1. Pace Intellectual: Could Publishing Embrace Slow?
A recent book took aim at accelerating administrative demands and the internalised expectation of measurable productivity that have eroded the quality of academic life and work. Karin Wulf, in her post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, argues whether there was a corollary for scholarly publishing.
The blog post says (quote): Granting the individuals have different modes of work and different preferences and experiences, are there ways that scholarly publishing can facilitate a sense of necessary time and space for thinking work? Are there ways to encourage professional development practices of not only time management but what Berg and Seeber describe as intentional “timelessness?” They discuss timelessness not only as a way of stepping out of the “time management” framework but of making space in the schedules (offline, they argue) for doing less. Google’s famous (elusive?) 20 percent time was designed to let employees work on independent, compelling projects that might - or might not - ultimately benefit the company’s bottom line……………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. The Future of Peer Review
Peer review is now operating at a truly global scale, which means there are flaws too. It is very far from perfect, but major changes for the better are underway, notes Andrew Preston, in his post in the Scientific American Blog.
The blog post says (quote): It now takes 180 days publish a typical peer-reviewed research article, and this can often drag out a year. In many cases editors simply can’t find expert reviewers who are willing and able to examine the deluge of manuscripts. Sometimes reviewers are too busy. Sometimes it’s simply too hard to find a way to contact them. Whatever the reason, science suffers. Even where scientists do take on a review, they have rarely received any training in how to carry it out. The first experience usually happens when an early career researcher is handed a manuscript by their supervisor and asked to evaluate it on their behalf……………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Increasingly collaborative researcher behaviour is the real threat to the resilient academic publishing sector
Traditional academic publishing has been rumoured to be imperilled for decades now. Despite continued criticism over pricing and a growing open access movement, a number of recent reports point to the sector’s resilience. Francis Dodds, in her post in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, suggests this is partly attributable to the adaptability of academic publishers but also highlights attitudes of researchers surprisingly committed to the status quo as another key factor.
The blog post says (quote): If academics still seem relatively conservative in their attitudes to publishing, other aspects of researcher behaviour may prove more disruptive in the long term. A rising trend noted by many observers is the move towards greater collaboration between researchers, most obviously seen in scholarly collaboration networks (SCNs) such as Academia.edu, Mendeley, and ResearchGate. The growing importance of academic search engines like Google Scholar has helped researchers gain access to a much wider range of material. One study found over 50 percent of journal article downloads by researchers were from free sources, including 20 percent from institutional repositories, 20 percent via colleagues, and 10 percent from social media sites. A recent survey of over 7,500 researchers found 57 percent of respondents uploaded copies of their work to SCNs and 66 percent used SCNs to access otherwise inaccessible content……………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Benefits and Challenges of Making Qualitative Research More Transparent
Public institutions and private organisations of all types champion transparency, and publishers and funders increasingly require data sharing. Innovative platforms and technical tools empower scholars to provide a more complete picture of their research. In the quest to make research more open, sharing qualitative data presents challenges and opportunities, notes Colin Elman and Diana Kapiszewski, in their post in the Inside Higher ED post.
The blog post says (quote): Despite the challenges and resources involved in making qualitative research more transparent, both individual researchers and qualitative research communities as a whole can benefit from the value that openness provides. Sharing data, along with information about how they were generated and analysed in order to support the claims in a research publication, enhances the completeness, understandability, and evaluability of that publication. It allows scholars to earn credibility and legitimacy by demonstrating that they generated their results in accordance with the rules that guide their research methods and the norms of their research community……………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
5. Why Text Mining for Pharmacovigilance?
Literature monitoring is a key component of pharmacovigilance - and a special challenge. In his post in the CCC Blog, Mike Iarrobino discusses how text mining can help.
The blog post says (quote): Text mining tools can also help teams fine-tune their queries and see an improvement in search strategy management. Keyword-based search strategies can often be convoluted, messy, and overly-specific, frequently including every synonym possible such as brand name, substance name, pre-release name, as well as a whole range of adverse reactions. These searches can be difficult to update and maintain. Text mining or a semantically-enriched approach can help simplify those queries, making them more powerful and the results easier to interpret……………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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