The financing of journals of Brazil can be improved by extending the validity period of research grants, in order to allow publishers a better plan for articles publication. An editorial written by Alexander Kellner in the first issue of 2017 of Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências examines the challenge faced by editors of journals of Brazil and highlights their hard work in attracting relevant manuscripts, seeking to achieve ever greater levels of excellence and internationalization. … Read More →
Plain-language summaries of research: Something for everyone [Originally published in eLife]
More than 50 journals and scientific organizations produce a wide variety of plain-language summaries that are available for research in many different areas of science and medicine. Plain-language summaries can help biomedical science journals to reach patients and others who may benefit from the research. This diversity means that there will always be something available to all those interested in science, regardless of their scientific background. … Read More →
Are we in the GSM Radar?
Google Scholar Metrics (GSM) offers alternative metrics to the JCR Impact Factor and the SJR, namely the h-5 index. To enter this world ranking that covers more than 40,000 journals it is only necessary to publish an average of 20 articles per year and be cited. However, there are hundreds of journals (our journals) that are not being indexed in GSM. They’re off Radar. … Read More →
I wrote this… I did not write this… now I write something else…
The emerging system of online scholarly communication incorporates a technological and ideologically approach different from the traditional one, where the articles initially appear as preprints versions and are modified until reaching the final version. In case of errors, these same technologies provide efficient opportunities to make partial or total corrections and even retractions, associating to the path of a document the history of its versions. It is time, therefore, to establish methodologies that allow to obtain the maximum of more updated information to support the scientific undertakings. … Read More →
Internationalization as an indicator of journal performance in Brazil: the case of Psychology
The path to strengthening scientific publications almost always goes through internationalization. Publishing in English, however, is not enough to reach a truly global audience and indices comparable to the most prestigious journals. A study on the degree of internationalization of Brazilian psychology journals shows how to walk this path. … Read More →
Assessment of reproducibility in research results leads to more questions than answers
The ‘Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology’ initiative that has the purpose of assessing the reproducibility of preclinical research in Oncology was launched in 2013 as the result of a collaboration between the Center for Open Science and Science Exchange. The first results of the replication studies have just been published, however, their interpretation requires a careful approach. … Read More →
Preprints – the way forward for rapid and open knowledge sharing
Preprints – versions of academic articles that have not yet been formally peer-reviewed before publication – are gaining acceptance in the academic world. They deliver open access as well as speedy publication, and their decades old success in physics has spurred on their spread in other disciplines. The development of preprints is accelerating; important funding agencies are in support of them, and also SciELO is planning to set up a preprint server for authors in Latin America and the Global South generally. … Read More →
Study assesses financing sources of open-access article processing charge
Is there a correlation between article processing charge (APC) and the journals’ Impact Factor? What are the funding sources for payment and how do they influence the choice of journals for publication? These and other questions were investigated by authors from Nanjing University, China and the results explain the peculiarity of open access in different countries. … Read More →
Five things to consider when designing a policy to measure research impact [Originally published in The Conversation]
The move of the Australian government to measure the impact of university research on society introduces many new challenges that were not previously relevant when evaluation focused solely on academic merit. … Read More →
Adoption of open peer review is increasing
In analyzing how the ‘peer review’ institution has emerged and evolved, it is possible to understand the current transition the assessment process is going through towards greater openness, transparency and accountability. … Read More →
Open Access article processing charges: a new serial publication crisis?
The financial and ethical implications that emerge from open access publishing through article processing fees in India are analyzed in a study that proposes the creation of a national open access journal platform such as SciELO in order to reduce costs, increase efficiency and facilitate the sharing of metadata among repositories. … Read More →
What’s the deal with preprints?
Preprints enable scholarly communication more quickly, complement traditional publication in academic journals and determine priorities. This procedure may change the peer review system and focus on the role of academic journals. … Read More →
Study shows that articles published in English attract more citations
Among the many factors that influence citation practice in scholarly communication, the language of publication plays a key role. A study by Argentine researchers showed that English articles receive more citations than those published in other languages. Despite being perceived by many as of lower quality and relevance, articles in Spanish from two Latin American journals were blind evaluated and were not, in fact, underqualified. … Read More →
Is the reproducibility crisis exacerbated by pre-publication peer review?
A lack of scrutiny of articles published in peer-reviewed journals on the basis of a belief that pre-publication peer-review provides sufficient scrutiny, may well add to the relatively high number of articles in which results are presented that cannot be replicated. … Read More →
Is it possible to normalize citation metrics?
Bibliometric indicators represent much more than an indication of the visibility, relevance and impact of an article. A researcher’s entire career profile can be summarized in one or more numerical productivity and impact indicators of his research. However, citation metrics vary considerably according to the area of knowledge, the publication age, the type of document and the coverage of the database where citations were accrued. Is it possible to normalize them? Here we discuss the challenges of this practice. … Read More →
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