In an interview to the Blog SciELO in Perspective, Jaime L. Benchimol discusses the use of social networks and scientific journalism as a challenge to publishers. He shares his experience and presents the history and challenges of História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, pointing out: “You have to equip yourself properly and, as important as gaining the support of funding agencies, is to convince the leaders of universities and institutions that scientific journals are indispensable and are costly and complex and cannot be made by improvisations and voluntarism of some selfless”. … Read More →
SciELO participates in the Global coalition supporting Creative Commons licenses to access journal articles
The STM International Association launched a series of new licensing models for open access contents. Its release caused a massive reaction from the scientific community and numerous organizations in the form of an open letter called Coalition Letter on STM Model Licenses, which so far gathered 83 organizations, including SciELO. The signatories understand that already established Creative Commons licenses cover a wide spectrum of possibilities, and that open access dispense new licenses. … Read More →
Productivism, research and scholarly communication: the thin line between poison and medicine
With the word, Teresa Cristina Rego: “It is an pressing requirement that new ways of encouraging, evaluating and socializing academic output are created. This is the great challenge facing us”. “Our government and its representatives, who work in bodies linked to the evaluation and promotion of research, should also be aware of the gravity of the situation in which we find ourselves. And this must be done before it is too late”. In an essay which concentrates upon the thorny questions surrounding productivism, the researcher opens a series of three interviews which focus on a discussion of the challenges facing Brazilian science published in volume 40 of the journal Educação e Pesquisa (Education and Research). … Read More →
Profile of researchers that integrate the core of world science publishing
A limited number of researchers all over the world can keep a continuous and uninterrupted flow of publications over time. This ability is shared by only 1% of researchers, who form the core of most productive and cited scientists. The inability to maintain this flow is translated into less scientific impact. … Read More →
Ethical publishing – should plagiarized pieces be retracted ? – well, perhaps not all
An article that contains sections of texts copied from other sources (plagiarism) does not necessarily make its research bad or invalid. Even though this is a warning of unethical behavior, this does not always merit the rejection or retraction of the article concerned. This is the opinion published recently in an article in Nature. … Read More →
Ethical Publishing – the time line of a case of plagiarism
The most advanced research, which is published in elite journals such as Nature, is not beyond plagiarism or serious misconduct. In a recent case in stem cell research at Weseda University in Japan, the university ordered a review of the 280 theses produced at the RIKEN Institute since its founding in 2007. … Read More →
Ethical publishing – scholars have to make bibliographical references as well
Should top-flight scholars include bibliographic references in their works to sources they have used or is it the case that the bibliographical reference is an archaic technicality? This question became a topic for discussion at the beginning of this month because of the accusations made against Zygmunt Bauman, namely that his latest book includes sections of text copied from web sites and Wikipedia – a procedure known as “mosaic plagiarism”. … Read More →
Ethical publishing – Best practices in ethical publishing – Wiley updates its renowned manual and makes it available in Open Access
An updated edition of the renowned manual “Best Practice Guidelines on Publishing Ethics: A Publisher’s Perspective” was recently published in open access. This edition brings together topics which provide updates to the practices of editorial ethics in dealing with situations such as privacy and confidentiality, cultural differences, human rights, clinical trials using animals, and other topics that are sources of heated controversy today. … Read More →
In the beginning it was just plagiarism – now its computer-generated fake papers as well
Prestigious publishers had to withdraw more than 120 fraudulent articles that had been generated by computer programs and which managed to fool the peer review process. Learn how it is possible to create fraudulent articles in minutes and also how it is possible to detect them. The question that arises is: why can editorial control systems be fooled so easily. … Read More →
Reproducibility of research results: on-going initiatives
From Space Sciences to Clinical Medicine, different areas of knowledge are facing research results credibility problems. However, scientific societies, public health institutions and the private sector are engaged to curb this tendency. Those involved believe that increasing the transparency of data by way of publishing primary research data in open access repositories and promoting online forums for comments on published articles are promising initiatives. … Read More →
Reproducibility of research results: the tip of the iceberg
Research on clinical trials with drugs under development is the foundation upon which pharmaceutical companies base the development of their new drugs, thus the reliability of the outcomes of this research is of utmost importance. However studies show that between 60% and 70% of this research may include irreproducible results. It is necessary that the parties involved become aware of the extent of the problem and join together to find a solution. … Read More →
Reproducibility of research results: a subjective view
At a time when discussions about ethics in experimentation and scientific publication are going beyond laboratories and academic environments, and are peaking the interest of society as a whole, another threat is emerging to the credibility of science. Irreproducibility of research results is affecting the different areas of knowledge and is of concern to all. The pressure on researchers for positive and high impact outcomes is bound up with the natural desire of scientists to make groundbreaking discoveries, even if the evidence points to the contrary. … Read More →
Editorial ethics: the detection of plagiarism by automated means
The growth in plagiarism in academic articles requires publishers to have effective plagiarism detection systems, known as PDS, since there are multiple ways that this dishonest practice can be concealed. The issue is of such importance that, since 2004, the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin has been maintaining a specialized site of PDS software evaluations. … 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 →
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 →
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