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The Concept of Research Impact Pervades Contemporary Academic Discourse – But What Does It Actually Mean?
The Concept of Research Impact Pervades Contemporary Academic Discourse – But What Does It Actually Mean?
Research impact is often talked about, but how clear is it what this term really means? The authors highlight four core elements that comprise most research impact definitions and propose a new conceptualisation of research impact relevant to health policy.
What Does It Mean to Read the Literature, Really?
In a profession rewarding productivity in the form of papers and grants, sitting down to deeply read journal articles can feel like wasted time. Professor logs every paper she read over multiple years to gain insight on personal research practices.
Is Reproducibility Really Central to Science?
The Neuroskeptic commentary on a new paper by Chris Drummond about the ‘reproducibility movement’. Assuming that what really matters is the testability of a given hypothesis, how fundamental is reproducibility to science?
Challenges and opportunities for Open Science
Incentives for “Open”, perception as additional work and lack of training, and diversity and inclusivity.
DORA Anniversary and Future
The San Francisco Declaration of Research Assessment moves into a global phase of action with community support.
Text and Data Mining with allofPLOS
Text and data mining made easy with the allofPLOS project. Parsing tools together with the entire corpus of PLOS research articles for download.
Elsevier References Dominate Those That Are Not Open at Crossref
Of all 956,050,193 references from journal articles stored at Crossref, 32.00% are from journal articles published by Elsevier, none of which are in the Crossref “Open” category, freely available for others to use.
A New Model for Science Communication
SciComm: Why it is essential, and how we can do it better.
The Role of Ego in Academic Profile Services
Comparing Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Mendeley, and ResearcherID.
Elsevier Acquisition Highlights the Need for Community-Based Scholarly Communication Infrastructure
Elsevier Acquisition Highlights the Need for Community-Based Scholarly Communication Infrastructure
Like many others in the scholarly community, we were very disappointed to learn about the recent acquisition by Elsevier of bepress, the provider of the popular Digital Commons repository platform.
Scholarly Communications Shouldn't Just Be Open, but Non-Profit Too
The profit motive is fundamentally misaligned with core values of academic life, potentially corroding ideals like unfettered inquiry, knowledge-sharing, and cooperative progress.
The New Configuration of Metrics, Rules, and Guidelines Creates a Disturbing Ambiguity in Academia
The New Configuration of Metrics, Rules, and Guidelines Creates a Disturbing Ambiguity in Academia
The bibliometric system and the rules which accompany it have created an environment in which many if not most researchers can be identified as transgressors.
What Does the Future Hold for Academic Books?
Between August 2014 and September 2016, the Academic Book of the Future Project, initiated by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Library, explored the current and future status of the traditional academic monograph.
Me, Myself, and I: Self-Citation Rates Are Higher in Individualist Cultures Than in Collectivist Cultures
Me, Myself, and I: Self-Citation Rates Are Higher in Individualist Cultures Than in Collectivist Cultures
Authors from western, individualist cultures are more likely to use many self-citations than authors from more collectivist cultures.
Opening up the Black Box of Peer Review
Liz Allen looks into what peer review actually tells us and how we use expert opinion.
Citations Are Not Enough
Academic promotion panels must take into account a scholar’s presence in popular media.
Reflections on Open Research – a PI's Perspective
Interviewing Dr David Savage.
FAIR Is Not Fair Enough
FAIR doesn’t actually require the data or software to be openly available.
Microsoft Academic Is on the Verge of Becoming a Bibliometric Superpower
Last year, the new Microsoft Academic service was launched. Sven E. Hug and Martin P. Brändle look at how it compares with more established competitors such as Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science.
The ResearchGate Score: A Good Example of a Bad Metric
A significant weight is linked to ‘impact points’ – a similar metric to the widely discredited journal impact factor.
A Closer Look at the Sci-Hub Corpus
Bastian Greshake has analysed the full Sci-Hub corpus and found that articles are being downloaded from all over the world, more recently published papers are among the most requested, and there is a marked overrepresentation of requested articles from journals publishing on chemistry.
Unattractive People Are Seen As Better Scientists
Good looking, sociable people don’t make good scientists, according to popular stereotypes.
The Crowd and the Cloud
The role and the impact of citizen science in today’s world.
Five Reasons Blog Posts Are of Higher Scientific Quality Than Journal Articles
Open data, code, materials and other reasons make blog posts score better on some core scientific values.
What Are the Barriers to Post-Publication Peer Review?
What Are the Barriers to Post-Publication Peer Review?
Post-publication peer review emerged in response to increased calls for continuous moderation of the published research literature.
Protocols.io Tools for PLOS Authors: Reproducibility and Recognition
Protocols.io Tools for PLOS Authors: Reproducibility and Recognition
PLOS now partners directly with protocols.io to provide authors better ways to share methodological details about their work, practical tools to reduce wasted research efforts and persistent, citable identifiers for laboratory methods.
Important, Widely Used and Well-Reported Datasets
Because sharing underlying data is essential for accelerating scientific advances and maximizing the value of research.
Following the Success of the Learning Technologist, Is It Time for a Research Equivalent?
Following the Success of the Learning Technologist, Is It Time for a Research Equivalent?
With so many scholarly communications tools and technologies now available, how do academics decide which are most appropriate for their research?