1. Guest Post — Equity is Possible: Forging Paths toward Equity and Anti-Racism in Scholarly Publishing
Over the past few years, there has been a growing awareness about what it means to have an industry that is, by one estimate, over 90% white. Publishing professionals are asking important questions, such as, "what types of systems are in place that exclude some and not others?" and, "what is it like for a person of color to navigate these white spaces?" In this guest post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, Gisela Fosado and Cathy Rimer-Surles of Duke UP share highlights and a video from their panel session on equity at the 2019 AUPresses Annual Meeting, plus helpful recommendations to help us achieve equity in scholarly communications.
The blog post says (quote): We wanted our panel to be framed by the experiences of people of color in our industry and also grounded in the sustained and dedicated work of white allies. We immediately thought of the groundbreaking work of Melanie S. Morrison, a Duke University Press author who is founder and executive director of Allies for Change, an organization composed of "a network of anti-oppression educators who share a passion for social justice and a commitment to creating and sustaining life-giving ally relationships and communities."...............(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Using mobile applications for social science research
In this post in the LSE Impact Blog, Dr Reka Solymosi & Dr Michael Chataway discuss the use of mobile phone applications as a research method in the social sciences. Reflecting on their own use of apps to study fear of crime, they highlight the methodological advantages of incorporating apps into research designs and provide four key points to consider for researchers seeking to use apps in their projects.
The blog post says (quote): Such designs allow new approaches to the study of social phenomena. In the case of fear of crime research, instead of asking people to remember complex sets of emotions, they can provide a tool with which participants self-report their levels of safety, as and when they encounter situations that make them feel worried about potential crime. The collection of spatially and temporally explicit data on people’s experiences in this way enables a much finer grained analysis of social phenomena..................(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Are Scientific Journals Reliable? Study Exposes How Authors 'Spin' Abstracts
For centuries, scientific journals have remained the most vital means for disseminating research findings by members of the scientific, medical and technical communities. The painstaking studies published in scientific journals after intensive peer reviews serve to advance scientific progress. This, in turn, springs from the free interchange of ideas other scientists are either free to support or refute through their own research, analyses and theories. Controversial views are intentionally published in journals to stimulate further debate and move the field forward to a clearer understanding of critical issues and relevant variables. However, scientific journals have been hounded by controversies that are always a risk with any human undertaking. One of the more enduring criticisms is that having to do with "spin," notes Johnny Vatican, in this post in the Medical Daily.
The blog post says (quote): If industry funding was associated with spin, was also investigated by researchers. Surprisingly, they found no evidence that linked increase in the likelihood of spin to having financial backing from industry. That is because researchers have an ethical obligation on being transparent about the results of their research. However, authors are free to pick and choose the details that they include in the abstract section...................(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Quality Criteria in Scholarship and Science: Proposing a Visualization of Their Interactions
This posting represents an attempt to sort out the various ways in which particular characteristics of research and of written research reports interact with each other, and in particular the ways that those characteristics affect a paper’s impact on the real world. Rick Anderson, in this post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, is proposing a model for thinking about the interactions of rigor, cogency, accessibility, significance, openness, and impact in scholarly quality.
The blog post says (quote): historians are expected to adduce evidence for their arguments about what happened in the past, not simply assert that events took place; scholars of literature expect each other to offer evidential support for their arguments about the influence of one writer on another, etc. The rules may not always apply in exactly the same ways from discipline to discipline, but the fundamentals are reasonably universal: whatever the discipline, scholarship requires evidence, honestly and rigorously gathered, and also requires that assertions take the form of conclusions that follow logically from such evidence.................(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
5. Here is how fake scientific journals are bypassing detection filters
The growing network of predatory or fake scientific journals — which publish dubious research for money — is posing new challenges for the research community globally. Many gullible researchers fall for them as these journals resemble genuine journals in look and feel. Dinesh C Sharma, in this post in the DownToEarth, discusses a new study that points out that the eco-system of predatory journals is evolving cautiously to bypass standard methods used for their detection.
The blog post says (quote): Using data-driven analysis, researchers compared parameters like impact factors, journal name, indexing in digital directories, contact information, submission process, editorial boards, gender and geographical data, editor-author commonality etc. Analysis of this data and comparison between the two publishers showed that Omics is slowly evolving. Of the 35 criteria listed in the Beall’s list and which could be verified using information available online, 22 criteria are common between Omics and BMC. Five are satisfied by both the publishers, while 13 are satisfied by Omics but not by BMC....................(Unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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