We recently registered a protocol for a scoping review that we are working on. In our AROA project, we are taking a wide look into what research has been done on the work engagement consequences of digitalisation. As such, we are working on a scoping review rather than a systematic review. While a systematic review is perfect when you want to synthesise the evidence on a specific research question following a structured and rigorous process, it is not what we are trying to do as we instead want to provide an overview of the breadth of the research topic. Through a scoping review, we can thusly identify factors related to digital work engagement, how it has been researched previously, and what research gaps still exist in the collective research on the topic. The registered protocol for the scoping review can be found here.
But what is a research protocol then?
When doing either a systematic or scoping literature review, it is common practice to plan and write a protocol for the study first. The protocol, in its simplicity, is a written research plan covering the aims, the search and selection procedure and how the selected papers will be analysed. The main reasons for beginning with registering or publishing a protocol is that the risk for biased research practices decreases if you have a transparent research plan to follow beforehand. If you have a published protocol that is expected to be referenced when publishing the study itself, you will have to hold yourself to that plan. Another benefit of this is that it makes the literature study more accessible and easy to replicate and verify. Furthermore, the registered protocol highlights for others that this review is already a work in progress and that other researchers do not need to start such a study themselves. Lastly, if it is published, the quality of the planned procedure is likely improved as the peer-review process for the protocol will bring the validity and relevance of suggested method into question. That being said, publishing protocols for literature reviews are not yet common practice outside of research in healthcare and medicine as far as we have been able to find (if you are doing a systematic review relating to human health, you probably want to register it on Prospero or its like). As such, the alternative option is to register the protocol in one of the many registries of research plans (such as OSF.io or figshare.com) which unfortunately lack peer review and the benefits and frustrations that comes with it. So if you are planning to do a literature review, consider beginning with registering a protocol first to help you towards a better end result.
Good luck with whatever work or so you currently have going on and take care of yourselves!
Andreas Bergqvist, PhD Student in HCI