Monthly Archives: May 2017

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How to find articles in open access – tips from my favorite nerd

Scholarly communication available online, whether in journals or repositories, adds up to millions, and this figure grows every year. What browser efficient tools are available to researchers, librarians, students, and the like to find the open-access versions of the articles that interest them? Read More →

Grant applications submitted to the NIH can cite preprints

The use of preprints as a means of accelerating research communication has become a frequent practice in many areas of knowledge also as a way to improve peer review. The U.S. National Institutes of Health, a renowned research and development agency, recently announced that grant applications and reports are entitled to cite preprints, “to speed the dissemination and enhance the rigor of their work”. Read More →

Gender disparities in science persist despite significant advances

The participation of women as authors in academic publications has been increasing significantly worldwide and in all areas of knowledge, reaching 49% in Brazil and Portugal, followed by Australia (44%) and the European Union (41%). Gender equity in science, however, still has a long way to go, especially in the editing and peer review functions. A study of more than 41,000 articles published between 2007 and 2015 shows that male editors – who are majority – preferentially select same gender referees. Read More →

Openness is the only quality of an academic article that can be objectively measured

Quality of scientific research articles is a widespread preoccupation in academic circles. The most used proxy is based on citation counts, not of the article itself, but of the averages of articles appearing in the same journal during a given time window. This is known as the Journal Impact Factor, which may be objective within its own definition, but utterly lacks objectivity with regard to scientific quality of individual articles. Only some technical qualities of articles can be assessed at the time of their publication, and, significantly, their openness, the degree to which the research results they describe can be immediately and universally shared. Read More →