Certain disciplines have a lower percentage of women than others. A study published in Science puts forward the hypothesis that there are proportionately fewer women in fields where it is believed that brilliance and innate talent are required rather than hard work and dedication. The study, which looked at 1,820 researchers in institutions of higher education in the United States, showed an inverse relationship between the fields that value innate talent and the number of women represented in these fields. … Read More →
Editorial ethics – the geography of plagiarism
A recent study published in PNAS on 757,000 arXiv.org documents about the reuse of text (text overlap) shows that this practice is more common in some countries than others, but the results seem to show that the authors who extensively copy texts from others are also the less cited. … Read More →
Editorial ethics: fraudulent arbitration
In recent months there have been a significant amount of retractions of scientific papers due to fraudulent arbitration processes. Apparently “paper mills” are appearing on the market that offer researchers, for a price, the possibility that their name appear in an article in a high Impact Factor journal (although not being the author). … Read More →
It is time to review the Brazilian postgraduation system
The Brazilian graduate system has fallen behind and needs major modifications. A panel convened to analyze the postgraduation since its initiation in the early 70’s envisaging a more effective system with respect to the quality of our students and the scientific enterprise in Brazil is needed. … Read More →
Article analyses saturation of peer reviewers
Online publication caused a significant increase in the number of journals and articles worldwide, but the number of researchers has not increased proportionately. Thus, the peer review process, which ensures quality and credibility to scientific articles, is saturated and as a result the quality of reviews is decreasing. Two articles in Nature address this issue, the first one proposes a hybrid model to evaluate the articles and the second reports an online service for registration and publication of reviews, in order to grant credit and recognition to the reviewers. … Read More →
Principles for the citation of scientific data
The Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles was recently approved by the international group FORCE11. It marks a milestone in the advancement of scholarly communication in the online world. This Declaration is being signed and endorsed by the world’s leading publishing groups and universities, and will in the future be incorporated into SciELO’s procedures as part of its ongoing improvements in management overall. … Read More →
How do I get read and cited if I do not publish in elite-journals?
The citation impact of our articles largely depends largely on the promotion work we do of what we publish. Citations do not arise mechanically from the Impact Factor of the journal, but from our personal marketing. … Read More →
Paper investigates: is your most cited work your best work?
A study reports research with the 400 most cited authors in biomedical sciences on their perception of their most cited articles published in 2005-2008. The authors were asked to score their ten most cited articles in six ways. The research aims to investigate whether the authors consider their most cited articles and answer questions such as: Science progresses mainly through evolution or revolution? The study has many interesting findings, however, instead of answering the questions, it brings even more interrogations. … Read More →
Exchange of research data remains low and increases slowly
The exchange of academic research data allows other scientists to replicate the experiments and move solidly in the construction of science. Although the major funding agencies in the world established in its policies the open availability of data, only a third of medical research, and much less in other areas comply with these provisions. There are several reasons that slow this progress, ranging from copyright and commercial interests to national security. … Read More →
Study proposes a taxonomy of motives to cite articles in scientific publications
Article examines the activity of citing publications during the process of writing a scientific paper. The suggested model consists of four main categories – Arguments, Social Alignment, Mercantile Alignment and Data – plus subcategories. The authors argue that the complexities of citation practice show how little can be assumed about the real reasons for citing an article by analyzing the final paper. The study has an impact mainly in attributing relevance to articles based solely on citations, and therefore, on journal and researcher assessment. … Read More →
“10 years of research impact : the most cited articles in Scopus 2001 – 2011” – Synthesis of the article originally published in the Elsevier newsletter “Research Trends, Issue 38”
Gali Halevi and Henk Moed investigate what the most frequently cited articles were in Scopus from 2001-2011, in eight main research areas, and give their authors the chance to comment on their achievements. … Read More →
Rise of the Rest: The Growing Impact of Non-Elite Journals – Originally published on Google Scholar Blog on October 8, 2014
The world of scholarly communication has changed quite a bit over the last decade. This post from Google Scholar team explore the impact of these changes – looking at how scholarship and citation patterns have changed as publications and archives moved online and comprehensive relevance-ranked search became available to everyone. … Read More →
The challenges of retraction: cleaning up the literature might be difficult
There is consensus that misconduct in academic publications should be remedied as soon as possible. However, there are a number of implications – ethical, moral, legal and those related to the reputation of the journals and researchers in the retraction process – that turn the process into a complex one which can often become unworkable. … Read More →
Publish or perish? The rise of the fractional author… – Originally published on the Elsevier newsletter “Research Trends Issue 38”
Andrew Plume and Daphne van Weijen investigate how the pressure researchers feel to publish their work has affected co-authorship patterns over the past 10 years. Are researchers publishing more unique articles or co-authoring more articles? … Read More →
Retraction of scientific works and pseudoscience
Is the growing number of scientific retractions necessarily due to the fruits of pseudoscience? Productive reflection on the subject leads us to the need to recognize the current demands of the scientific system for researchers, conflicts of interests at stake and that science is produced by fallible human beings with their own moral values . Globalization, while supporting misconduct, strengthens social control. Increased retraction of papers is a necessary response of the social control to what some authors refer to as “pseudoscience”. … Read More →
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