1. Guest Post: Plan S Version 2 and the Cost of Quality
Much has been said about Plan S, both encouraging and critical. The relative preponderance of criticism – notably by academics, who ought to be key beneficiaries – has been frustrating to the plan’s backers, who see it as a long-overdue concerted effort to support a global transition to open access (OA) without paywalls that hamper research progress and without excessive publishing profit. Those of us who support the principle of OA – and the life sciences journals that author represent at EMBO Press certainly do – struggle to respond to Plan S, notes Bernd Pulverer in her post in the Scholarly Kitchen
The Blog post says (quote): They are conflicted, as they want to be part of initiatives that support full gold OA as a standard. On the other hand, their priority is to preserve attributes of scholarly dissemination they consider core to the scientific process: the efficient sharing of high quality, reproducible research in a format that optimally serves science. This inevitably includes a high degree of selectivity based on peer review and a hands-on editorial process, as well as progressive publishing policies and platforms. Crucially, in the life sciences this selectivity is based on two key attributes of research papers, the quality of the data and strength of the conclusions, the interest and importance of the research........(unquote)
The full entry can be read: Here.
2. Balancing Author Satisfaction with Reviewer Needs
Authors want their papers published quickly while also expecting high-quality reviews. Reviewers want reasonable deadlines. These two groups come from the same communities so why the disconnect? This post by Angela Cochran, in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, looks at the numbers and offers suggestions for closing the gap.
The Blog post says (quote): What about reviewers? Looking back at the second tweet lamenting 3 weeks to review a long a paper, it seems speeding the publication process is not a priority for those conducting the reviews. There have been some excellent surveys done of peer reviewers, but few ask the question about the amount of time needed to complete a review........(unquote)
The full entry can be read: Here.
3. Opinion: Please Help Reviewers by Embedding Your Figures
Paper submission and the peer review system have changed dramatically with the arrival of the internet and electronic correspondence. Most young scientists have never experienced the real pain that was hand typewriting text and references, drawing figures, making glossy-print photographs, and sending these all by regular mail to a journal. Rewriting papers and references in that way, months after submission, was probably the worst task in the life of a scientist, notes Ricardo Borges, Andrew G. Ewing in their post in the TheScientist
The Blog post says (quote): In those years there were reasons for the editors to ask that submission of a paper must be done with the double-spaced main text, tables, figure legends, and figures all sorted separately. However, with current technology there is not any reason to maintain such a completely obsolete system that uses up to 30 to 40 pages for a single manuscript. Nobody will accept to read a paper in a journal in this way, why should referees have to? Nowadays, manuscript submission and editing are easy tasks. Correspondence between the authors, editorial boards, and referees are rapid, all carried out electronically.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read: Here.
4. Significant economic benefits? Enhancing the impact of open science for knowledge users
A key political driver of open access and open science policies has been the potential economic benefits that they could deliver to public and private knowledge users. However, the empirical evidence for these claims is rarely substantiated. In this post in the LSE Impact Blog, Michael Fell, discusses how open research can lead to economic benefits and suggests that if these benefits are to be more widely realised, future open research policies should focus on developing research discovery, translation and the capacity for research utilisation outside of the academy.
The Blog post says (quote): There is much to say in favour of open science, not least of which is that it only seems fair that the findings and data from publicly-funded research should be as widely accessible as possible. However, much of the political justification for open research policies argues, as Research Councils UK (now UKRI) do in their open access policy, that it ‘offers significant … economic benefits’. Is this a reasonable claim? After conducting a review of the available evidence, author would suggest the answer is a qualified ‘yes’. There are undoubtedly a range of positive economic impacts for different stakeholders, but also some important negative ones and barriers that we need to be aware of........(unquote)
The full entry can be read: Here.
5. For academics, what matters more: journal prestige or readership?
With more than 30,000 academic journals now in circulation, academics can have a hard time figuring out where to submit their work for publication. The decision is made all the more difficult by the sky-high pressure of today’s academic environment—including working toward tenure and trying to secure funding, which can depend on a researcher’s publication record, discusses Katie Langin in this post in the Science.
The Blog post says (quote): According to a new study posted on the bioRxiv preprint server, faculty members say they care most about whether the journal is read by the people they most want to reach but they think their colleagues care most about journal prestige. Perhaps unsurprisingly, prestige also held more sway for untenured faculty members than for their tenured colleagues........(unquote).
The full entry can be read: Here.
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