Peer review is seen as one of the pillars – if not the most important – of scientific communication. Despite the difficulties in going through the review process, the authors believe that the process improves the quality of the manuscript, and they want to be published on refereed journals that have a sound evaluation mechanism. Recent cases of attempted manipulation of the peer review process by fake reviews concern the international scientific community, however, it does not undermine its credibility and trust. The peer review crisis can be an opportunity to strengthen and improve the process. … Read More →
Peer review modalities, pros and cons
The double-blind peer review system is chosen by most researchers as an effective and efficient mechanism by eliminating subjective judgment as well as authorship and affiliation biases, allowing to focus on the quality of the manuscript. Nature reports that authors can, from now on, choose this form of review for their manuscripts. Here are discussed the most common forms of peer review, its features, advantages and disadvantages, including those regarding SciELO Brazil journals. … Read More →
Could grant proposal reviews be made available openly?
Researchers have been discussing what would be the impact of making the review process of grant proposals more open and transparent, in order to support the preparation of better proposals and acknowledge the work of the reviewers. A recently published paper in Nature examines the impact of two articles on the open availability of the review of research proposals and the possibility of changing the assessment after publication of the results. … Read More →
Study analyzes the use of social networks in the assessment of scientific impact
The use of social networks in science communication has been increasing on a large scale, and specific platforms have been created for interaction and information sharing among researchers. A study by researchers at the University of St. Gallen, in Switzerland evaluated whether and how scientific impact can be measured by social media data analysis, and how this approach correlates to traditional metrics. … Read More →
Gender inequality in science varies among disciplines
Certain disciplines have a lower percentage of women than others. A study published in Science puts forward the hypothesis that there are proportionately fewer women in fields where it is believed that brilliance and innate talent are required rather than hard work and dedication. The study, which looked at 1,820 researchers in institutions of higher education in the United States, showed an inverse relationship between the fields that value innate talent and the number of women represented in these fields. … Read More →
Editorial ethics – the geography of plagiarism
A recent study published in PNAS on 757,000 arXiv.org documents about the reuse of text (text overlap) shows that this practice is more common in some countries than others, but the results seem to show that the authors who extensively copy texts from others are also the less cited. … Read More →
It is time to review the Brazilian postgraduation system
The Brazilian graduate system has fallen behind and needs major modifications. A panel convened to analyze the postgraduation since its initiation in the early 70’s envisaging a more effective system with respect to the quality of our students and the scientific enterprise in Brazil is needed. … Read More →
Article analyses saturation of peer reviewers
Online publication caused a significant increase in the number of journals and articles worldwide, but the number of researchers has not increased proportionately. Thus, the peer review process, which ensures quality and credibility to scientific articles, is saturated and as a result the quality of reviews is decreasing. Two articles in Nature address this issue, the first one proposes a hybrid model to evaluate the articles and the second reports an online service for registration and publication of reviews, in order to grant credit and recognition to the reviewers. … Read More →
Internationalization of journals was the central topic of the 4th Annual SciELO Meeting
The extent of national and international dimensions as determinants of the performance of journals of Brazil dominated the program of the 4th Annual SciELO Meeting, held on December 2, at the FAPESP auditorium in São Paulo. Currently responsible for the communication of more than 25% of the national scientific production indexed internationally, the journals of Brazil influence the country’s international scientometric ranking, positively in number of articles and negatively in received citations per article. … Read More →
Paper investigates: is your most cited work your best work?
A study reports research with the 400 most cited authors in biomedical sciences on their perception of their most cited articles published in 2005-2008. The authors were asked to score their ten most cited articles in six ways. The research aims to investigate whether the authors consider their most cited articles and answer questions such as: Science progresses mainly through evolution or revolution? The study has many interesting findings, however, instead of answering the questions, it brings even more interrogations. … Read More →
“10 years of research impact : the most cited articles in Scopus 2001 – 2011” – Synthesis of the article originally published in the Elsevier newsletter “Research Trends, Issue 38”
Gali Halevi and Henk Moed investigate what the most frequently cited articles were in Scopus from 2001-2011, in eight main research areas, and give their authors the chance to comment on their achievements. … Read More →
Publish or perish? The rise of the fractional author… – Originally published on the Elsevier newsletter “Research Trends Issue 38”
Andrew Plume and Daphne van Weijen investigate how the pressure researchers feel to publish their work has affected co-authorship patterns over the past 10 years. Are researchers publishing more unique articles or co-authoring more articles? … 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 →
Recent Comments