1. The Evolving Landscape of Research Access and its Impact on the Global South
Information access has an important role to play in tackling inequity in the global research and knowledge systems. But subscriptions to Northern journals are only part of the story for improving research equity in low- and middle-income-countries. Siân Harris, in her post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, shares few of the big themes.
The blog post says (quote): Although greater prestige in general is still attached to Northern-published journals, improvements in the visibility, quality and credibility of Southern-published journals mean it is now easier to find, evaluate and make use of quality research published by Southern individuals and institutions. The Journal Publishing Practices and Standards (JPPS) assessment framework that African Journals Online and INASP launched towards the end of 2017 has been well-received and is one of the initiatives that is helping drive improvements in journal quality and perceived credibility. The criteria on the Think. Check. Submit. checklist for identifying trustworthy journals is noticeably neutral about geography. As knowledge ecosystems have grown and developed in many Southern countries, and as funders and governments have placed a greater premium on evidence to guide decision making, there has been a growth in demand for access to information from a wider range of institutions and individuals, including those in government, think tanks and NGOs………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Building reliable teams, a cure for research pathologies?
Posted by You-Na Lee and John P. Walsh, in their post in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, this post argues that the solution to rising incidences of unreliable findings and research pathologies does not necessarily lie with preventing individual malpractice, but rather with promoting structural research integrity and developing better research teams and organisations. They posit that structural-level research integrity can reduce the risks from individual wrongdoings.
The blog post says (quote): This balkanised division of labour can make scientific projects vulnerable to pathologies for a variety of reasons. Such structures make other researchers unlikely to know the details of how one part of the study was done, causing problems in communication and joint misunderstandings about what is being done at each stage. One person might collect and prepare samples, while another runs the assay to generate the data, and a third does the statistical analysis, with each team member viewing the requirements of the inputs and the outputs of these processes differently. As these interim results get passed from one to the other, the information also loses the uncertainties and contingencies associated with the local context, leading to over-confidence in possibly shaky results………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Should journals credit eagle-eyed readers by name in retraction notices?
One of the most highly-cited journals in cardiology has retracted a paper less than a month after publishing it in response to criticism first posted on Twitter. Benjamin Mazer, in his post in the Retraction Watch Blog, discusses whether the eagle-eyed readers should be credited in the retraction notice.
The blog post says (quote): Despite three rounds of peer review, the reviewers did not identify the meta-analysis' errors before publication. One way to prevent these types of fundamental errors from slipping through the cracks in the future, said Turgeon, is for journals to provide reviewers more detail about the underlying studies incorporated into a meta-analysis, potentially even making the full text of the source reports easily available to peer reviewers. Regarding the use of social media to review published studies, Turgeon, who has never used Twitter before for this purpose, feels that "it's not a great mechanism to identify issues" because these discussions are not easily found without prominent scientists or users with many followers amplifying the message………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Architecture of Libraries
Library architecture has been one of the keystones of the profession since the early days of modernity. Diego Grass, in his post in the EBSCOpost Blog, shares a selection of recent examples of library architecture from all over the world, presented firsthand from a team of architects filming buildings since 2006 and collected into the audiovisual database OnArchitecture - currently available at EBSCOhost®.
The blog post says (quote): The physical library has been in crisis for a few decades now because of the dawn of Digital Age. Instead of the "bibliotheque" - a place for books - several institutions since the 1990's have started to rebrand themselves as "mediatheques," embracing all forms of media (physical and digital). One of the very first attempts to do this was Sendai Mediatheque, a competition in Northern Japan which was won by Toyo Ito (b. 1941) in 1995 and completed in 2001. Instead of tailoring the building for the high-technology of the mid 1990s - which would change many times during the lifespan of the facility - Ito designed a very open and flexible plan in which the structure would concentrate the basic infrastructure for the operation of a building like this, namely vertical circulations and technical shafts. Ito was intelligent in acknowledging the slow pace of architecture and the fast pace of technology, particularly digital………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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