From 2015 on all journals indexed in SciELO Brazil should operate the review of manuscripts with the support of a system or service that records the flow of transactions and produce follow up reports and statistics. The aim is to strengthen the quality and credibility of the journals. … 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 →
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 →
350 years of scientific publication: from the “Journal des Sçavans” and Philosophical Transactions to SciELO
Is has been 350 years since the first numbers of the first journals of scientific nature were published – Journal des Sçavans and Philosophical Transactions. With the support of the new printing technology handwritten letters used in the communication between researchers and scholars have been replaced. There is much to celebrate in these 350 years in which scientific journals contributed to the record and memory of the advancement of science. Online Web publishing is the most important transformation of scientific journals since that year 1665. … 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 →
Editorial ethics: fraudulent arbitration
In recent months there have been a significant amount of retractions of scientific papers due to fraudulent arbitration processes. Apparently “paper mills” are appearing on the market that offer researchers, for a price, the possibility that their name appear in an article in a high Impact Factor journal (although not being the author). … Read More →
Odontoestomatología – first Uruguayan journal entirely in English in SciELO
On December 4th, the Facultad de Odontología, Universidad de la República del Uruguay marked a milestone in scientific publication in the country. After eight years of scheduled tasks the journal Odontoestomatología, indexed in SciELO, is the first journal in the country available online, in open access entirely in English. … 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 →
Principles for the citation of scientific data
The Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles was recently approved by the international group FORCE11. It marks a milestone in the advancement of scholarly communication in the online world. This Declaration is being signed and endorsed by the world’s leading publishing groups and universities, and will in the future be incorporated into SciELO’s procedures as part of its ongoing improvements in management overall. … Read More →
How do I get read and cited if I do not publish in elite-journals?
The citation impact of our articles largely depends largely on the promotion work we do of what we publish. Citations do not arise mechanically from the Impact Factor of the journal, but from our personal marketing. … Read More →
Internationalization of RAE-Revista de Administração de Empresas
With more than half a century of continuous publication, RAE is a reference journal nationwide in the Administration area and since 2010, it has been investing to position itself internationally as well. In addition to the publication of articles in Portuguese, English and Spanish, RAE has been dedicated systematic efforts in expanding and strengthening its network of relationships via internationalization of its scientific committee and promotion of international calls for paper. … 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 →
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