Funder-sponsored journals raise important conflict of interest questions, and may be fundamentally untenable in an industry that requires independent third-party evaluation of research reports.
“Author-service” journals sound like a straightforward proposition, but when you contemplate how authorship is a minority activity by a minority of practicing scientists and science practitioners, it becomes much less clear that author service is enough to support robust publishing practices.
A study of the flow of manuscript submissions reveals a highly structured and efficient network of scientific journals where peer-review plays a critical role in the improvement and slotting of papers.
Can the Internet create a new and more cooperative way of arguing?
When the stakes are scholarly, peer-review works well. What about when the stakes are life-altering?
While some hope that OA will create a more accessible literature, new data about NSF funding and some logical extrapolations suggest it may actually exacerbate the Matthew Effect, choking off opportunities to publish for those without the funding necessary.
A flash mob of concern causes PLoS to reconsider a new policy on retractions.
A new study ties problems in abstracts to subsequent exaggerations in the media — but it’s not the big journals that are the major sources.
While block grants may be a preferred way to disperse money to fund public access mandates, their actual use may cause problems for researchers and universities.
Good advice is hard to come by. Here’s some of the best we’ve gotten over the years.
eLife is beginning to accept papers, but is it proper for them to promote papers they’ve accepted without having published the final versions? What will their approach be to media embargoes?
A new paper finds unexpected disturbances around p-value ranges approaching 0.05. Is there something going on beyond mere science?
A new initiative seeks to solve the reproducibility problem in science, but instead seems to be creating more of a drag on research funds, ignoring the incentives of scientists, and raising barriers to its very utilization.
Representing data graphically is always tricky. It doesn’t help when a journalist misses many opportunities to verify the data, provide context, and ask some probing questions.
When there’s a lot at stake, peer review still helps to separate the best information from the rest.