A Confusion of Journals — What Is PubMed Now?
PubMed is found to contain predatory journals and publishers, likely reflecting a long-term and broader problem, which only adds to the confusion about what exactly PubMed represents at this point.
Guest Post: Kent Anderson UPDATED — 96 Things Publishers Do (2016 Edition)
Kent Anderson returns to update his essential list of just what it is that publishers do.
UPDATED — 82 Things Publishers Do (2014 Edition)
The annual update to the list adds some important items overlooked on prior versions, including design, enforcement of editorial policies, and Board interactions.
Link Miser — Why the NLM Links to PubMed Central Versions Directly from PubMed Search Results
Why does PubMed preferentially link to PMC versions in its search result lists? Emails from 2011 suggest it’s specifically to generate more traffic to PMC and show off NLM services.
Seeking Acceptance at F1000 Research — Early Problems With Identity and Outsourced Authority
Articles are published before they’re reviewed; doubts about a paper are viewed as a positive status; papers only need to contain “science;” review and revision can continue forever; and PubMed Central is their certifying entity. Welcome to the world of F1000 Research.
Extension and Conflation — How the NLM’s Confusing Brands Have Us All Mixed Up
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.
PubMed and F1000 Research — Unclear Standards Applied Unevenly
F1000 Research has confusing review and publication practices, and doesn’t call itself a journal, yet is now going to be indexed by PubMed — further eroding the PubMed brand.
PubMed Central or OA Central — More Strange Behaviors at PMC and NLM Paint a Portrait of Biases and Poor Process
More information emerges about PubMed Central, its processes, its relationship with eLife, and its role as a technology provider. Overall, it looks like certain OA friends get special treatment, and the processes you think occur are often short-circuited and may not even be tracked.
The Secret Life of Retracted Articles
Retracted papers continue to persist on public websites, in institutional repositories and personal libraries years after they are formally retracted. What can be done to help correct the scientific record?
Do Search Engines Owe Publishers? A German Proposal Raises the Question
Should search engines license content for crawling? A potential German law thinks so.
Scientific Plagiarists Talk
What do authors say when they are caught duplicating text and figures from another paper? More than you’d imagine!