Preprints Promote Transparency and Communication
The potential of preprints to drive scientific understanding and innovation, and even support good journalism.
opinion articles
Send us a link
The potential of preprints to drive scientific understanding and innovation, and even support good journalism.
We need to start talking about what kind of planet we want to live on.
In this controversial opinion piece, German science expert Stefan Hornbostel argues that some transparency is good for science - but too much can backfire, reducing the efficiency and quality of research and eroding public trust.
What will it take to make the majority of scholarship open access so anyone can read it without a paywall?
Even after reading every single related news article, it is still worth reading the 300-plus page National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine report on Sexual Harassment in its entirety. The report lays out why academia is fundamentally broken and incapable of dealing with harassment.
Thanks to a major new international research study, it's no longer possible to pretend that predatory journals are not a serious problem that needs serious attention.
Spurred by a recent report on sexual harassment in academia, our columnist revisits a historical case and reflects on what has changed - and what hasn’t.
Despite two lost legal battles in the US, domain name seizures, and millions of dollars in damage claims, Sci-Hub continues to offer unauthorized access to academic papers. The site's founder says that she would rather operate legally, but copyright gets in the way. Sci-Hub is not the problem she argues, it's a solution, something many academics appear to agree with.
There are many reasons why scientists collaborating with artists makes sense, now more than ever.
Here's how PhD students can prepare for different careers, and how lab heads can help.
The multidisciplinary conferences that use ‘science’ as an adjective can be a fantastic source of new collaborations and ideas.
Regardless of her interests, it's easy to get your daughter interested in science and math. The author of 'Count Girls In' provides easy ways to promote STEM for girls.
The scientific community must take measures to keep preprints from distorting the public’s understanding of science, says Tom Sheldon.
To what extent does the academic research field of evaluative citation analysis confer legitimacy to research assessment as a professional practice?
There should be a prominent place for theory within biology papers, both as Results in papers that combine experiment and theory, and as Results in theory papers.
The problem with peer review is that, despite its rigor, it suffers from bias because reviewers are competing for the same recognition and resources.
All graduate students should be planning their post-PhD employment from year one. Supported and nurtured by their institutions and their supervisors. There is a catch for supervisors: they are themselves academics, and so will understandably have little clue about what might constitute useful training for the current job market. The onus must so fall on broader shoulders, of the institutions and funders.
With the current crisis that Academia is witnessing; irreproducibility of scientific research, extravagant costs associated with…
This essay is an appeal to the scientific community - researchers, publishers and communicators - to take stock and engage in a discussion of the wider impacts of preprint.
There are a number of threats to replicability. Some of them are technical, some social.
Oaths have their value, but checklists will help put principles into practice.
Academic publishing is dominated by a small number of commercial firms. How can the academy take control of scholarly publishing?
"It's not that difficult to flip the system," Smits continued. "The measures we are thinking about are not rocket science - they're straightforward. The main component: if you get a grant in the future, you can only publish in open access journals," he said.
Involving Elsevier in the European Open Science Monitor is a grave mistake according to palaeontologist Jon Tennant.
In the US, where political parties have increasingly staked claims on one side of the issue or the other, beliefs may be more about belonging than facts.
Funders Jean Lebel and Robert McLean describe a new tool for judging the value and validity of science that attempts to improve lives.