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To Boldly Grow: Five New Journals Shaped by Open Science
Announcing the launch of five new journals, all addressing global health and environmental challenges and rooted in the full values of Open Science.
Scholarly Communication and Scholarly Publishing
This post explores how scholarly publishing should relate to scholarly communication. Ostensibly aligned, publishing and communication have diverged. Some processes involved in scholarly publishing are getting in the way of optimal scholarly communication, as the present pandemic amply reveals.
After a Year of COVID-19 Charts, Eight Data Communication Lessons Learned
After a Year of COVID-19 Charts, Eight Data Communication Lessons Learned
COVID-19 has transformed the world in the last 12 months. Communicating data has been a central part of the pandemic. Here are some of the most important lessons we can take from this period.
The Rights Retention Strategy and Publisher Equivocation: an Open Letter to Researchers | Plan S
The Rights Retention Strategy and Publisher Equivocation: an Open Letter to Researchers | Plan S
cOAlition S strategy of applying a prior licence to the Author's Accepted Manuscript (AAM) is designed to facilitate full and immediate open access of funded scientific research for the greater benefit of science and society.
Case Closed: SARS-CoV-2 Spreads Primarily by Aerosols
A group of scholars argue, with an extensive review of the available evidence, that the primary mode of transmission from human to human of the virus responsible for Covid-19 is via aerosols, not through droplets or surfaces.
Scientometric Data and OA Publication Policies of Clinical Allergy and Immunology Journals
Scientometric Data and OA Publication Policies of Clinical Allergy and Immunology Journals
The scientific merit of a paper and its ability to reach broader audiences is essential for scientific impact. Thus, scientific merit measurements are made by scientometric indexes, and journals are increasingly using published papers as open access (OA).
Strengthening the OA Publishing System Through Open Citations and Spatiotemporal Metadata
Strengthening the OA Publishing System Through Open Citations and Spatiotemporal Metadata
The BMBF project OPTIMETA aims to strengthen the Open Access publishing system by connecting open citations and spatiotemporal metadata from open access journals with openly accessible data sources.
When Your Journal Reads You
Renke Siems on user tracking on science publisher platforms, its implications for their individual users and ways to face this issue
Scientific Tweets: Why Less is More and when a Tweet is Perceived As Being Scientific
Scientific Tweets: Why Less is More and when a Tweet is Perceived As Being Scientific
Communication within the scientific community without twitter has become hard to imagine. It was only a matter of time, then, until someone started examining what makes a tweet scientific in itself. Dr Athanasios Mazarakis has examined this more closely and, in his guest article, reveals what he discovered when researching the scientific character of tweets.
Open Science Factsheet: Practical Steps Towards Open and Reproducible Research
Open Science Factsheet: Practical Steps Towards Open and Reproducible Research
This factsheet is a result of the 57th online seminar "Practical Steps Towards Open and Reproducible Research" (10 February 2021), organised by the Helmholtz Open Science Office.
Why Researchers Created a Database of Half a Million Journal Editors
Why Researchers Created a Database of Half a Million Journal Editors
Tracking how factors such as biases and conflicts of interest creep into editorial boards requires better data.
Towards Open, Reliable, and Transparent Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Unreliable research programmes waste funds, time, and even the lives of the organisms we seek to help and understand. Reducing this waste and increasing the value of scientific evidence require changing the actions of both individual researchers and the institutions they depend on for employment and promotion. While ecologists and evolutionary biologists have somewhat improved research transparency over the past decade (e.g. more data sharing), major obstacles remain. In this commentary, we lift our gaze to the horizon to imagine how researchers and institutions can clear the path towards more credible and effective research programmes.
Why I Won't Review or Write for Elsevier and Other Commercial Scientific Journals
Why I Won't Review or Write for Elsevier and Other Commercial Scientific Journals
This author asks: Can scientists who are so meticulous in preparing their papers and so generous with their time in reviewing them for free not find better ways to advance science than relying on profiteering journals?
No, It's Not The Incentives - It's You
Troubling narrative: the mere existence of perverse incentives is a valid and sufficient reason to knowingly behave in an antisocial way, just as long as one first acknowledges the existence of those perverse incentives.
How Do We Share Data in COVID-19 Research? A Systematic Review of COVID-19 Datasets in PubMed Central Articles - PubMed
How Do We Share Data in COVID-19 Research? A Systematic Review of COVID-19 Datasets in PubMed Central Articles - PubMed
PubMed Central articles are an important source of COVID-19 datasets, but there is significant heterogeneity in the way these datasets are mentioned, shared, updated and cited.
2 Interesting Scholarly Datasets Obtained from Web Scraping - Open Editors & Open Syllabus
2 Interesting Scholarly Datasets Obtained from Web Scraping - Open Editors & Open Syllabus
"Open Editors" & "Open Syllabus" are two interesting datasets obtained from wide scale web scraping due to lack of structured , machine readable data
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Careers of Young Researchers
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Careers of Young Researchers
Within the scope of the Career Tracker Cohorts study, postdocs were surveyed in order to learn more about potential changes in their work routines, effects on their research, and their own assessment of the impact the pandemic would have on their careers.
Gates Open Research - A Summary of Year Four
2021 marks four years of publishing on Gates Open Research, now the 2nd most popular publication venue for Gates-funded researchers. In this blog post, Ashley Farley, Program Officer of Knowledge and Research Services at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, explores the publishing activity for the last year and the platform's growth in popularity and size.
Wikidata and Open Science: a Model for Open Data Work
Wikidata is a language-independent factual database belonging to the Wikimedia family which includes the particularly well-known Wikipedia. In an interview, Timo Borst explains the dimensions and particular significance of this database, especially in the context of Open Science.
Mellon Foundation Grant to Support Investigation into Hidden Costs of Open Infrastructure
Mellon Foundation Grant to Support Investigation into Hidden Costs of Open Infrastructure
New funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will support research and analysis into the hidden costs of open infrastructure. Hiring is now open for IOI's first Research Data Analyst.
Sci-Hub: Police Warn Students and Universities Against Using 'the Pirate Bay of Science'
Sci-Hub: Police Warn Students and Universities Against Using 'the Pirate Bay of Science'
Sci-Hub has been described as "the Pirate Bay of science", but often receives praise for opening access to research.
Next Steps for REF? We Need to Repair the Sector's Health First
A while ago I was invited to speak at the Westminster Forum in a panel session entitled “Research environments in the REF – stimulating positive cultures and wellbeing, academic independence and interdisciplinary research“...
A New Master's in Sustainable Management and Technology
A New Master's in Sustainable Management and Technology
EPFL introduced its new joint Master's in Sustainable Management and Technology, a degree that will prepare the next generation to spearhead the transition towards a more resilient, sustainable and inclusive economy and which is hosted by the multi-institutional initiative Enterprise for Society Center (E4S).
Adding a Digital Humanities Bit to the OA Book Funding Landscape
Adding a Digital Humanities Bit to the OA Book Funding Landscape
Dariah is launching an annual OA monograph bursary for early career researchers in digital humanities.