Can Auditing Scientific Research Help Fix Its Reproducibility Crisis?
New research predicts that audits would reduce the number of false positive results from 30.2 per 100 papers to 12.3 per 100.
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Scientific Productivity: An Exploratory Study of Metrics and Incentives
Scientific Productivity: An Exploratory Study of Metrics and Incentives
Current bibliometric incentives discourage innovative studies and encourage scientists to shift their research to subjects already actively investigated.
With Generous Funding and Top-Tier Jobs, China Seeks to Lure Science Talent from Abroad
Introducing Metadata for Peer Review
The new exposure of peer review information through its public API provides opportunities for discoverability, analysis, and integration of tools.
Signing My Peer Review - Unintended Consequences and Gender
Roughly two years ago, I began to sign every peer review I did for journals. It resulted directly from a review on an article that I received that had glaring issues and made me wonder "Would they have been this sloppy if they had to attribute their name to this work?"
Should Climate Scientists Fly?
Wrong question; instead of scapegoating individual researchers, we should blame the centers of power, including corporations and political leaders.
Biohackers Are About Open-Access to Science, Not DIY Pandemics
Scare stories in the media warn that biohackers in community labs are working underground to create the next global apocalypse. In truth, these labs are all about science outreach and education.
Growth Rate Ten Times Higher Than Journal Articles
Preprints are one of the fastest growing types of content in Crossref. The growth may well be approximately 30% for the past 2 years (compared to article growth of 2-3% for the same period).
I Struggle to Hire Academics, Because Candidates Are Too Good
I’m deluged with outstanding applications for academic posts. So should I recruit the people who need the job most?
Want to Earn $10k per Month? Join the "Journals Mafia"
A new service called "Journals Mafia" appears to act as an intermediary between authors and journals - accepting articles, formatting and fixing the language, and submitting it to the journal. Since the authors pay to publish the articles, the company shares the profits with journals that publish the paper.
A New, Data-Based Checklist to Help Boost Women in Science Leadership
The young membership, frequency of elections and relaxed networks in science societies may provide vital positive influence for female promotion in STEM.
No Race or Gender Bias in a Randomized Experiment of NIH R01 Grant Reviews
No Race or Gender Bias in a Randomized Experiment of NIH R01 Grant Reviews
A randomized experiment of NIH R01 grant reviews finds no evidence that White male PIs receive evaluations that are any better than those of PIs from the other social categories.
Europe’s Science Spending Set for Another Big Boost
On 7 June, the European Commission will lay out detailed plans for one of the biggest single research programs on the planet. Called Horizon Europe, the program could be worth EUR97.6 billion between 2021 and 2027, up from about EUR77 billion for the current 7-year program, Horizon 2020.
Sweden Commits to Open Science with New Open Access Publishing Deal
Swedish researchers can now publish their articles in Frontiers’ Open Access journals through a simplified process that covers publishing fees, thanks to a national agreement announced today between Frontiers and the National Library of Sweden.
Preliminary Findings from the Review, Promotion, and Tenure Study
Only about 5% of the institutions made explicit mention of open access in their guidelines, and, in several of those few cases, the mention was done to call attention to the potentially problematic nature of these journals.
Effects of Copyrights on Science
A unique WWII-era programme in the US, allowed US publishers to reprint exact copies of German-owned science books, to explore how copyrights affect follow-on science. This artificial removal of copyright barriers led to a 25% decline in prices and a 67% increase in citations.
China to Crack down on Fraud in Scandal-Hit Scientific Research
China to Crack down on Fraud in Scandal-Hit Scientific Research
New national guidelines spell out punishment for plagiarism, fabrication of data and research conclusions, ghostwriting and peer review manipulation.
What Motivates Reviewers? An Experiment in Economics
Shorter deadlines, email reminders, and cash incentives can speed up the peer review process and minimize unintended effects, a recent study suggests. Can it work for other disciplines?
Germany's Scientific Texts Were Made Free During and After WWII; Analyzing Them Today Shows the Negative Effect of Paywalls on Science
Germany's Scientific Texts Were Made Free During and After WWII; Analyzing Them Today Shows the Negative Effect of Paywalls on Science
In 1942, the US Book Republication Program permitted American publishers to reprint "exact reproductions" of Germany's scientific texts without payment; seventy-five years later, the fate of this scientific knowledge forms the basis of a "natural experiment" analysed by Barbara Biasi and Petra Moser.
Licence Restrictions: A Fool's Errand
Objections to the Creative Commons attribution licence are straw men raised by parties who want open access to be as closed as possible, warns John Wilbanks.
eLife Innovation Sprint 2018: Project Roundup
From gamification of sample-size identification to a decentralised lab notebook: a showcase of the projects developed at the eLife Innovation Sprint.
EU Ministers Endorse Commission’s Plans for Research Cloud
The European Open Science Cloud, which will support EU science in its global leading role by creating a trusted environment for hosting and processing research data.
Loss of Trust? Loss of Trustworthiness? Truth and Expertise Today
Loss of Trust? Loss of Trustworthiness? Truth and Expertise Today
A discussion of how trust in expertise is placed or refused, highlighting the affective dimension of epistemic trust, and discussing the danger of a 'context collapse' in digital communication.
All Publishers Are Predatory - Some Are Bigger Than Others
The assumption that the publication of an article in a high-impact factor, indexed journal somehow adds value to international science is a collective illusion - one that is unfortunately shared by funding agencies, institutions and researchers. This illusion - which serves as an excuse to delegate the evaluation of science to for-profit companies and anonymous reviewers for the sake of false objectivity - costs taxpayers dearly.
Citation Analysis Reveals the Game Changers
A study identifies papers that stand the test of time. Fewer than two out of every 10,000 scientific papers remain influential in their field decades after publication, finds an analysis of five million articles published between 1980 and 1990.
Why Thousands of AI Researchers Are Boycotting the New Nature Journal
Academics share machine-learning research freely. Taxpayers should not have to pay twice to read our findings.
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