media, journalists, social media actors) | |
| All modalities | Disseminate in a timely, comprehensive, accurate, unbiased, unambiguous and transparent manner (researchers, research institutions, developers) |
| Critically appraise all information before commenting, disseminating to secondary audiences or use (opinion leaders, mainstream media, journalists, social media actors, policy-makers in health systems, regulators, clinicians) |
COPE, Committee on Publication Ethics; ICMJE, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.