About the ARRIVE compliance checker - how it works and FAQs
The ARRIVE compliance checker is a tool to identify when information is missing from your manuscript, helping to ensure that you are describing you research transparently and comprehensively. This increases the impact of your studies and improves the reproducibility of animal research as a whole.
How the ARRIVE compliance checker works
Step 1. Uploading text
First you need to create an ARRIVE compliance checker account. Once this is done you can quickly assess a manuscript for adherence to the ARRIVE Essential 10 by either copying and pasting the methods and results text from a manuscript into the text upload box or by uploading a PDF.
If you are copying and pasting text we recommend after copying your text that you paste by right clicking in the text upload box and select 'paste as plain text'. The tool can only process plain text, so text such as formulas and special characters (e.g. the degree symbol) will not be processed.
If a PDF is uploaded a text extractor, known as a parser, identified the methods and results sections of the manuscripts and reformats the information in these sections as plain text so it can be analysed by the tool. You must verify that the relevant text has been extracted correctly from the methods and results sections of the paper. Text in tables, figures and figure legends is not extracted. The PDF parser cannot extract mathematical formulas and, depending on how the PDF was created, may struggle with special characters such as Greek letters and mathematical symbols. Special characters such as the degree symbol are not extracted.
Step 2. Submitting and processing
Once your manuscript text has been pasted in or extracted the text is sent to the SciScore server in the USA where it will be analysed for statements that indicate reporting of the ARRIVE Essential 10 items. The tool first checks for the use of animals in the text by searching for either and RRIS, an NCBI taxonomy ID, or an ethical review statement from an IACUC, AWERB or equivalent. If the text does not include these statements, a report may not be generated. The tool then uses natural language processing as well as specific phrases to identify compliance. ARRIVE sub-items are then marked as either 'detected' or 'not detected'. The tool has been trained on hundreds of statements from across the scientific literature, but some information is not prevalent enough in animal research (e.g. reporting of the confidence interval and effect size) to train the tool to accurately detect it. These sub-items require manual review to assess compliance.
Step 3. Report
Once the ARRIVE compliance checker has finished assessing your paper, a report is generated. This is available from withing the tool and a link to it is delivered to your email inbox (to the email address you used to create your account). You can read the summary on the first page of the report to quickly identify areas where reporting can be improved and then use the full report for advice on how to fulfil the requirements or each item and move towards more comprehensive and transparent reporting.
Limitations
Not all sub-items are able to be assessed with the tool and these are clearly marked as 'Not analysed' in the report. The tool will mark something as 'detected' so long as there is at least a single instance of this information being reported. Researchers need to verify that this information is reported for every experiment in the manuscript. To enable the binary responses used in the report (detected versus not detected), only part of the information is needed for some sub-items to be labelled as detected. For example, when checking whether the manuscript states if randomisation was or was not used to allocate experimental units to groups (item 4a), if there is a statement that mentions that randomisation was, explicitly was not, used to allocate animals to groups the tool marks this as information 'detected', even if there is no description of the method used to create the randomisation sequence.
Frequently Asked Questions
The tool is designed to assess scientific manuscripts that describe in vivo animal research. It may not function correctly with other types of papers, for example manuscripts describing human or in vitro research, or for non-scientific publications.
Yes. Submitted text is stored only as long as needed to generate your report, and the report generated by the ARRIVE compliance checker is deleted from the system after 10 days (giving you a chance to download it). It is not used for training the tool or shared to parties outside of NC3Rs and SciCrunch (SciCrunch is the organisation that developed and maintains the tool). See our Privacy Policy for details.
The tool uses plain text to perform the compliance check. You can submit plain text by pasting or writing text directly into the submission box. You can also upload a PDF document, the tool will extract text from the methods and results sections as plain text. Check the extracted text before submission to verify that the methods and results information has been extracted.
See question on text formats for more information on plain text.
Feedback welcome
We’re continuously improving the compliance checker. If you have suggestions or encounter issues, please get in touch.