Authorship for Sale: Nature Investigates How Paper Mills Work
Companies selling authorship slots thrive in a culture that equates success with a strong publication record. Customers, sleuths and the shadowy owner of a paper mill explain why.
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Researchers Who 'pivot' into New Fields Should Not Be Given a Citation Penalty
Researchers Who 'pivot' into New Fields Should Not Be Given a Citation Penalty
The COVID-19 pandemic showed the value of changing direction in research. It should be incentivized, encouraged and celebrated.
Between Gift-Giving and Accumulation: Peer Review Economies in Psychology
Between Gift-Giving and Accumulation: Peer Review Economies in Psychology
Peer review is crucial for academic communities to ensure high-quality research. Drawing on 39 semi-structured interviews, the study investigates how reviewers for three publishing outlets in psychology experience the tension between community responsibility and various priorities of a more individual kind.
Can a Better ID System for Authors, Reviewers and Editors Reduce Fraud?
Unverifiable researchers are a harbinger of paper mill activity. While journals have clues to identifying fake personas, there isn’t a standard template for doing so.
Why Restrictive Academic Authorship Practices Perpetuate Inequality
Authorship plays a central role in the credibility and career progression of academics. Yet as Joseph Mellors and Stroma Cole argue, restrictive authorship practices risk perpetuating inequalities and sidelining important contributions to knowledge.
The Chilling Effect of DEI Crackdowns in Scientific Publishing
Trump's executive orders are affecting how federally funded journals operate. Some researchers have raised alarms.
Gatekeepers of Trust: Reaffirming the Publisher's Role in Service of the Reader
Gatekeepers of Trust: Reaffirming the Publisher's Role in Service of the Reader
The most vital and enduring contribution of scholarly publishers is their role as gatekeepers - not as obstacles to knowledge but as stewards of quality, integrity, and trust.
Five Trends In The Publishers-Sustainability Nexus
Five developments that illustrate how the relationship between sustainability and scholarly publishers is changing over time.
Tackling Science's 'Nasty Photoshop Problem'
What can be done to resolve concerns about image integrity in scientific publications?
20,000 Scientists Publish at Unrealistic Rates
Analysis finds ‘implausibly high’ numbers of papers from many top scientists.
Move Beyond 'Publish or Perish' by Measuring Behaviours That Benefit Academia
Move Beyond 'Publish or Perish' by Measuring Behaviours That Benefit Academia
A standardized system to measure contributions in mentorship, collaboration and more could bring about systemic change in science.
Pioneering Journal ELife Faces Major Test After Loss of Impact Factor
The open-access title's bold publishing model has bought long-bubbling conflicts to the fore.
"Systematic Reviews" That Aim to Extract Broad Conclusions from Many Studies are in Peril
"Systematic Reviews" That Aim to Extract Broad Conclusions from Many Studies are in Peril
Fake papers are “poisoning the well” for these gold-standard syntheses, researchers say.
ELife Won't Get an Impact Factor, Says Clarivate
Clarivate has decided to continue indexing some content from eLife in Web of Science.
Preprints at a Crossroads - Are We Compromising Openness for Credibility?
Bringing together a range of studies into various aspects of how preprints interact with the wider information ecosystem, Natascha Chtena, Juan Pablo Alperin, and Alice Fleerackers argue that the speed, accessibility and low barriers to entry that preprints offer to scholarly communication risk being undermined by attempts to make them more aligned to traditional academic publications.
eLife to Lose Impact Factor Due to Peer Review Change
Journal’s policy of publishing all reviewed submissions irrespective of quality conflicts with citation metric’s rules.
Journals with High Rates of Suspicious Papers Flagged by Science-integrity Start-up
Journals with High Rates of Suspicious Papers Flagged by Science-integrity Start-up
Scitility's tool 'Argos' identifies work whose authors have a record of misconduct.
6 Major Academic Publishers Face Antitrust Lawsuit
The defendants, including Elsevier and Wiley, have done "tremendous damage to science and the public interest," the complaint alleged.
Cash for Catching Scientific Errors
The ERROR project offers researchers a bounty for spotting mistakes in published papers - a strategy borrowed from the software industry.
These AI Firms Publish the World's Most Highly Cited Work
US and Chinese firms dominate the list of companies that are producing the most research and patents in artificial intelligence.
So You Got a Null Result. Will Anyone Publish It?
Researchers have tried a bunch of strategies to get more negative results into the literature. Nature asks whether they are working.
The Misplaced Incentives in Academic Publishing
Scientists who spend time peer-reviewing manuscripts don't get rewarded for their efforts. It's time to change that.
Associate Editors: Please Jump in the Mosh Pit
Journal associate editors must ruffle feathers from time to time during the publication process for the greater scientific good.
Putting China’s science surge in proper perspective
Reports of China’s rising scientific dominance over the US and West should be taken with a big grain of salt.
Biomedical Paper Retractions Have Quadrupled in 20 Years - Why?
Unreliable data, falsification and other issues related to misconduct are driving a growing proportion of retractions.
What Can Be Done About Scholarly Communication's Diversity Problem?
Drawing on findings from a new survey of equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging policies in European academic publishing, Lynne Bowker, Mikael Laakso, Janne Pölönen, and Claire Redhead outline the intersectional nature of scholarly communication’s diversity challenge and present new resources for actors across the system to implement changes.
Scientists Urged to Collect Royalties from the 'Magic Money Tree'
By joining a collecting society, researchers can ensure they are paid when copyrighted book content and papers are reproduced.
Wiley announces pilot of new AI-powered Papermill Detection service
From the London Book Fair, Wiley today unveiled plans for its new AI-powered Papermill Detection service.
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