Category: Scholarly Communication

JMLA: "New Data Sharing Policy"

JMLA has released "New Data Sharing Policy."

Here's an excerpt:

Starting on October 1, 2019, authors of Original Investigation and Case Study articles will be required to (1) place the de-identified data associated with the manuscript in a repository and (2) include a Data Availability Statement in the manuscript describing where and how the data can be accessed.

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"Moving Peer Review Transparency from Process to Praxis"

Emily Ford has published "Moving Peer Review Transparency from Process to Praxis" in Insights.

Here's an excerpt:

Scholarly publications often work to provide transparency of peer-review processes, posting policy information to their websites as suggested by the Committee on Publication Ethics' (COPE) Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Publishing. Yet this falls short in providing peer-review transparency. Using examples from an interview-based qualitative study, this article argues that scholarly publications should move from peer-review process transparency to a praxis of transparency in peer review. Praxis infers that values inform practices. Scholarly publications should therefore use clear communication practices in all matters of business, and bolster transparency efforts, delineating rights and responsibilities of all players in peer review. Moreover, the scholarly publishing community should offer improved and society-led referee and editor training, rather than leaving the commercial publishing industry to fill the gap which results in peer review as a service to industry’s needs&emdash;turning an efficient profit&emdash;and not the scholarly community’s needs for human-to-human discourse.

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"Scientific Sinkhole: The Pernicious Price of Formatting"

Allana G. LeBlanc et al. have published "Scientific Sinkhole: The Pernicious Price of Formatting" in PLoS ONE.

Here's an excerpt:

To our knowledge, this is the first study to analyze the cost of manuscript formatting in scientific publishing. Our results suggest that scientific formatting represents a loss of 52 hours, costing the equivalent of US$1,908 per researcher per year. These results identify the hidden and pernicious price associated with scientific publishing and provide evidence to advocate for the elimination of strict formatting guidelines, at least prior to acceptance.

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Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources and Services at Georgetown University

Georgetown University is recruiting an Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources and Services.

Here's an excerpt from the ad:

The AUL provides leadership and direction for a division that includes the departments of Research Services, which is responsible for collection development, instruction, and research services; Copyright and Scholarly Communications; Library Assessment; the Bioethics Research Library; the School of Continuing Studies Library; and the Woodstock Theological Library. O

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"The Limitations to Our Understanding of Peer Review"

Jonathan Tennant and Tony Ross-Hellauer have self-archived "The Limitations to Our Understanding of Peer Review."

Here's an excerpt:

Peer review is embedded in the core of our scholarly knowledge generation systems, conferring legitimacy on research while distributing academic capital and prestige on individuals. Despite its critical importance, it curiously remains poorly understood in a number of dimensions. In order to address this, we have programmatically analysed peer review to assess where the major gaps in our theoretical and empirical understanding of it lie. We distill this into core themes around editorial accountability, the subjectivity and bias of reviewers, the function and quality of peer review, the role of the reviewer, the social and epistemic implications of peer review, and regarding innovations in open peer review platforms and services. We use this to present a guide for the future of peer review, and the development of a new research discipline based on the study of peer review. Such a field requires sustained funding and commitment from publishers and research funders, who both have a commitment to uphold the integrity of the published scholarly record. This will require the design of a consensus for a minimal set of standards for what constitutes peer review, and the development of a shared data infrastructure to support this. We recognise that many of the criticisms attributed to peer review might reflect wider issues within academia and wider society, and future care will be required in order to carefully demarcate and address these.

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"Open Up: A Survey on Open and Non-anonymized Peer Reviewing"

Lonni Besançon et al. have self-archived "Open Up: A Survey on Open and Non-anonymized Peer Reviewing."

Here's an excerpt:

We present a discussion and analysis regarding the benefits and limitations of open and non-anonymized peer review based on literature results and responses to a survey on the reviewing process of alt.chi, a more or less open-review track within the CHI conference, the predominant conference in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). This track currently is the only implementation of an open-peer-review process in the field of HCI while, with the recent increase in interest in open science practices, open review is now being considered and used in other fields. We collected 30 responses from alt.chi authors and reviewers and found that, while the benefits are quite clear and the system is generally well liked by alt.chi participants, they are reluctant to see it used in other venues. This concurs with a number of recent studies that suggest a divergence between support for a more open review process and its practical implementation.

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"Decentralising Scientific Publishing: Can the Blockchain Improve Science Communication?"

Flávio Codeço Coelho and Adeilton Brandão have published "Decentralising Scientific Publishing: Can the Blockchain Improve Science Communication?" in Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.

Here's an excerpt:

We present a decentralised solution for managing scientific communication, based on distributed ledger technologies, also called blockchains. The proposed system aims to solve incentive problems displayed by traditional systems in scientific communication and publication. A minimal working model is presented, defining roles, processes, and expected results from the novel system. The proposed solution is viable, given the current status of blockchain technology, and should lead to a rethinking of current practices and their consequences for scientific communication.

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