Why Fake Data When You Can Fake a Scientist?
Making up names and CVs is one of the latest tricks to game scientific metrics.
Tech Firms Hire 'Red Teams.' Scientists Should, Too
Another botched peer review - this one involving a controversial study of police killings - shows how devil's advocates could improve the scientific process.
How Do We Make Research Assessment More Responsible?
A report on the SSP Publisher-Funder Task Force's meeting of senior researchers, university administrators, funders, publishers, and representatives from other organizations on the topic of Responsible Research Assessment for the 21st Century.
Criminologists scrutinise academia in wake of scientific scandals
Scientific misconduct increasingly studied as example of ‘occupational crime’, researcher says.
Universities Should Be Two-thirds Empty to Avoid COVID Spikes, Says Expert
Universities Should Be Two-thirds Empty to Avoid COVID Spikes, Says Expert
One of the UK’s leading public health experts has warned that universities should be two-thirds empty in order to prevent massive spikes in coronavirus infections across campuses.
ERC Scientific Council Withdraws Support for Plan S - Research Professional News
ERC Scientific Council Withdraws Support for Plan S - Research Professional News
The reversal is intended to 'preserve equity among research communities' and protect young researchers.
Diversity Begets Diversity: A Global Perspective on Gender Equality in Scientific Society Leadership
Conflict-of-interest information is often buried in studies. These researchers want to change that.
It Turns Out That Knowing More About Science Doesn't Correct Misbelief
New study casts doubts on whether more information about science can really change someone's mind.
Zika virus initiative reveals deeper malady in scientific publishing
Moves to speed up the release of Zika virus research in response to the public health crisis highlight a systemic failure in scientific publishing.
Addressing the Mental Health Crisis Among Doctoral Researchers
A perspective from Germany's biggest network of doctoral researchers.
International Researchers React to NIH Scrutiny of Foreign Coauthorship
International Researchers React to NIH Scrutiny of Foreign Coauthorship
Scientists in China, Europe, India, and South Africa say uncertainty surrounding US research policies is beginning to reshape international scientific partnerships.
Pfizer Had Clues Its Blockbuster Drug Could Prevent Alzheimer’s. Why Didn’t It Tell the World?
Pfizer Had Clues Its Blockbuster Drug Could Prevent Alzheimer’s. Why Didn’t It Tell the World?
A team of researchers inside Pfizer made a startling find in 2015: The company’s blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis therapy Enbrel, a powerful anti-inflammatory drug, appeared to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 64 percent.
Why are Authors Citing Older Papers?
With so much new literature published each year, why are authors increasingly citing older papers?
Leading Countries in Global Science Increasingly Receive More Citations Than Other Countries Doing Similar Research
Leading Countries in Global Science Increasingly Receive More Citations Than Other Countries Doing Similar Research
This article studies international citation and text similarity networks across 150 fields and find that some countries increasingly receive more citations despite researching similar topics as others.
Open Access Research Outputs Receive More Diverse Citations
The goal of open access is to allow more people to read and use research outputs. An observed association between highly cited research outputs and open access has been claimed as evidence of increased usage of the research, but this remains controversial.
Shaping the future of research
Proceedings of participant-driven workshops and the organizers’ synthesis of the outcomes of a recent symposium for early career researchers.
The State of Open Data Report 2017
Figshare's annual report shows that open data has become more embedded in the research community: 82% of survey respondents are aware of open data sets and more researchers are curating their data for sharing.
Best Practices for Scientific Computing
A set of best practices for scientific software development, based on research and experience, that will improve scientists' productivity and the reliability of their software.
Google Unveils Search Engine for Open Data
The tool, called Google Dataset Search, should help researchers to find the data they need more easily.
Colleges Should Encourage STEM Faculty and Students to Participate in Public Policy
First and Last Authors More Likely to Be Men in Leading Science Journals
Women's participation in science has risen sharply, but a Nature Index analysis finds that gender gaps in first and last authorship - markers of key scientific achievements - have barely shifted over the past decade.
Artificial Intelligence Can Expedite Scientific Communication and Eradicate Bias From the Publishing Process
Artificial Intelligence Can Expedite Scientific Communication and Eradicate Bias From the Publishing Process
Although automated publishing would allow researchers to share their findings faster, while also removing human bias, there are obvious ethical dilemmas related to this dehumanisation of the process.
Science Suffers from Harassment
The nearly 60,000-member American Geophysical Union took the bold step of revising its ethics policy to treat harassment, discrimination and bullying as scientific misconduct, with the same types of penalties for offenders. Other scientific organizations have not adopted that standard.
A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions
Although the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is widely acknowledged to be a poor indicator of the quality of individual papers, it is used routinely to evaluate research and researchers. Here, we present a simple method for generating the citation distributions that underlie JIFs. Application of this straightforward protocol reveals the full extent of the skew of these distributions and the variation in citations received by published papers that is characteristic of all scientific journals. Although there are differences among journals across the spectrum of JIFs, the citation distributions overlap extensively, demonstrating that the citation performance of individual papers cannot be inferred from the JIF. We propose that this methodology be adopted by all journals as a move to greater transparency, one that should help to refocus attention on individual pieces of work and counter the inappropriate usage of JIFs during the process of research assessment.
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