Around half of researchers already publish their work with open access, according to a comprehensive survey carried out by the Main Library of the University of Zurich. Besides a number of positive results, the survey also revealed a need for more information.
In this article, we pursue two goals, namely the collection of empirical data about researchers' personal estimations of the importance of the h-index for themselves as well as for their academic disciplines, and on the researchers' concrete knowledge on the h-index and the way of its calculation.
In this interview with Peter Suber, the Senior Advisor on Open Access at Harvard Library and Director of the Harvard Open Access Project at the Berkman Klein Center discusses the current alarming developments taking place in the US research landscape – and offers valuable advice to colleagues from abroad.
Some of the major mistakes early career researchers make when preparing and submitting a manuscript to a scientific journal.
In a system where academic success is defined by outputs and individual achievement, Rachael Hains-Wesson and Nira Rahman call for a shift towards connection and belonging.
In the last decade Open Science principles, such as Open Access, study preregistration, use of preprints, making available data and code, and open peer review, have been successfully advocated for and are being slowly adopted in many different research communities. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic many publishers and researchers have sped up their adoption of some of these Open Science practices, sometimes embracing them fully and sometimes partially or in a sub-optimal manner. In this article, we express concerns about the violation of some of the Open Science principles and its potential impact on the quality of research output. We provide evidence of the misuses of these principles at different stages of the scientific process. We call for a wider adoption of Open Science practices in the hope that this work will encourage a broader endorsement of Open Science principles and serve as a reminder that science should always be a rigorous process, reliable and transparent, especially in the context of a pandemic where research findings are being translated into practice even more rapidly. We provide all data and scripts at . ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.
The data in this report summarises the responses gathered from 365 principle investigators of academic laboratories, who started their independent positions in the UK within the last 6 years up to 2018. We find that too many new investigators express frustration and poor optimism for the future. These data also reveal, that many of these individuals lack the support required to make a successful transition to independence and that simple measures could be put in place by both funders and universities in order to better support these early career researchers. We use these data to make both recommendations of good practice and for changes to policies that would make significant improvements to those currently finding independence challenging. We find that some new investigators face significant obstacles when building momentum and hiring a research team. In particular, access to PhD students. We also find some important areas such as starting salaries where significant gender differences persist, which cannot be explained by seniority. Our data also underlines the importance of support networks, within and outside the department, and the positive influence of good mentorship through this difficult career stage.
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.
Abstract: There are many reasons why open source projects have difficulty attracting contributors. Current academic incentive structures are some of the strongest. Wanting to maintain a competitive advantage, too great a focus on novelty when publishing papers, and too little credit given to writing documentation and tutorials, all encourage researchers to reinvent the wheel in a closed team. Although I will discuss these barriers, my talk will focus on some challenges that are much easier to overcome. Not knowing where to start. "Imposter syndrome" and the various intersecting biases that accompany (and often underpin) it. Being unsure as to whether a project even wants any contributions. These can all be addressed with 10 simple rules. From laying out your welcome mat, through setting explicit expectations, to the graceful death of your project, these steps will will help you build and run an open and inclusive community-driven project online. (Breaking down capitalism may have to wait for another day.) Bio: Kirstie Whitaker is a research fellow at the Alan Turing Institute (London, UK) and senior research associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. Her work covers a broad range of interests and methods, but the driving principle is to improve the lives of neurodivergent people and people with mental health conditions. Dr Whitaker uses magnetic resonance imaging to study child and adolescent brain development and participatory citizen science to educate non-autistic people about how they can better support autistic friends and colleagues. She is the lead developer of "The Turing Way", an openly developed educational resource to enable more reproducible data science. Kirstie is a passionate advocate for making science "open for all" by promoting equity and inclusion for people from diverse backgrounds, and by changing the academic incentive structure to reward collaborative working. She is the chair of the Turing Institute's Ethics Advisory Group, a Fulbright scholarship alumna and was a 2016/17 Mozilla Fellow for Science. Kirstie was named, with her collaborator Petra Vertes, as a 2016 Global Thinker by Foreign Policy magazine. You can find more information at her lab website: whitakerlab.github.io.
