Will publication bias vanish in the age of online journals?

A major advantage of online journals, in contrast to printed journals, is that lack of space is not an obstacle. One obvious benefit of this is the ability to include material that might help clarify or emphasize important points, but that might not be considered essential in the context of the limited space available in a printed journal. A more important benefit of removing space constraints is the potential to eliminate publication bias. This bias occurs when a study is not published because it fails to find any statistically significant differences or associations. While authors play a major role in generating this bias, their belief that publication depends on statistical significance has some foundation in the existing printed literature. Nevertheless, realizing the potential to eliminate publication bias depends largely on the willingness of authors to submit their work. The Online Journal of Current Clinical Trials will judge papers on the quality of the work and the importance of the findings, not on the level of statistical significance achieved in any comparisons made. Valuable papers need no longer be turned away simply because of lack of space.