Many scholars are encouraged to focus on the quality not the quantity of their publications, the rationale being that becoming too focused on productivity risks reducing the quality of one’s work. But is this, in fact, the case? Peter van den Besselaar and Ulf Sandström have studied a large sample of researchers and found that, while results vary by field, there is a positive and stronger than linear relationship between productivity and quality (in terms of the top cited papers). This same pattern appears to apply to institutions as well as individual researchers. … Read More →
Sant Joan d’Alacant Declaration in defense of Open Access to scientific publications, by the group of editors of Spanish journals on health sciences (GERECS)
Aligned with the European Open Science Policy Platform and other declarations, the group of editors of Spanish journals on health sciences, in its last November meeting, issued the Sant Joan d’Alacant declaration in defense of Open Access. … Read More →
SciELO Indexing Criteria align with open science communication
The new SciELO Brazil Criteria are aligned with the good practices of open science communication. They become valid from January 2018 and project a new stage of improvement of Brazil’s scientific communication, which should be progressively extended to the other countries of the SciELO Network. The advancement towards open science has as a characteristic the repositioning of the main players of scholarly communication: authors, journals, and research funders. … Read More →
Of Subscriptions and Article Processing Charges
Article Processing Charges (APCs) – although they face criticism – do have advantages over subscriptions. They make immediate open access possible, but they also allow other drawbacks of subscriptions to be avoided, such as fixed page budgets. What APCs have not been able to do, is lower the financial burden of science communication on the research community, as many open access advocates had wanted and expected. A solution may be found – even if only a partial one – in the provision of preprints as a matter of course. … Read More →
The (pre) history of biology preprints
Some terms used currently with certain familiarity give us the false impression of having been coined in the light of the latest technology and inextricably linked to the Internet. Preprints repository is one such example. It seems impossible to devise a way of storing preliminary versions of scientific papers in a non-virtual space, let alone sharing them with as many stakeholders as possible otherwise than electronically. For that is exactly what happened in the unlikely year of 1961, when the NIH began circulating printed biology preprints to a list of subscribers in an experiment called the Information Exchange Groups. … Read More →
Academic journals with a presence on Twitter are more widely disseminated and receive a higher number of citations [Originally published in LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog in December/2017]
Previous research has shown that researchers’ active participation on Twitter can be a powerful way of promoting and disseminating academic outputs and improving the prospects of increased citations. But does the same hold true for the presence of academic journals on Twitter? José Luis Ortega examined the role of 350 scholarly journals, analysing how their articles were tweeted and cited. … Read More →
Towards open science, Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz welcome submission of preprint manuscripts
Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz is now accepting submission of manuscripts that are in preprint format. This decision follows the recent initiative by SciELO in launching a preprint service and it is aligned to the global movement of open science. This new modality of dissemination of scientific research results will break paradigms and certainly change the way science is measured today. It represents a small step for editors, but a huge leap in scientific communication for society. … Read More →
Open-access books are downloaded, cited, and mentioned more than non-OA books [Originally published in LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog in November/2017]
Open-access journal articles have been found, to some extent, to be downloaded and cited more than non-OA articles. But could the same be true for books? Carrie Calder reports on recent research into how open access affects the usage of scholarly books, including the findings that OA books are, on average, downloaded seven times more, cited 50% more, and mentioned online ten times more. A number of accompanying interviews reveal that authors are choosing open access routes to publish their books not only because of wider dissemination and easier access but also for ethical reasons. … Read More →
Older journal articles need to be open, too
Much of the effort of promoting open access to scholarly journal articles is aimed at current material, and older articles risk being virtually ignored. Whilst the most recent articles generally represent the greatest number of downloads and usage figures, older articles are by no means less important to science. Open access, including re-use facilities, should apply to them, too. … Read More →
Make sure your book is discoverable! Advice for the reader-oriented author [Originally published in LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog in November/2017]
Although academic book publishing remains dominated by print, the ability to reach readers is now hugely dependent on the online discoverability of scholarly books. Authors looking to connect with as wide a readership as possible should consider how to maximise the chances of their books and chapters being returned in readers’ online searches. Terry Clague offers some simple advice to the reader-oriented book author. … Read More →
The time has come for the quality journals of Brazil
Policies, programs and research projects are expected to leverage journals of Brazil which will contribute to widening the recognition and qualification of Brazilian science in its scientific and social dimensions, beyond the classic bibliometric ranking of journals which influences researchers, academic institutions, journals and funding agencies. … Read More →
Collaboration and concerted action are key to making open data a reality [Originally published in LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog in October/2017]
The case for open data is increasingly inarguable. Improved data practice can help to address concerns about reproducibility and research integrity, reducing fraud and improving patient outcomes, for example. Research also shows good data practice can lead to improved productivity and increased citations. However, as Grace Baynes reports, recent survey data shows that while the research community recognises the value of open data, uptake remains slow, with good data practice and data sharing far from the status quo. To effect change, government, funders, institutions, publishers, and researchers themselves all have an important role to play. … Read More →
Some ideas about Brazilian postgraduation
The level of both master’s and doctoral courses in Brazil can be improved by introducing new disciplines that focus on the “formation” of the student rather than “information”. … Read More →
A statistical fix for the replication crisis in science [Originally published in The Conversation in October/2017]
How should we evaluate initial claims of a scientific discovery? Here’s is a new idea: Only P-values less than 0.005 should be considered statistically significant. P-values between 0.005 and 0.05 should merely be called suggestive, but statistical significance should not serve as a bright-line threshold for publication. … Read More →
At age 50, BIREME is face to face with the new librarianship
The perspective of equity access to health scientific information that motivated twenty years ago the creation and development of the Virtual Health Library is becoming a reality. However, at BIREME’s 50th Anniversary, the scope and functions of librarianship and information science are as tensioned as they were two decades ago for the advance of open science and Sustainable Development Goals. … Read More →
Recent Comments