A recent study finds that academic press offices exaggerate claims in their press releases about published research. Worse, the vast majority of these find their way into subsequent reporting.
Publishers often slap labels on activities that are complex, expensive, and high-value. Worse, we often accept people calling these activities “value-add” when they are core functions of how scientific information shared.
We were wrong to expect that online publishing would be cheaper and simpler than print. Acknowledging that, and facing the slower, more complicated commercial world it has created, could put us on a better path.
Simple things are often more complex than we initially think, and the push for faster publication may be an expensive and risky trend to follow too much further.
Intimidation from armed citizens leads to a speech being canceled, but is part of a more troubling and long-term problem of shootings at schools and on college campuses. Why are we allowing this to happen?
Proposals to get more money to younger researchers shine a light on the aging cadre of academic researchers and the lack of succession we risk with current practices.
The annual update to the list adds some important items overlooked on prior versions, including design, enforcement of editorial policies, and Board interactions.
The idea of “reanalysis” needs to be rethought, if recent examples are any indication of what this trend could do to science.
“Big data” continues to draw attention, but will it ever amount to more than a hypothesis-generating engine and supplementary findings?
A new book by the creator of xkcd takes crazy questions about science and tackles them with verve, humor, great illustrations, and great examples of how to break down even the strangest problems.
The recent “right to be forgotten” case raises a corollary issue for scholarly publishers — are you managing your archives so that users have been given the “right to ignore”?
An alien landing in the scholarly and scientific publishing world today, reading all the opinions about how to make things more efficient and effective, might be forgiven for thinking there are only authors, readers, librarians, and reviewers. After all, those […]
Hysteria over a supervolcano leads to speculation about the eruptions of misinformation all around us. And, why exactly are we seeing so many recycled news stories in social media these days?
A trend toward shaming journals that promote their impact factors needs to be rolled back. Impact factors are journal metrics. It’s the other uses that need to be curtailed.
More and more studies are emerging showing how misdirecting and expanding citations can lead to long-term misconceptions and mistaken belief systems in the sciences.