Why Are Publishers and Editors Wasting Time Formatting Citations?

The majority of time spent in editing and formatting citations in the publication process is time wasted. We now have in place nearly all the components to use persistent identifiers, linked metadata, and style sheets to improve how citations can be structured and processed. Using these tools can significantly improve the accuracy of references and reduce the time editors spend on this production function. Even when automated, we bounce between linked metadata, then to text, then to metadata again.

When a Scholar is One Among 500, What Does it Mean to be "An Author"?

Last week, an editorial in Nature highlighted the problem of the proliferating number of authors on papers. Following a 2012 symposium at Harvard University, a small group has proposed a taxonomy of contributor roles that would add details to an author list and have tested that among a group of authors. Scholarly publishers should consider adopting this taxonomy to improve the accuracy and granularity to improve attribution and the assignment of credit.