The current pandemic has exposed a host of issues with the current scholarly communication system, also with regard to the discoverability of scientific knowledge. Many research groups have pivoted to Covid-19 research without prior experience or adequate preparation. They were immediately confronted with two discovery challenges: (1) having to identify relevant knowledge from unfamiliar (sub-)disciplines with their own terminology and publication culture, and (2) having to keep up with the rapid growth of data and publications and being able to filter out the relevant findings. 

Open Access in Theory and Practice investigates the theory-practice relationship in the domain of open access publication and dissemination of research outputs. 

Our aim is to highlight the benefits and limitations of open and non-anonymized peer review. Our argument is based on the literature and on responses to a survey on the reviewing process of alt.chi, a more or less open review track within the so-called Computer Human Interaction (CHI) conference, the predominant conference in the field of human-computer interaction. This track currently is the only implementation of an open peer review process in the field of human-computer interaction while, with the recent increase in interest in open scientific practices, open review is now being considered and used in other fields. We ran an online survey with 30 responses from alt.chi authors and reviewers, collecting quantitative data using multiple-choice questions and Likert scales. Qualitative data were collected using open questions. Our main quantitative result is that respondents are more positive to open and non-anonymous reviewing for alt.chi than for other parts of the CHI conference. The qualitative data specifically highlight the benefits of open and transparent academic discussions. The data and scripts are available on https://osf.io/vuw7h/ , and the figures and follow-up work on http://tiny.cc/OpenReviews . While the benefits are quite clear and the system is generally well-liked by alt.chi participants, they remain reluctant to see it used in other venues. This concurs with a number of recent studies that suggest a divergence between support for a more open review process and its practical implementation.

Publication questions the reliability of Impact Factor (IF) rankings given the high IF sensitivity to a few papers that affects thousands of journals.

The citation count of journals discontinued for publication concerns increases despite discontinuation and predatory behaviors seemed common. This paradoxical trend can inflate scholars’ metrics prompting artificial career advancements, bonus systems and promotion. Countermeasures should be taken urgently to ensure the reliability of Scopus metrics both at the journal- and author-level for the purpose of scientific assessment of scholarly publishing.

In the current system of pre-publication peer review, which papers are scrutinized most thoroughly?

This article examines how the number of downloads from Sci-hub as well as various characteristics of publications and their authors predicts future citations.

The faculty job market plays a fundamental role in shaping research priorities, educational outcomes, and career trajectories among scientists and institutions. However, a quantitative understanding of faculty hiring as a system is lacking. Using a simple technique to extract the institutional prestige ranking that best explains an observed faculty hiring network-who hires whose graduates as faculty-we present and analyze comprehensive placement data on nearly 19,000 regular faculty in three disparate disciplines. Across disciplines, we find that faculty hiring follows a common and steeply hierarchical structure that reflects profound social inequality. Furthermore, doctoral prestige alone better predicts ultimate placement than a U.S. News & World Report rank, women generally place worse than men, and increased institutional prestige leads to increased faculty production, better faculty placement, and a more influential position within the discipline. These results advance our ability to quantify the influence of prestige in academia and shed new light on the academic system.

Three studies showing large DNA deletions and reshuffling heighten safety concerns about heritable genome editing.

Achieving the global benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) will require international cooperation on many areas of governance and ethical standards, while allowing for diverse cultural perspectives and priorities.

The prestige ranking of scholarly journals is costly to science and to society.

This publication shows how a single paper affects the impact factor (IF) of a journal by analyzing data from 3,088,511 papers published in 11639 journals in the 2017 Journal Citation Reports of Clarivate Analytics.

This paper finds that demographically underrepresented students innovate at higher rates than majority students, but their novel contributions are discounted and less likely to earn them academic positions.

This study aims to evaluate the 1-year results of a prospective randomized social media trial to determine the effect of tweeting on subsequent citations and non-traditional bibliometrics.

COVID-19 is a major acute crisis with unpredictable consequences. Many scientists have struggled to make forecasts about its impact. However, despite involving many excellent modelers, best intentions, and highly sophisticated tools, forecasting efforts have largely failed.

Study found that preliminary criterion scores fully account for racial disparities - yet do not explain all of the variability - in preliminary overall impact scores.

Personal integrity and local culture are key to research integrity, and bullying and harassment is the single biggest negative influence, according to a new study by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

The research world has moved faster than many would have suspected possible in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In five months, a volume of work has been generated that even the most intensive of emergent fields have taken years to create.In our new report, How COVID-19 is Changing Research Culture, we investigate the research landscape trends and cultural changes in response to COVID-19. The report includes analysis of publication trends, geographic focal points of research, and collaboration patterns.

What was the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions at the outset of the pandemic?

England is abandoning lockdown and possibly hope of containing a second wave of covid-19.

Analysis of over 16,000 preprints released within 4 months of the first confirmed case found that COVID-19 preprints are shorter, with fewer panels and tables, and reviewed faster.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, science is crucial to inform public policy. At the same time, mistrust of scientists and misinformation about scientific facts are rampant. Six scientists, actively involved in outreach, reflect on how to build a better understanding and trust of science.

France has been heavily affected by the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic and went into lockdown on the 17 March 2020. Using models applied to hospital and death data, we estimate the impact of the lockdown and current population immunity. 

Predatory publishing has emerged as a professional problem for academics and their institutions, as well as a broader societal concern, bringing to the fore a debate over what constitutes legitimate science.

A public-private partnership and platform for harmonized clinical trials aims to accelerate licensure and distribution.

Authors, editors and publishers differ in their understanding of and the value they attach to the purposes of peer review. 

Explanation of the differences between confirmatory and exploratory research and the dangers of confusing the two concepts. 

In this COVID-19 pandemic, emerging popular refrains like ‘we’re all in this together’ and ‘we will come through this together’
echo across media. But who is this ‘we’?

We have developed an analysis pipeline to facilitate real-time mutation tracking in SARS-CoV-2, focusing initially on the Spike (S) protein because it mediates infection of human cells and is the target of most vaccine strategies and antibody-based therapeutics.

New sources of citation data have recently become available. Although these have been compared to the Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, or Google Scholar, there is no systematic evidence of their differences across subject categories. In response, this paper investigates citations found by these data sources to English-language highly-cited documents published in 2006 from 252 subject categories, expanding and updating the largest previous study.