The reliability of the research record should be of concern to everybody, yet it has attracted remarkably little study. A new journal of Research Integrity & Peer Review was recently launched at the World Conference on Research Integrity in Rio de Janeiro. The editors hope the new journal will not only provide a much-needed forum for research on these topics but may also stimulate additional research. … Read More →
Sustainability Science in the global landscape
Before the challenge of the Sustainable Development Goals established by the UN for 2030, scientific research has a key role to support decisions and public policies to reach them. A study by Elsevier and SciDev.Net about sustainability science addresses three main aspects, production, impact, and collaboration in research in this area and its interdisciplinarity. … Read More →
The BMJ requires data sharing to publish clinical trials
Increased publication of clinical trial outcomes has been promoted by regional and global initiatives in order to increase transparency, reproducibility and reliability of the assays. The BMJ follows this movement, becoming the first journal to require availability of individual patient data, anonymously and upon request, as a prerequisite for publication. … Read More →
SciELO’s Contribution to the Globalization of Science [Originally published in Digital Science’s “Perspectives” blog]
SciELO was created in Brazil about two decades ago when international indexes limited their coverage to the so called main stream journals ignoring an universe of journals edited by regional publishers mainly from developing and non-English speaking countries. Aiming to increase the quality and visibility of world-class research communicated by these nationally edited peer reviewed journals, SciELO quickly emerged as an indexing and publishing model adopted by a network of 15 countries that covers over one thousand journals, more than 500 thousand articles that serve a daily average of more than 1 million downloads. SciELO contributes to the globalization of science and to the cultural enrichment of the international flow of scientific information. This post by the directors of SciELO was originally published on Digital Science’s blog, “Perspectives”. … Read More →
Unpublished results from clinical trials distort medical research
The ClinicalTrials.gov initiative was created with the purpose to establish a platform for recording information on clinical trials conducted by public organizations (research institutes and government agencies) and private (pharmaceutical companies). A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, however, shows a worrying scenario. Despite the requirement to register clinical trials in a publicly accessible base, a small fraction of them are published in scientific journals, compromising the transparency and applicability of the discoveries. … Read More →
Jeffrey Beall and Blacklists
Jeffrey Bell, the author of the list of predatory publishers and journals widely expresses his unfavorable opinion about the open access movement in general and the academic publishing in developing countries. His latest attack was directed to SciELO, that he called on his blog “A publication favela”, in another sad attempt to discredit both open access and scholarly publication in the developing world. His opinions are personal, unfounded and biased, and do not deserve any credit. … Read More →
The fenced-off ‘nice’ publication neighbourhoods of Jeffrey Beall
Jeffrey Beall, librarian at the University of Colorado, describes SciELO as a ‘publication favela’ and commercial publishers as ‘nice neighbourhoods for scholarly publications’. The only way for us to understand that is if we consider his anti-open access, anti-subsidy, and anti-non-western attitudes, which are so clearly visible in his writings. It is a pity a university librarian of an otherwise reputable university thinks like this. He is wrong, and that has to be exposed. … Read More →
Ciência e Saúde Coletiva dedicates issue on the importance of Brazilian Collective Health journals
The journal Ciência e Saúde Coletiva celebrates 20 years of uninterrupted publication and relevant contribution to national, regional and international Public and Collective Health. The July 2015 thematic issue celebrates the most relevant Brazilian publications and provides an overview of the development of the area, which scientifically supported the construction the Brazil’s Unified Health System – SUS. … Read More →
Ethics in research: how to improve the integrity of scientists in their work
Scientific activity as a social enterprise must maintain its credibility. The Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines are presented as a recent and innovative initiative for scientific journals, and as one of the ways to guard this social value. … Read More →
Dealing with information overload
Information overload is a major barrier researchers face to capture and ingest the knowledge that is being discovered and created by science. The challenge is how to develop ways to create overviews of the knowledge that has been published related to specific areas of interest. The Lazarus initiative is introduced. … Read More →
Enhancing peer review: guides, tutorials and good practice manuals
The validation of scientific reports before publication is an established practice, whose effectiveness and importance is recognized by authors, publishers, funding agencies and scientific societies around the world, in order to ensure the originality, quality, reliability, integrity and consistency of scholarly literature. What has long been the exclusive prerogative of publishers and editors now relies on innovative initiatives by organizations and societies dedicated to understand and improve the process. … Read More →
Peer review: The pleasure of publishing – originally published in the journal eLife in January/2015
When assessing manuscripts eLife editors look for a combination of rigour and insight, along with results and ideas that make other researchers think differently about their subject. … Read More →
eLife: an example of improved peer review
The online open access peer reviewed journal eLife publishes articles in biomedicine and life sciences. The nonprofit publication emerged from the ideas of its founders to create a publication model that met the needs of the academic community regarding editorial policy. The journal relies on a staff of Senior Editors made of renowned, experienced researchers, which are active in their fields. Its peer review process is innovative and aims to ensure clear assessment goals as well as constructive and consolidated comments made by Editor and reviewers. … Read More →
The use of research metrics is diversified in the Leiden Manifesto
Research evaluation in recent decades has been increasingly conducted through metrics and indicators, which are gradually replacing the assessment by peers. Researchers gathered at the 19th International Conference on Science and Technology Indicators (STI 2014) held in September 2014 in Leiden, Netherlands, in order to advise on the use of metrics in research assessment drafted a set of rules – the Leiden Manifesto. Know its guidelines. … Read More →
Peer-review as a research topic in its own right
Over the last decade, the topic of scholarly communication has attracted the interest of researchers in all fields of knowledge. One of the most studied topics is the assessment of peer review, including its qualitative and quantitative aspects, its ability to detect and curb unethical practices, the appreciation of its methods of assessment and how technology can facilitate and improve the process, while meeting the challenges brought about by the age of digital publishing. … Read More →
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