Tag: Scholarly Communication

Executive summary: SciELO 25 Years Meeting – Open Science with IDEIA

SciELO 25 Years logo

Various stakeholders met and outlined several key points for the advancement of Open Science in Latin America. These included strengthening the governance of the SciELO Network and aligning it with open science practices, the use of AI tools and resources in research communication and the creation of an Office of Ethics and Good Practices in Scholarly Communication. Read More →

Some thoughts on SciELO 25 Years

SciELO 25 Years logo

The topics covered during the event form a very rich agenda full of challenges for the coming years. We are confident that these challenges will be met satisfactorily on the basis of SciELO’s track record. The Declaration approved at this event touches on the main points of this challenge and we hope that the actors urged in this declaration will fulfill their role in advancing Open Science in the Region. Read More →

The South African Journal of Science (SAJS) and the goals of accessibility, inclusion and change

Print screen of a slide that says "The South African Journal of Science (SAJS) and the goals of accessibility, inclusion and change: A conversation between Prof Leslie Swartz, Editor-in-Chief of SAJS, and Dr Nkosinathi Madondo, associate editor intern of SAJS"

A conversation between Prof Leslie Swartz, Editor-in-Chief of the South African Journal of Science (SAJS), and Dr Nkosinathi Madondo, associate editor mentee of SAJS. Read More →

Artificial Intelligence and research communication

Watercolor of Alan Turing generated by Midjourney AI

Are chatbots really authors of scientific articles? Can they be legally responsible, make ethical decisions? What do scientific societies, journal editors and universities say? Can their results be included in original scientific articles? Based on recent contributions hereby presented, we’ll be publishing posts that will try to answer these questions and any new ones that arise. Read More →

Uncited articles and the dispersion of citations in the scientific literature

Map of co-citation prepared by the authors with the VOSviewer software.

Questioning Bradford’s law, whose interpretation in bibliometrics states that most citations are concentrated in a few journals and articles, a recent study highlights the importance of uncited articles and their influence on citation concentration. For the authors, uncited articles should be included in the analysis to provide a more comprehensive understanding of citation patterns across time, disciplines, and geographic regions. Read More →

Some remarks on peer review and preprints [Originally published as the editorial in Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz vol. 118]

Montage. Photo of a data center, a corridor with machines occupying the wall and processing computer systems. In front, a vector illustration of a microscope and a cross behind. A braided circle around the two. At the top, the logo of the journal Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz. At the bottom, the text: Peer Review x Preprint.

We may say that scientific publishing is now living under the “disruption of preprints”! Scientific editors must now think about two things: (i) a new concept of “publishing papers”, and (ii) how to proper (and innovatively) evaluate the contribution these freshly released papers might bring to society. Read More →

Reproduction and replication in scientific research – part 3

Screenshot from the film Maniac (1934), public domain. A character looks at glassware on a countertop.

Reproducibility and replicability are central issues when discussing the reliability of scientific research. The attempt by a second researcher to replicate a previous study is an effort to determine whether applying the same methods to the same scientific question produces similar results. In the social sciences and humanities, however, it is not the same paradigms. Read More →

Reproduction and replication in scientific research – part 2

Screenshot from the public domain film Maniac (1934). The camera is out of focus and showing Horace B. Carpenter as the character "Dr. Meirschultz" behind lab equipment.

In this second note on the subject, we will address the guidelines proposed in 2019 by NASEM. We will analyze how replicability is understood in different scientific disciplines, mainly in the experimental sciences, based on a computational paradigm. Likewise, we will look at opinions from other disciplines related to social sciences and medicine, which do not participate in the same epistemological paradigms. Read More →

Walking the walk: open communication and review in a congress on open science

Black and white photograph of people walking in a courtyard, with a superimposed illustration of a net in red.

The first Iberoamerican Congress for Open Science took place on 23 and 24 November 2022, as a forum for Iberoamerican dialogue on the right to science and to promote change in how we understand science, from an inclusive, open, participatory, and responsible perspective. Read More →

Reproduction and replication in scientific research – part 1

Screenshot from the public domain films Maniac (1934) showing Horace B. Carpenter as the character "Dr. Meirschultz"

Replicability is a central issue when discussing the reliability of scientific research that renews itself in the promotion of open science. A second researcher’s attempt to replicate an earlier study is an effort to determine whether applying the same methods to the same scientific question yields similar results. Read More →

Mapping output in content analysis in SciELO Brazil indicates a technique that is caught in a time warp

Vector illustration of a giant computer screen. Two small people each stand on one side of the screen. On the left, a man holds a magnifying glass on top of the screen and magnifies a graphic. On the right, a woman sitting at a table with a notebook. On the screen, different types of graphics. In the background, geometric graphic elements and leaf shape. Shades of salmon and purple.

A scientometric review on the use of content analysis in SciELO Brasil showed a notable concentration of citations from Laurence Bardin’s manual, whose use continues to grow. As the work has not had updates in the last two decades, we can say that the use of the technique may be caught in a time warp. Read More →

VHL 25 Years: Achievements, Challenges and Opportunities

VHL's 25 years anniversary logo

In 1998, the Latin American and Caribbean Health Information Network approved the Declaration of San José “Towards the Virtual Health Library”. 25 Years of the VHL development have gone by as a health information management framework for LA&C. There were many achievements and challenges that turned into opportunities thanks to coordinated network working and the availability of common methodologies and systems. We experience the advancement of digital collections, cloud storage, open science, open data, institutional repositories, open software, etc. Now, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at our doorstep and, more than a challenge or threat, it is an opportunity to renew the VHL model and celebrate its 25th Anniversary. Read More →

Rethink peer review to make it sustainable

Photograph of a sheet of paper on which a light bulb with a question mark inside is sketched in pencil. On the left side of the drawing is a pencil and an eraser.

A recently published article discusses the need for a profound overhaul of peer review, as the current model proves to be no longer sustainable. Journal editors have difficulties finding reviewers willing to evaluate submitted articles, researchers discuss greater recognition or even remuneration to act as reviewers. Among the numerous proposed alternatives, the opening of peer review is presented as the most feasible alternative. Read More →

Preprint review should be part of doctoral and postdoctoral training programs

Photograph of a graduating student wearing cap and gown from the back.

Considering the significant growth of preprints in scholarly communication, as well as the emergence of preprint servers in all areas of knowledge, Richard Sever, assistant director of CSHL Press, proposes that (post-publication) evaluation of preprints be used to complement doctoral and postdoctoral training at academic institutions. Read More →

Shuffle the cards and deal again

Photograph of a check mark made up of several red plastic "X's" on a black background.

Research must be well planned, carried out correctly and reported in a clear and transparent way, as the reliability of the results depends on the rigor of the experimental design. However, in the published reports, there seems to be a lack of commitment by those responsible for assessing the quality of the research. Experts pointed out that the current incentive structures in research institutions do not sufficiently encourage researchers to invest in solidity and transparency, instead encouraging them to optimize their aptitude in the fight for publications and grants. Over the past decade, large-scale replication studies have shown that reproducibility is far from favorable in many scientific fields, and questionable research practices are becoming more prevalent. Clearly something is not working in the scientific enterprise. Read More →