In this post, the representatives of the Humanities and Applied Social Sciences Collection on the SciELO platform’s Advisory Committee discuss their work fronts in the 2022-2023 biennium and the challenges that remain for the coming years. Besides issues related to the Open Science Program, we discuss the threats posed to our journals’ sustainability. … Read More →
Paper mills
Paper mills have begun to produce and sell large numbers of low-quality articles with false or plagiarized data. And, more recently, they are trying to entice journal editors by offering generous sums in exchange for the rapid acceptance of articles and by offering questionable editors and reviewers for special issues. … Read More →
The influence of implicit biases on the adoption of DEIA principles
Adherence to the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) has been hampered by implicit biases, relating to implicit memory, which influences actions and decisions unconsciously. Progress involves institutional commitment, changing the culture, setting goals, and developing operational strategies. … Read More →
Large Language Publishing [Originally published in the Upstream blog in January/2024]
The New York Times ushered in the New Year with a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. OpenAI and its Microsoft patron had, according to the filing, stolen “millions of The Times’ copyrighted news articles, in-depth investigations, opinion pieces, reviews, how-to guides,” and more—all to train OpenAI’s LLMs. … Read More →
How to reformulate scholarly publishing to face the peer review crisis
The time between submission and publication of articles in the field of microbiology has been increasing in recent years. In addition, editors are having to invite more and more reviewers to identify those willing to evaluate manuscripts. What are the implications of this for peer review? Available in Portuguese only. … Read More →
Can AI do reliable review scientific articles?
The cost of reviewing scientific publications, both in terms of money and time spent, is growing to unmanageable proportions with current methods. It is necessary to use AI as a trust system and thus free up human resources for research tasks. It would be important for SciELO to progressively incorporate AI modules for evaluation in its preprints server as a new advance and development of the technologies it manages. Available in Spanish only. … Read More →
The scientific community is publishing (much) more and that’s a problem
A study posted on arXiv reports an exponential increase in the number of refereed scientific articles published in recent years, disproportionately outstripping the increase in the number of researchers. Scientific output per researcher as author, reviewer, and editor has increased dramatically, a phenomenon referred to as “pressure on scientific publication”, classified as a problem to be identified and resolved. Available in Portuguese only. … Read More →
Research and scholarly communication, AI, and the upcoming legislation
Can AI be used to generate terrorist “papers”, spread deadly viruses, or learn how to make nuclear bombs at home? Is there legislation that can protect us? It looks like international regulation is on the way. … Read More →
ChatGPT and other AIs will transform all scientific research: initial reflections on uses and consequences – part 2
In this second part of the essay, we seek to present some risks that arise particularly in the use of generative AI in the scientific field and in academic work. Although all the problems have not been fully mapped out, we have tried to offer initial reflections to support and encourage debate. … Read More →
ChatGPT and other AIs will transform all scientific research: initial thoughts on uses and consequences – part 1
We discuss some possible consequences, risks, and paradoxes of the use of AIs in research, such as potential deterioration of research integrity, possible changes in the dynamics of knowledge production and center-periphery relations in the academic environment. We concluded by calling for an in-depth dialog on regulation and the creation of technologies adapted to our needs. … Read More →
Artificial Intelligence and research communication
Are chatbots really authors of scientific articles? Can they be legally responsible, make ethical decisions? What do scientific societies, journal editors and universities say? Can their results be included in original scientific articles? Based on recent contributions hereby presented, we’ll be publishing posts that will try to answer these questions and any new ones that arise. … Read More →
GPT, machine translation, and how good they are: a comprehensive evaluation
Generative artificial intelligence models have demonstrated remarkable capabilities for natural language generation, but their performance for machine translation has not been thoroughly investigated. A comprehensive evaluation of GPT models for translation is presented, compared to state-of-the-art commercial and research systems, including NMT, tested with texts in 18 languages. … Read More →
Uncited articles and the dispersion of citations in the scientific literature
Questioning Bradford’s law, whose interpretation in bibliometrics states that most citations are concentrated in a few journals and articles, a recent study highlights the importance of uncited articles and their influence on citation concentration. For the authors, uncited articles should be included in the analysis to provide a more comprehensive understanding of citation patterns across time, disciplines, and geographic regions. … Read More →
Reproduction and replication in scientific research – part 3
Reproducibility and replicability are central issues when discussing the reliability of scientific research. The attempt by a second researcher to replicate a previous study is an effort to determine whether applying the same methods to the same scientific question produces similar results. In the social sciences and humanities, however, it is not the same paradigms. … Read More →
Reproduction and replication in scientific research – part 2
In this second note on the subject, we will address the guidelines proposed in 2019 by NASEM. We will analyze how replicability is understood in different scientific disciplines, mainly in the experimental sciences, based on a computational paradigm. Likewise, we will look at opinions from other disciplines related to social sciences and medicine, which do not participate in the same epistemological paradigms. … Read More →
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