Stick to Your Ribs: The Problems With Calling Comments "Post-Publication Peer-Review"
Revisiting Kent Anderson’s 2012 post about how comments and letters probably shouldn’t be branded as “post-publication peer review”.
Bitcoin and Flash Traders — Leveraging Scarcity Within the Internet's Infrastructure
Two ways to leverage scarcity in the computer world are worth examining, because they represent baffling new ways for the rich to get richer.
Frontiers of Intimidation — What a Controversial Paper's Travails Teach Us About Libel Laws and Publishing
Retracting a paper identifying a link between climate change deniers and conspiracy theorists provokes more conspiracy theories, but it turns out the real impetus for retraction is disappointingly parochial and explicable.
In (Digital) Scholarly Communications We Trust?
With all the disruption and upheaval in digital scholarly communications, how do today’s researchers decide which articles and publications they can trust to read, cite, and write for? A recent study finds that, somewhat surprisingly, peer review and other traditional tools remain as popular as ever with most groups, though social media is increasingly popular with some.
The Measurement of the Thing: Thinking About Metrics, Altmetrics and How to Beat Goodhart's Law
Can machine readable articles, built on author/editor/publisher curated declarative statements and the associated data (or links thereto), be a way of generating metrics that get us nearer to a ‘standard candle’ of scientific research output?
Reproducible Research: A Cautionary Tale
Public access to research data offers clear benefits for reproducibility in some fields. But in the world of cancer cell biology, complexity reigns, and replicating results is not so easy a process.
What Library Directors Are Thinking: An Ithaka S+R Survey Report
Ithaka S+R has just published the latest in its ongoing series of triennial library director surveys, and its findings are interesting and, in some ways, sobering.
Name identification using the ISNI: An interview with Laura Dawson
As online systems for discovering and distributing content have grown, so too has the need for unambiguous identification of people and the parties exchanging that content. Several systems have been in development in the past couple of years, notably the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) and the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) system. How these two systems relate, engage each other, and serve community needs isn’t always clear. In hopes of alleviating some of the confusion, I sat down with Laura Dawson from Bowker to discuss the International Standard Name Identifier, how it relates to ORCID, and other issues surrounding identity management systems.
PLOS ONE Output Falls Following Impact Factor Decline
Are authors leaving PLOS ONE for higher performing journals?
The Four Yorkshiremen: What Do Researchers Want?
Scholarly Kitchen chef, Robert Harington asks “what do researchers want?” From those in mathematics to tumor immunology, from gerontology to Melville studies, the answer is often “to do my research in the best way possible.” Using a dose of pythonesque humor, this post chips away at this question, providing an interesting example of how the American Chemical Society is thinking through such issues.
Data Sharing and Science — Contemplating the Value of Empiricism, the Problem of Bias, and the Threats to Privacy
Data sharing and publication is a topic we need to consider carefully, and weigh the risks, costs, and benefits, as well as the complexities.
PLOS' Bold Data Policy
PLOS has set a new policy, requiring authors to make all data behind their published results publicly available. This has been met with a great deal of controversy from the research community. Thoughts on why this policy and why now…
Is There Anything More Slow-moving than a Publisher?
Publishers are always said to be slow-moving, but the pace of development at the CHORUS organization belies that.
The Scam, the Sting, and the Reaction: Labbé, Bohannon, Sokal
Editors keep allowing nonsense and gibberish to be published in their journals and conference proceedings. How many exposés and sting operations will it take before scholarly publishing begins effectively to police itself?
On Communicating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine – Alan Alda Talks About Improving Scientific Communication
Alan Alda spoke at the AAAS meeting in Chicago on the theme of communicating science to the public. We often view the communication of science, be it in one’s own scholarly journals or in mass media, as somehow distinct and meaningfully different from other communication styles. However, Alda made the point repeatedly during his presentation that this should not be the case. One can accurately convey science with stories and an engaging style that not only brings the reader along in the discovery process, but also preserves the truth and validity of the underlying discovery. Alda made the point that “Communication is not something you add on to science, it is of the essence of science.” Publishers can help to improve how science is communicated; indeed it is at the core of what publishers bring to the process of distributing science.