ARTEM-IS
Agreed Reporting Template for EEG Methodology - International Standard: template for event-related potentials (ERP)
The goal of the ARTEM-IS is to use insights derived from systematic reviews and guidelines for good checklist design to create dynamic and user-friendly web applications which support EEG researchers in creating detailed human- and machine-readable methods summaries. Currently, ARTEM-IS has launched the first of its tools, ARTEM-IS for ERP, which supports describing a simple ERP experiment, including most of its core methodological aspects (study description, experimental design, hardware, data acquisition, pre-processing, measurement, visualisation, additional comments – artemis.incf.org). ARTEM-IS tools for more complex ERP experiments as well as for other subfields of EEG may follow.
How to use it?
- The visualization on the home page shows the current structure of the information provided by the ARTEM-IS template. Click on the nodes to expand a praticular branch.
- You can create an account (register) and/or log in on the ARTEM-IS home page. Alternatively, you can automatically register and/or log in using your ORCiD credentials.
- Once logged in, click Create in the menu bar to create a new, blank template. This option is not available if you are currently viewing a template.
- You can upload a previously downloaded template in JSON format to your account using the Upload JSON option. This option is not available if you are currently viewing a template.
- You can navigate a template using the tabs on top of the page and answer the questions corresponding to the study you are reporting on. This is meant to ensure that you have not forgotten any of the essential information during data collection or later in the methods and results sections of your article.
- Changes made to the template are saved automatically every 5 seconds and when you leave the current page or tab. You can always click Save in the top right corner to save the changes you made to the template.
- Your current progress in completing the template is shown as a green line below the tabs bar. Click this bar to position on the first unanswered question in the template.
- The list of your templates is available on the My templates page. For each template, you have the options to make it publicly (un)available to other registered users, and to download a human-readable PDF output or a machine-readable JSON output. All templates are set to private upon creation.
- To add or remove contributors to the template, click the name of template creator in the list shown on the My templates page. You are allowed to edit contributor list only for templates you created or are contributing to.
- You can view, download, and copy publicly available templates created by other registered on the CC BY templates page. You can also download the template you are currently viewing using the options PDF or JSON from the top menu.
You can find output examples on the OSF page of this project.
If you notice a bug or have a suggestion, please post an issue on GitHub.
Why this project?
It is well known that choices made during recording, preprocessing and analysis of EEG data can affect study outcomes, making it critical to describe EEG methods and the decision-making process thoroughly and transparently. Transparent methods records would allow not only better reproducibility and replicability of EEG research or a better appraisal of the quality of existing studies, but also provide a better basis for novel research, for example by providing meta-scientists with relevant information on published studies. Researchers new to the field of EEG may especially benefit from transparent and thorough reports of EEG studies, as some of them are not beneficiaries of the decades of knowledge contained in unpublished materials like "lab handbooks" which may be passed down in labs with longer traditions.
Despite this, systematic reviews of reporting practices in the field have shown that journal articles do not meet this goal and that guidelines for writing them better have not resulted in a sufficient improvement to reporting transparency. ARTEM-IS is designed to help with this issue as ARTEM-IS reports contain a level of reporting precision higher than what is typically found in journal articles, which can be used as supplements to a publication, as a memory aid when writing a paper, or as records that allow easier metadata extraction in comparison to verbal descriptions in papers.
Want to know more?
Read more about the rationale for this project and the design principles we go by in our paper, and if you agree support us by signing the ARTEM-IS statement.