PLoS ONE: Is a High Impact Factor a Blessing or a Curse?
PLoS ONE’s relatively high impact factor may compromise its ability to support PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine.
STM Association Spring Conference: Are Publishers Listening?
The first day of the Spring STM Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was filled with ideas, different perspectives, and an interactive crowd.
Is OUP’s “Anti-Google” Just a Half-Million Words of Filter Failure?
The OUP has launched Oxford Bibliographies Online, hoping to filter major fields down to a high-quality, peer-reviewed reference kick-start. But does a wordy filter actually filter in the networked world?
Improving Peer Review: Let’s Provide an Ingredients List for Our Readers
We describe many aspects of studies, but “peer reviewed” is a generic label for a multitude of recipes. Maybe we should start listing what went into it.
Controversial Math Journal Relauches: New Editors, Focus on Rigorous Review
Publisher relaunches journal with new editorial board and scope, and a renewed focus on rigorous review.
Let’s Make Open Access Work
Let’s put aside all the controversy about open access publishing and come up with an OA plan that will work.
Culture Trumps Technology: The UC Berkeley Scholarly Communication Report
A guide to the values, cultures and scholarly communication behaviors of academics. A must read for publishers and technologists.
Do Medical Editors Discriminate Against Poor Authors?
Do medical editors have different quality standards based on the author’s geographic location?
Does Reviewing Your Peers Create Better Results Than Peer-Review?
National Academy of Sciences members contribute the very best (and very worst) articles in PNAS, a recent analysis suggests. Is diversity a better indicator of success than consistency in science publishing?
Giving Open Access a Bad Name
Scientist, editor, and OA advocate Jonathan A. Eisen rages against an infamous author-pays OA publisher.
How Meaningful Are User Ratings? (This Article = 4.5 Stars!)
Are user rating systems a good way of measuring the quality of an author’s research? More and more websites are abandoning 5-star rating systems as the results they give are deeply flawed. PLoS’ approach will probably suffer the same problems.
Breaking the Chain of Inquiry — When Journals and Journalists Fall Short
When an author conceals information, and a blog branded with a respectable newspaper plays along, it doesn’t engender confidence in the new information space.
Publisher Reverses Plagiarism Claim
Under threat of litigation, Emerald reverses claim of plagiarism to “communication error.” Offending author allowed to correct and republish work.
An Old-Age Problem Among Reviewers?
Are older reviewers more cursory in their reviews? A study by the editor of the Annals of Emergency Medicine suggests as much.
Peer Review Survey 2009
Providing incentives to reviewers may be key to improving the peer review process.