Smorgasbord: eLife and Significance vs. Accuracy, The Collapse of the Humanities, and a new NISO Draft on Retractions Standards

A mixed bag post from us — can you separate out the significance of research results from their validity? What will the collapse of the Humanities mean for scholarly publishing writ large? And a new draft set of recommended practices for communicating retractions, removals, and expressions of concern.

Defending Regional Excellence in Research or Why Beall is Wrong About SciELO

Last week, Jeffery Beall wrote a highly critical blog past of Brazilian publishing co-operative and citation index SciELO. The post generated significant backlash in the blogosphere and on Twitter. Important aspects of the discussion seemed to get drowned out in all the furor: the motivation for SciELO’s founding in the first place and the need to protect local excellence in scholarly research.