A profile of predatory author-pays OA publishers pulls a punch or two, but reveals that all models have extremes. What we do to make these extremes truly marginal and unacceptable is a larger question.
A new study of article retractions concludes that the system is fast, democratic and significantly depresses future citations. Shouldn’t we demand more?
Fewer than half of NIH sponsored clinical trials are published within 30 months, and 4 out of 5 FDA trials fail to publicly register results (as mandated by law), studies published in the BMJ report. Authors and sponsors may be the strongest source of reporting bias.
A recent article calls brainstorming’s value into question, and asserts that critiquing is vital to more productive thinking. But what if the article is all wet?
Scarcity limited the amount of material, hence the amount of editing necessary to make sense of what we had. Now, with more information than ever, the value of editing should be increasing. Perhaps we’re just not as aware of it as we should be.
Editors of business journals strategically coerce authors to increase citation rates, a new study in Science reports.
The Elsevier boycott puts a target on one company, but for no clear reason when you look harder at the facts, and the demands aren’t clear. Just what kind of boycott is this?
Conventional wisdom has well-known researchers getting more and more requests for reviews, leading some to suggest the system is broken and about to implode. Yet, when real-world data are analyzed, some surprises emerge.
As the deadline for responses to the OSTP RFI approaches, perhaps we should reflect on how the government can make its own research reports available in a more complete, direct, and affordable manner.
Can tweets predict future citations? A study of article tweets raises validity and ethical concerns.
When the data fail us, it’s up to the palate to discern the finest creations from the Kitchen. This year, there was a feast of offerings. This is one attempt at listing the most savory.
From classics old to classics new, the Chefs’ discursive reading habits surfaced some gems in 2011.
A longitudinal study shows most reviewers submit poorer quality reviews over time. Cognitive decline and competing responsibilities may help to explain why experience may be a liability in peer-review.
As we continue to measure the number of papers, citations, and the combination, perhaps we should be measuring a much lower number — the number of studies that can be replicated after publication.
eLife asserts that professional editors create more harm than good. But how do we know that? How can we know that? Or is this just an emotional argument based on anecdote and conjecture rather than fact?