Peer review is the intrinsic process of scientific research. However, there are few systematic studies on this procedure, and it is not easy to gain access to management information administered by publishers. The PEERE project, funded by the European Community, would make this data available as a public good. … Read More →
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak highlights serious deficiencies in scholarly communication [Originally published in the LSE Impact blog in March/2020]
As research and government responses to the COVID-19 outbreak escalate in the face of a global public health crisis, Vincent Larivière, Fei Shu and Cassidy R. Sugimoto reflect on efforts to make research on this subject more widely available. Arguing that a narrow focus on research published in high ranking journals predominantly in English has impeded research efforts, they suggest that the renewed emphasis on carrying out open research on the virus presents an opportunity to reassess how research and scholarly communication systems serve the public good. … Read More →
The Road to Preprints (Part 2): SciELO’s Preprint Server [Originally published in the PKP website in March/2020]
Our preprints story continues with a guest post by SciELO. In addition to seed funding to make Open Preprint Systems (OPS) possible, SciELO is working closely with the PKP team to make sure that the software is developed and maintained following state-of-the-art best practices and that its features satisfy the needs of a diverse community. … Read More →
The Road to Preprints (Part 1): Introducing Open Preprint Systems [Originally published in the PKP website in February/2020]
Our story begins in February 2017 when SciELO first announced their quest for a preprint server. Like many circa 2016, SciELO was coming around to the idea that preprints could and would serve an important part in their strategy for open science. But despite a clear vision and path to get there, SciELO was missing an important piece: infrastructure. … Read More →
Brazilian Journal of Nephrology: trajectory and internationalization
With 40 years of uninterrupted publication, Brazilian Journal of Nephrology traces the path towards its internationalization, based on professionalization and without constant improvement of its editorial processes and scientific quality. It is now in a new phase, where reaching its greatest indexing potential and strengthening its presence in Latin America represent its main challenges. … Read More →
Sorbonne declaration on research data rights [Originally published in the LERU website in January/2020]
The opening of research data is one of the practices of open science that is progressively being globalized. In November 2019, the Network of Scientific Data Repositories of the State of São Paulo, formed by eight universities and research institutions, was launched. In January 2020, leaders of eight university networks gathered at the International Research Data Rights Summit at Sorbonne Université signed the Sorbonne Declaration on Research Data Rights, which is reproduced in this post in the original English version. … Read More →
CRediT Check – Should we welcome tools to differentiate the contributions made to academic papers? [Originally published in LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog in January/2020]
Elsevier is the latest in a lengthening list of publishers to announce their adoption for 1,200 journals of the CASRAI Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT). Authors of papers in these journals will be required to define their contributions in relation to a predefined taxonomy of 14 roles. In this post, Elizabeth Gadd weighs the pros and cons of defining contributorship in a more prescriptive fashion and asks whether there is a risk of incentivising new kinds of competitive behaviour and forms of evaluation that doesn’t benefit researchers. … Read More →
Peer review is not just quality control, it is part of the social infrastructure of research [Originally published in LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog in June/2019]
The purpose of peer review is often portrayed as being a simple ‘objective’ test of the soundness or quality of a research paper. However, it also performs other functions primarily through linking and developing relationships between networks of researchers. In this post, Flaminio Squazzoni explores these interconnections and argues that to understand peer review as simply an exercise in quality control is to be blind to the historical, political and social dimensions of peer review. … Read More →
The SciELO publication model as an open access public policy
This post shares the brief description of the SciELO open access publication model presented by Abel L Packer, Director of SciELO, at the 14th Berlin Debate on Science and Science Policy which was themed “Who Owns Science? Reshaping the Scientific Value Chain in the 21st Century”. The description highlights the SciELO Program as a framework for the development and implementation of national policies to support quality journals and as an international cooperation program. The debate was held in the context of the Falling Walls Conference commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. … Read More →
Working to the rule – How bibliometric targets distorted Italian research [Originally published in LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog in November/2019]
As Goodhart’s law states: “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”. Using bibliometrics to measure and assess researchers has become increasingly common, but does implementing these policies therefore devalue the metrics they are based on? In this post Alberto Baccini, Giuseppe De Nicolao and Eugenio Petrovich, present evidence from a study of Italian researchers revealing how the introduction of bibliometric targets into the Italian academy has changed the way Italian academics cite and use the work of their colleagues. … Read More →
Transparency: What Can One Learn from a Trove of Invoices? [Originally published in the Scholarly Kitchen blog in November/2019]
A new dataset from the Gates Foundation offers insights into author choices and APC pricing. … Read More →
Tropical Medicine/Infectious and Parasitic Diseases journals align with open science editorial practices
Three of the most important journals in the areas of Tropical Medicine/Infectious and Parasitic Diseases of the SciELO Brazil Collection decided to adopt open science practices to provide more transparency, increase sharing and open access to the research results they report. This is the first of a series of novel pilot projects promoted by SciELO to inform editorial policies as well as to enable the management and operation of journals in the appropriation of and interoperability with preprints, research data and other content underlying the article texts for subsequent progressive opening of the peer review process. … Read More →
How to write an academic review? [Originally published in DADOS’ blog in July/2019]
The purpose of this post is to outline what a reviewer should consider before writing an assessment. In it, we discuss issues such as the importance of writing reviews, the types of possible reviews, what to do when detecting a conflict of interest, etc. … Read More →
Journal Indexing: Core standards and why they matter [Originally published in LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog in August/2019]
The ways in which journals are indexed online is essential to how they can be searched for and found. Inclusion in certain indexes is also closely linked to quality assessment, with research funders often requiring their grantees to publish in outlets listed in certain indexes. In this post Danielle Padula explains the importance of good journal indexing and how journals that apply key standards can increase the reach and impact of their publications. … Read More →
The 2019 Workshop on Open Scientometric Data Infrastructures at Leiden University [Originally published in the CWTS blog in August/2019]
The Open Scientometric Data Infrastructures Workshop took place at CWTS on 28 February and 1 March 2019. Over the course of two days, 14 researchers from CWTS and other research institutes and universities came together to discuss current projects and initiatives regarding open scientometric data infrastructures. This blog post provides a summary on the presentations and discussions held at the event. … Read More →
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