The SciELO Program team is pleased to wish all the readers of the SciELO in Perspective blog Seasons Greetings, and hopes that 2014 will be full of success for you all. The celebration of 15 years of the on-going operation of SciELO in 2013 was enriched by the wide-ranging and in – depth analysis and discussion concerning SciELO’s successes and the advances made, the lessons learned, and the problems which still persist as well as the challenges and future perspectives. … Read More →
To blog or not to blog – what academics are doing
When we speak of scientific blogs, we think of them as a means by which importance is given to the dissemination of scientific activities to the public in general. But apparently this ideal of transferring scientific knowledge to the citizens via blogs is not occurring. Instead, the blogs are becoming internal discussion forums amongst colleagues interested in their own professional careers, in other words, blogs by scientists for scientists. … Read More →
Open-Data: liquid information, democracy, innovation… the times they are a-changin’
Open data are changing teaching, research and decision making. The Open Government registry registers more than 385 catalogs in 40 countries which offer more than one million open data-sets. Open data joins Open Access, Open Source and Creative Commons in a process of global change. A recent report from the McKinsey Global Institute concludes that the availability of Open data could increase trillions of dollars in economic value annually. … Read More →
Ethical editing practices and the problem of self-plagiarism
If an author copies a passage from another author without indicating it, it is considered plagiarism, but … what happens if he takes passages from his own previously published works without indicating it? Self-plagiarism is not an offense against intellectual property but it is, however, a significant ethical lapse in scholarly communication. Is it Ok to reuse one’s own material? To what degree can a work incorporate parts of previous works? … Read More →
The SciELO 15 Years Conference on Twitter
The SciELO 15 Years Conference was a huge success, and its impact was felt far and wide thanks to its dissemination by social media – effective ways of broadcasting information and which are already important for the dissemination of scientific activity. They are also becoming useful tools for the evaluation of the influence and impact of research as measured by the new altmetrics. See the extent of the reach of the conference in Twitter! … Read More →
Controversial Article in The Journal “Science” exposes the weaknesses of Peer-Review in a set of Open Access Journals
Just before celebrating the Open Access Week worldwide, a controversial article published on Science exposed the recurrent question of the weaknesses of the peer review process in scientific communication. The paper focus on the selection of journals which collect article processing fees and describes how 304 versions of a fictitious article containing serious and obvious flaws were accepted in 157 open access journals, many already considered predatory. This post describes the experiment and gathers comments from international blogs. … Read More →
Impact – Nature’s Viewpoint: comments on special issue 502 (7471) 17th October, 2013
The journal Impact Factor as measured by citations is a relevant yet insufficient measure in the evaluation of projects by national research funding agencies. Without denying this objective measure and the importance it has, a consensus is emerging that the social and economic impact of research funded by these agencies must also be evaluated. … Read More →
October: Open Access Celebration Month!
In October we celebrate 15 years of the SciELO! October is known as the month of open access. Worldwide have celebratory events! Let’s celebrate! … Read More →
The Evolution of Open Access: a brief history
Meet some key events in the evolution of Open Access, which already has a history that goes back over 30 years. … Read More →
Publication ethics and the problem of plagiarism
Plagiarism in the academic environment not only violates an author’s copyright and moral rights, but is also unethical behavior which may justify the expulsion of the perpetrators from their institution. There are different forms of plagiarism which occur with differing frequencies. A recent report produced by the company iThenticate shows ten of the most common cases and their degree of seriousness. … Read More →
A varied panorama of rankings
Currently there is a varied panorama of university rankings at different levels – international, regional and national – and the national ones show their importance by being more in tune with the national context than the international rankings, and even use additional sources to rank the Institutions of Higher Learning in their respective countries. … Read More →
From lists to rankings
Based on Umberto Eco’s book “The Vertigo of Lists”, this blog post recalls the historical origin of lists, discussing their evolution to today’s sophisticated technological artifacts of information organization, and culminating in the emergence of global hierarchical listings showing the positioning of universities, also known as rankings. … Read More →
Integrity in research and the role of the institution: the time has come!
In highlighting the importance of holding the 4th World Conference on Research Integrity in Brazil in 2015, Sonia Vasconcelos emphasizes the recognition that the Global Research Council gives to the relevance of scientific integrity in funding, production and evaluation of research, and sees as possible the support of institutions so that scientific integrity may also become part of the culture of the training of graduate and undergraduate students. … Read More →
How much does it cost to publish in Open Access?
Open Access (OA) publication has become the accepted way of providing society with an idea of the public funds used to finance research. Open Access publication does not have a zero cost attached to it. It is however, put forward as a more economical model than journals which are financed by subscriptions. This post analyzes the financing of OA publication and puts forward business models which are seen as sustainable. … Read More →
UNESCO Guidelines provide a detailed review of Open Access
UNESCO has recently published the UNESCO Policy guidelines for the development and promotion of open access, whose objective is to promote Open Access in its Member States. The Guidelines contribute to the understanding of the most important aspects of Open Access so that countries and their institutions may choose appropriate policies and link them to their national research systems. … Read More →
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