The Rise and Fall of Peer Review
Why the greatest scientific experiment in history failed, and why that's a great thing.
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Should Open Access Lead to Closed Research? The Trends Towards Paying to Perform Research
Should Open Access Lead to Closed Research? The Trends Towards Paying to Perform Research
Open Access (OA) emerged as an important transition in scholarly publishing worldwide during the past two decades. The industry is moving towards article processing charges (APC) based OA as the more profitable business model. Research publishing will be closed to those who cannot make an institution or project money payment. This article discusses whether APC is the best way to promote OA.
When Publishing Becomes the Sole Focus of PhD Programmes Academia Suffers
When Publishing Becomes the Sole Focus of PhD Programmes Academia Suffers
Reporting on their findings from qualitative research project focused PhD students across China, Hugo Horta and Huan Li explore how a culture of publication has become central to doctoral study and…
Stop Congratulating Colleagues for Publishing in High-Impact Factor Journals
Stop Congratulating Colleagues for Publishing in High-Impact Factor Journals
The current scholarly publishing system is detrimental to the pursuit of knowledge and needs a radical shift. There have already been many attempts and partial successes to drive a new shift in scholarly publishing. Many of them should be further developed and generalised.
5 Anti-Climate Practices Elsevier Must Cease: Scientists Call out Publisher's Ties to Fossil Fuel Industry
5 Anti-Climate Practices Elsevier Must Cease: Scientists Call out Publisher's Ties to Fossil Fuel Industry
Some questionable practices show the publisher is greenwashing.
To Fix Peer Review, Break It into Stages
All data should get checked, but not every article needs an expert.
Publishing Fast and Slow: A Review of Publishing Speed in the Last Decade
This article analyzes changes in the speed of publication of research articles over the last ten years.
Does Scholarly Publishing Have an Innovation Problem?
Is there an entrenched stasis in scholarly communication in which the core elements of the system have not been much moved by the revolutions happening around us?
Reflections on Guest Editing a Frontiers Journal
The authors critically discuss their experience as guest editors for a Frontiers journal. They aim to foster open scholarly debate about Frontiers publishing practices, triggered by Frontiers hindering such debate on their own pages.
Scientific Publishing: Peer Review Without Gatekeeping
eLife is changing its editorial process to emphasize public reviews and assessments of preprints by eliminating accept/reject decisions after peer review.
ELife Ends Accept/reject Decisions Following Peer Review
eLife will emphasise the public peer review of preprints, restoring author autonomy and promoting the assessment of scientists based on what, not where, they publish.
Why I Think Ending Article-Processing Charges Will Save Open Access
Why I Think Ending Article-Processing Charges Will Save Open Access
The way that the global north pays for publishing hampers public, scholar-led efforts in Latin America.
New 'Ethics Guidance' for Top Science Journals Aims to Root out Harmful Research - But Can It Succeed?
New 'Ethics Guidance' for Top Science Journals Aims to Root out Harmful Research - But Can It Succeed?
Nature's recent efforts to redefine the ethical responsibilities of scientists leave a lot to be desired.
Open Editors: A Dataset of Scholarly Journals' Editorial Board Positions
Editormetrics analyses the role of editors of academic journals and their impact on the scientific publication system - but open, structured and machine-readable data remains rare.
How Will Academia Handle the Zero Embargo?
The OSTP Nelson Memo has caused quite a stir in scholarly communication circles. How will academia handle the zero embargo?
Peer Review and Research Integrity: Five Reasons to Be Cheerful
Peer Review and Research Integrity: Five Reasons to Be Cheerful
Chris Graf (and colleagues) present five reasons to be cheerful about research integrity and peer review.
Five-Year Campaign Breaks Science's Citation Paywall
Reference lists for more than 60 million journal studies in Crossref are now free to view and reuse.
The Attack of Zombie Science
They look like scientific papers. But they're distorting and killing science.
Machine Translation Could Make English-only Science Accessible to All
UC Berkeley scientists and students looked at current artificial intelligence translation systems and found that, though flawed, they have become good enough for researchers to broadly translate their work into other languages, at least the languages of the coauthors and the country in which the research was conducted. One problem: how to get permissions to translate and share, and where will these translations live online.
China Overtakes the US in Scientific Research Output
Between 2018 and 2020 China published 23.4% of the world's scientific papers, eclipsing the US.
Journal Impact Factor and Peer Review Thoroughness and Helpfulness: A Supervised Machine Learning Study
Journal Impact Factor and Peer Review Thoroughness and Helpfulness: A Supervised Machine Learning Study
This study indicates that the JIF is a bad predictor for the quality of peer review of an individual manuscript.
Retractions Are Increasing, but Not Enough
Retraction Watch has witnessed a retraction boom since its founding 12 years ago. But the scientific community must do much more.
Dataset of Identified Scholars Mentioned in Acknowledgement Statements
Measurement(s) acknowledgements section
Writing Workshops
The intention of the Writing Workshops is to cultivate professional networks and mentorship and provide access for early career researchers in developing countries to the academic requirements of journals, including international journals, and to equip them with the necessary knowledge and skills to publish in these journals.
One Statistical Analysis Must Not Rule Them All
Any single analysis hides an iceberg of uncertainty. Multi-team analysis can reveal it.
Welcome to Hotel Elsevier: You Can Check-Out Any Time You Like … Not
Welcome to Hotel Elsevier: You Can Check-Out Any Time You Like … Not
Trying to understand what private data Elsevier collects; what private data Elsevier sells; and what to do about it.
Is Infrastructure Consolidation the Next Step? CCC Acquires Ringgold
Is Infrastructure Consolidation the Next Step? CCC Acquires Ringgold
In the light of CCCs acquisition of Ringgold last week, three Chefs, Phill Jones, Roger Schonfeld, and Todd Carpenter reflect on the motivations for the move and its implications for PIDs and organisational identifiers.
The Big Idea: Should We Get Rid of the Scientific Paper?
As a format it's slow, encourages hype, and is difficult to correct. A radical overhaul of publishing could make science better.
Ukrainian Researchers Pressure Journals to Boycott Russian Authors
Most titles are still considering manuscripts irrespective of nationality - but Russia plans to remove a requirement for scientists to publish in foreign titles.
Plan S and Scholarly Publishing: Some Lessons Learned
Review of a webinar featuring several key players in implementing Plan S, asking what lessons have been learned?
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