Download a PDF of "The Postdoctoral Experience Revisited" by the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine for free. Description: The Postdoctoral Experience Revisited builds on the 2000 report Enhancing the Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists and Engineers. That ground-breaking report assessed the postdoctoral experience and provided principles, action points, and recommendations to enhance that experience. Since the publication of the 2000 report, the postdoctoral landscape has changed considerably. The percentage of PhDs who pursue postdoctoral training is growing steadily and spreading from the biomedical and physical sciences to engineering and the social sciences. The average length of time spent in postdoctoral positions seems to be increasing. The Postdoctoral Experience Revisited reexamines postdoctoral programs in the United States, focusing on how postdocs are being guided and managed, how institutional practices have changed, and what happens to postdocs after they complete their programs. This book explores important changes that have occurred in postdoctoral practices and the research ecosystem and assesses how well current practices meet the needs of these fledgling scientists and engineers and of the research enterprise. The Postdoctoral Experience Revisited takes a fresh look at current postdoctoral fellows - how many there are, where they are working, in what fields, and for how many years. This book makes recommendations to improve aspects of programs - postdoctoral period of service, title and role, career development, compensation and benefits, and mentoring. Current data on demographics, career aspirations, and career outcomes for postdocs are limited. This report makes the case for better data collection by research institution and data sharing. A larger goal of this study is not only to propose ways to make the postdoctoral system better for the postdoctoral researchers themselves but also to better understand the role that postdoctoral training plays in the research enterprise. It is also to ask whether there are alternative ways to satisfy some of the research and career development needs of postdoctoral researchers that are now being met with several years of advanced training. Postdoctoral researchers are the future of the research enterprise. The discussion and recommendations of The Postdoctoral Experience Revisited will stimulate action toward clarifying the role of postdoctoral researchers and improving their status and experience.
Ensure the benefits are felt by all involved, maintain a degree of distance and objectivity, protect the quality of consent and your publishing rights, and always choose your partners carefully.
Coronavirus has shown how good science should be embedded in all big political decisions.
Researchers face pressure to hype and report selectively, says Dorothy Bishop.
To date, the majority of authors on scientific publications have been men. While much of this gender bias can be explained by historic sexism and discrimination, there is concern that women may still be disadvantaged by the peer review process if reviewers' unconscious biases lead them to reject publications with female authors more often. One potential solution to this perceived gender bias in the reviewing process is for journals to adopt double-blind reviews whereby neither the authors nor the reviewers are aware of each other's identities and genders. To test the efficacy of double-blind reviews, we assigned gender to every authorship of every paper published in 5 different journals with different peer review processes (double-blind vs. single blind) and subject matter (birds vs. behavioral ecology) from 2010-2018 (n = 4865 papers). While female authorships comprised only 35% of the total, the double-blind journal Behavioral Ecology did not have more female authorships than its single-blind counterparts. Interestingly, the incidence of female authorship is higher at behavioral ecology journals (Behavioral Ecology and Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology) than in the ornithology journals (Auk, Condor, Ibis), for papers on all topics as well as those on birds. These analyses suggest that double-blind review does not currently increase the incidence of female authorship in the journals studied here. We conclude, at least for these journals, that double-blind review does not benefit female authors and may, in the long run, be detrimental.
Perverse incentives in academia and scientific publishing have led to a surge in research fraud.
A list of 10 rules with researchers in mind: researchers having some knowledge of statistics, possibly with one or more statisticians available in their building, or possibly with a healthy do-it-yourself attitude and a handful of statistical packages on their laptops.
More than half a million researchers have now signed up for an online science passport: a unique 16-digit identity number, with an accompanying online profile, from the Open Researcher and Contributor ID ( ORCID) project. There, researchers can maintain an up-to-date record of their professional pursuits.
Scientific journal policies, physics' head start with arXiv, and differences in the culture of the two disciplines may all play a role.
The sentiment is widely shared in Brazil’s scientific community, where many feared a second term for Bolsonaro might be catastrophic for issues they care about, including support for science, climate policy, and deforestation.
To make replication studies more useful, researchers must make more of them, funders must encourage them and journals must publish them.
While some worry "wokeist" ideology could corrupt scientific merit, it could be our problematic understanding of the latter that poses an even greater threat to science, two philosophers argue.
A new study commenced work at the start of 2017: the “Next Generation Researchers Initiative,” directed by the Board on Higher Education and Workforce at the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine.
The Open Science movement champions transparency, but how much and how quickly is a matter of dispute.
Rivalry between China and other countries could diminish global scientific collaboration - just when it is most needed.
Two years in, a $1-billion-plus effort to simulate the human brain is in disarray. Was it poor management, or is something fundamentally wrong with Big Science?
The research enterprise sometimes keeps scientists from pursuing the best ideas: intense competition forces researchers to prioritize publishing papers over tackling important questions. A special issue explores the problems facing early and mid-career scientists, and how to solve them.
