Increased publication of clinical trial outcomes has been promoted by regional and global initiatives in order to increase transparency, reproducibility and reliability of the assays. The BMJ follows this movement, becoming the first journal to require availability of individual patient data, anonymously and upon request, as a prerequisite for publication. … Read More →
The favourable perception of open access increases among researchers
A research conducted by the Nature Publishing Group indicates that the perception of open access (OA) publishing is rapidly changing among researchers. In 2014, 40% of authors who have not published in OA journals declared themselves concerned about the quality of publications, a percentage which fell to 27% in 2015. The NPG supports OA publications and recognizes its importance, publishing 56% of the articles in this format. … Read More →
What is holding back the transition to open access if it does not cost more?
Transition to Article Processing Charge supported open access from a closed access subscription system is far from straightforward, even if the cost of such an open access system is the same, or even less. There are glimmers of hope, though, in an approach that may help to overcome the hurdles, by taking a large-scale, even nationwide, approach as opposed to the usual one where each individual institution has to weigh up the costs and benefits. … Read More →
SciELO’s Contribution to the Globalization of Science [Originally published in Digital Science’s “Perspectives” blog]
SciELO was created in Brazil about two decades ago when international indexes limited their coverage to the so called main stream journals ignoring an universe of journals edited by regional publishers mainly from developing and non-English speaking countries. Aiming to increase the quality and visibility of world-class research communicated by these nationally edited peer reviewed journals, SciELO quickly emerged as an indexing and publishing model adopted by a network of 15 countries that covers over one thousand journals, more than 500 thousand articles that serve a daily average of more than 1 million downloads. SciELO contributes to the globalization of science and to the cultural enrichment of the international flow of scientific information. This post by the directors of SciELO was originally published on Digital Science’s blog, “Perspectives”. … Read More →
Open Access in Latin America: a paragon for the rest of the world [Originally published in the SPARC blog]
Manifesto signed by scholars and representatives of pro-open access associations, published on the website of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition – SPARC, repudiates the ideas advocated by Jeffrey Beall disqualifying SciELO (and Redalyc) in favor of control over journals by large commercial publishers. The manifesto states that open access is exemplary in Latin America. … Read More →
Unpublished results from clinical trials distort medical research
The ClinicalTrials.gov initiative was created with the purpose to establish a platform for recording information on clinical trials conducted by public organizations (research institutes and government agencies) and private (pharmaceutical companies). A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, however, shows a worrying scenario. Despite the requirement to register clinical trials in a publicly accessible base, a small fraction of them are published in scientific journals, compromising the transparency and applicability of the discoveries. … Read More →
Jeffrey Beall and Blacklists
Jeffrey Bell, the author of the list of predatory publishers and journals widely expresses his unfavorable opinion about the open access movement in general and the academic publishing in developing countries. His latest attack was directed to SciELO, that he called on his blog “A publication favela”, in another sad attempt to discredit both open access and scholarly publication in the developing world. His opinions are personal, unfounded and biased, and do not deserve any credit. … Read More →
Motion to repudiate Mr. Jeffrey Beall’s classist attack on SciELO
By the Brazilian Forum of Public Health Journals Editors and the Associação Brasileira de Saúde Coletiva (Abrasco, Brazilian Public Health Association) … Read More →
The fenced-off ‘nice’ publication neighbourhoods of Jeffrey Beall
Jeffrey Beall, librarian at the University of Colorado, describes SciELO as a ‘publication favela’ and commercial publishers as ‘nice neighbourhoods for scholarly publications’. The only way for us to understand that is if we consider his anti-open access, anti-subsidy, and anti-non-western attitudes, which are so clearly visible in his writings. It is a pity a university librarian of an otherwise reputable university thinks like this. He is wrong, and that has to be exposed. … Read More →
Ciência e Saúde Coletiva dedicates issue on the importance of Brazilian Collective Health journals
The journal Ciência e Saúde Coletiva celebrates 20 years of uninterrupted publication and relevant contribution to national, regional and international Public and Collective Health. The July 2015 thematic issue celebrates the most relevant Brazilian publications and provides an overview of the development of the area, which scientifically supported the construction the Brazil’s Unified Health System – SUS. … Read More →
The impact of the migration to the ScholarOne® platform on the editorial flows of a journal in the Human Sciences [Originally published as the editorial in the Revista de Sociologia e Política vol. 23 n. 54]
The article discusses the results of the rationalization of the editorial routines of a scientific journal. Since the Revista de Sociologia e Política began to conduct its process of arbitration on the ScholarOne® platform, the time spent in decision-making has been standardized, and the work of the reviewers was improved. Indicators show that the platform is effective for the professionalization of editorial activities. … Read More →
Science Publishing: the Transition to Open Access Going Dutch
The negotiations between the Dutch universities (VSNU – the Association of Universities in The Netherlands) and three large publishers (Springer, Wiley, Sage) have been concluded and significant steps to include open access in the deals with those publishers have been made. With Elsevier, however, the negotiations are in deadlock, according to the VSNU. They have called for a boycott, but the real question is, of course, why it is that Elsevier, the largest, and Dutch (!) academic publisher, can’t – or won’t – do what other large publishers can – and will. I have no answer to that, but in trying to sketch the situation in some detail, I hope to add some clarity to it. The outcome of the negotiations is surely going to influence other countries. … Read More →
Ethics in research: how to improve the integrity of scientists in their work
Scientific activity as a social enterprise must maintain its credibility. The Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines are presented as a recent and innovative initiative for scientific journals, and as one of the ways to guard this social value. … Read More →
Can monies spent globally on journal subscriptions be completely transitioned to an OA business model to free the journals?
The recent rapid growth in open access publishing, and the clear benefits that open access presents to society as a whole leads to the question: can all subscription based scientific journals in the world be transitioned to open access in a sustainable way? Is there enough money currently in the system for such a transition, and would there be any economic impact? A recent eye-opening study published by the Max Planck Digital Library delves into this issue and provides some very concrete answers based on real expenditures in subscriptions and on the real costs of open access services. … Read More →
Dealing with information overload
Information overload is a major barrier researchers face to capture and ingest the knowledge that is being discovered and created by science. The challenge is how to develop ways to create overviews of the knowledge that has been published related to specific areas of interest. The Lazarus initiative is introduced. … Read More →
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