In The big idea: should we get rid of the scientific paper?, published in The Guardian, Stuart Ritchie argues for a radical action: scientists should abandon the current format of the scientific paper, which is static and not interactive. Adeilton Brandão, Editor in Chief of Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz and researcher at Fiocruz, comments on the article. … Read More →
New international recommendations for open access publishing – #BOAI20
On the 20th anniversary of the BOAI, when the concept of “open access” was coined, the Open Access Initiative announces new international recommendations that aim to dismantle inequalities and achieve greater equity and inclusiveness in creating, contributing to, accessing, and benefiting from knowledge. … Read More →
Society has a strong demand for open access science
Analysis of more than 1.6 million comments left on downloads by the US National Academies shows that half are for academic use and the other half reveal adults across the country who seek highest quality information to improve the way they work, satisfy their curiosity, and learn. Knowing the importance of such information, policymakers should be encouraged to protect it. … Read More →
SciELO preprints discoverable in Europe PMC [Originally published in the Europe PMC blog in March/2022]
SciELO preprints are now indexed and discoverable in Europe PMC. Over 1,000 SciELO preprints can be browsed in Europe PMC in their original language (Portuguese, Spanish, or English). An important outcome of this collaboration is the push for changes to scholarly infrastructure to better handle multilingual content. … Read More →
How altmetrics are used to evaluate scientific output in Latin America
Altmetrics are a group of alternative metrics that capture mentions made to scientific papers on social networks, news sites and blogs; policies and patents; Wikipedia, and other sources to assess the impact of publications on the social web. A study using journals and articles from the SciELO network in Latin America was carried out to qualify the web presence of Latin American research results and explore the potential of altmetrics. … Read More →
ANPOCS, its National Meetings, and Open Science
ANPOCS has been promoting debates with editors on the financial sustainability of social science journals as well as well as on transformations and innovations in the world of scientific publishing and in the public communication of science, particularly those related to Open Science. For the next Annual Meeting (Oct/22), the objective is to academically and politically strengthen scientific journals in the area and encourage practices that connect scientific production, debates in congresses, preprint repositories and servers, and journals. … Read More →
Guest Post — Building an Easier Path Toward Open Access Book Publishing: Support for Authors [Originally published in the Scholarly Kitchen in March/2021]
Christina Emery presents an updated overview of the open access books landscape and examines the challenges of open access book publishing according to feedback from authors and researchers, plus what support is available to them. … Read More →
Presence in Mega Indexes Project proposes to create more visibility to the journals in the SciELO Brazil Collection
Seeking out to increase international presence, facilitate access to information, and improve the generation of quality indicators of the SciELO journals, a project with the support of the Scopus Brazil team to maximize the indexing of the SciELO’s journals starting with the Brazil collection is currently in progress. The process that embraces about 75 journals started with a pre-analysis followed by a webinar, the sending of collected data to Scopus and update of the journal’s informative pages in the SciELO site. Text available only in Portuguese. … Read More →
Study on the use of continuous publication in SciELO Brazil collection
The study carried out by researchers from the Universidade Federal University do Rio Grande do Sul points out that there is a tendency, in recent years, for journals to move away from the publication model based on volume and numbers, with a significant increase in adherence to continuous publication. The publication mode gained importance in Brazil after being included in the SciELO Brazil publishing criteria. … Read More →
Preprints optimize research communication [Originally published as the editorial in Revista Habanera de Ciencias Médicas vol. 20 no. 4]
Preprints have been established as an initial step in research communication after 50 years of its conception at the US NIH and the beginning of operation of the arXiv server. It is an enrichment of the classic scholarly communication model in which unpublished manuscripts are submitted to journals for peer review. Journals have, among others, the critical role of validating research. Preprints are made available before this validation step as a means of accelerating the communication of research results and improving manuscripts before sending them to a journal for validation. The use of preprints is identified as one of open science practices. … Read More →
Integration of national academic databases in Europe
The need for a comprehensive infrastructure for scholarly publications has been on the European Union’s agenda for a long time. In particular, the European Commission’s open science policy highlights the need for a good database for monitoring Open Access publications in Europe. However, many publications are still missing to rely on a comprehensive information infrastructure on open research. Over the past 10 years, European countries have invested significantly in national infrastructures, and now, at least 20 European countries have a national database for open publication research metadata. However, they are not yet integrated or widely used for cross-country comparisons. … Read More →
‘The government is following the science’: Why is the translation of evidence into policy generating so much controversy? [Originally published in the LSE Impact blog in November/2020]
In the UK, the government has presented itself as guided by scientific evidence in its policy responses to COVID-19. This has led to science, in particular epidemiology, itself becoming politicised and contested. However, neither the politicisation of science nor questions surrounding the status of evidence are new. In this post, Luis Pérez-González, outlines how a similar politics of expertise has played out in environmental policy-making. The author argues that for scientific evidence to be successfully communicated in policy, it needs to be informed by bipartisan values. … Read More →
Are preprints a problem? 5 ways to improve the quality and credibility of preprints [Originally published in the LSE Impact blog in September/2020]
Preprints are research reports have that have not yet been peer reviewed and accepted for publication. They have increased rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, high profile discredited studies have led to concerns that speed has been prioritized over the quality and credibility of evidence. Joeri Tijdink, Mario Malicki, Lex Bouter and Gowri Gopalakrishna argue that all stakeholders of the science system have a responsibility in improving the quality and credibility of pre-prints. They outline 5 steps by which this can be achieved. … Read More →
Initiative for Open Abstracts Launches to Promote Discovery of Research [Originally published in IO4A.org in September/2020]
The Initiative for Open Abstracts (I4OA) calls on scholarly publishers to open their abstracts, and specifically to deposit them with Crossref. Unrestricted availability of abstracts will boost the discovery of research. 34 publishers have already agreed to support I4OA and to make their abstracts openly available. I4OA is also supported by a large number of research funders, libraries and library associations, infrastructure providers, and open science organizations. … Read More →
SciELO network and accessibility: emphasis on policies, products and services
Open science and open access are not synonymous with accessibility. Thus, the policies and guidelines of the SciELO Network Publication Model, with the cooperation of journal editors and persons with disabilities, will be gradually reviewed regarding submission criteria, structures, and content of scientific articles. … Read More →
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