The editor of eLife, on the eve of accepting his Nobel Prize, publishes an article designed to give his journal a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, the errors, lack of disclosure of his incentives, and inappropriate dismissal of incentives made the social graph light up with derision.
The PMC NAC, facing controversies about its oversight functions and seeing the focus of its oversight embroiled in a public scandal, said nothing about these topics at its latest meeting.
New documents show that the Director of the NCBI was deeply involved in getting eLife launched on PubMed Central, that NLM staff were uneasy about the shortcuts taken to make it happen, and that eLife was largely driving the bus throughout.
eLife, BioMed Central (BMC), the Public Library of Science (PLoS), and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) will be forming a new peer review consortium based around the concept of what eLife calls “portable peer review.”
More indications of favoritism and cronyism, this time stretching back from F1000 Research to BioMed Central, and more mismanaged conflicts of interests. The common thread may be a new “old boys” network.
The Chefs are headed to San Francisco for another lively session closing out the SSP Annual Meeting. A range of topics and opinions will serve as dessert for a terrific meeting.
A common marketing cliche turns out to be empty of anything but rhetorical power when examined more carefully.
The continued silence from major funders involved in the eLife-PubMed Central scandal is creating a noise all its own.
The National Library of Medicine has a couple of powerful brands, but they’ve become conflated and compromised by poor brand management. Ultimately, their brand value is derived from the value of the MEDLINE brand, which may now be spread too thin.
Attacks — both overt and covert — from OA advocates and NIH/NLM phantoms come in the wake of the posts revealing how eLife and PubMed Central coordinated activities and kept secrets.
When PubMed Central expedited eLife, PeerJ wondered why. Emails within PMC suggest they were tempted to help PeerJ in the same way. They even talked with eLife about how to handle things.
Circumstantial evidence has become direct evidence — that eLife requested publication in PMC; that PMC collaborated with eLife; that PMC sought to conceal its preferential treatment; and that systems and processes at the NLM regarding PMC inclusion are unclear and open to abuse and misuse.
One of the layers of impropriety regarding PubMed Central’s handling of eLife is its mismanagement of conflicts of interest.
What is the likely value of what PubMed Central is providing to eLife by publishing them free online, providing PubMed indexing without delay, and getting them into the market six months early?
More articles are published by PubMed Central at the behest of eLife. It seems taxpayer-funded publishing is just fine for this new group.