1. Transforming the Research Paper into a Functional Tool
Publishers often argue that the industry has undergone a massive transformation in the last 20 years, moving smoothly, swiftly, and effectively from print to digital. Yet our most vocal critics within academia frequently accuse the industry of being antiquated and failing to meet researchers' needs, while many of their more recent attempts at innovation have failed to find an enthusiastic audience. Pierre Montagano, in his guest post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, discusses about expanding the concept of what the research article can offer.
The blog post says (quote): Increasingly, journals are interested in reviewing data and code as part of the article acceptance process. Nature has described reviewing code as 'cumbersome', since it 'requires authors to compile the code in a format that is accessible for others to check, and reviewers to download the code and data, set up the computational environment in their own computer and install the many dependencies that are often required to make it all work.' Again, this is a point where publishers can provide the tools needed to ease author and reviewer burden. For code, the approach at Code Ocean is based around providing self-contained executable compute capsules that includes the code, data, results, and run environment within an article of record, which will both save researchers time and provide them with interactivity, facilitating both reuse and collaboration………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. The overall incidence of published replication studies in economics is minuscule – greater incentives are required
Replicability is considered a hallmark of good scientific practice, an important post-publication quality check. But how many studies are chosen for replication? In their post in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, Frank Mueller-Langer, Benedikt Fecher, Dietmar Harhoff, and Gert G. Wagner examine the economics literature and find that only one in one thousand publications are replication studies. The introduction of mandatory data disclosure policies may help to increase the likelihood of replication.
The blog post says (quote): A 2015 report by the Open Science Collaboration estimated the reproducibility of 100 studies in psychological science from three high-ranking psychology journals. Overall, only 36 percent of the replications yielded statistically significant effects compared to 97 percent of the original studies that had statistically significant results. However, similar issues have been reported from other fields. For example, Camerer and colleagues attempted to replicate 18 studies published in two top economics journals - the American Economic Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics - between 2011 and 2014 and were able to find a significant effect in the same direction as proposed by the original research in only 11 of 18 replications (61 percent). Considering the potential impact that economic research has on society, for example in a field like evidence-based policymaking, there is a particular need to explore and understand the drivers of replication studies in economics in order to design favourable boundary conditions for replication practice………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Will Blockchain Revolutionize Scholarly Journal Publishing?
Peer review will no longer be anonymous under the blockchain-based publishing model that the European start-up Orvium intends to use. The format will allow for open-access or other licensing models to be determined by each client journal's editors, notes Alexander C. Kafka, in his post in The Chronicle of Higher Education Blog.
The blog post says (quote): Orvium seeks to bring similar accountability to journal publishing, with each article encoding its own origins, revisions, peer review, and details about data and methodology. It aims to make publishing affordable and fast. Traditional publishing's turnaround times sometimes exceed two years. In light of recent incidents of research fraud, replication crises, and academic hoaxes, Orvium's open-source coding and self-enforcing "smart contracts" will also ensure that there is nothing up publishers' proverbial sleeves. A twist to Orvium's model, related to but independent of the blockchain platform, is that peer review will no longer be anonymous. Reviewers have inevitable biases and perhaps conscious or unconscious competitive motives for throwing a roadblock in front of someone else's research or advancing it. Revealing who reviewed an article and what they wrote about it will expose potential biases to interpretation and consideration. On the flip side, the now thankless task of reviewing can be recognised and potentially rewarded………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. How AI Is Tackling Fake Academic Research That Is Plaguing Scientific Community
Across the globe, scientific reputations are being damaged with news about inexperienced researchers coming under pressure to publish research papers. Research fraud is being committed by fabricating or falsifying data and reporting incorrect findings. This negative trend is damaging the scientific integrity of researchers, discusses Richa Bhatia, in her post in the Analytics India Magazine Blog.
The blog post says (quote): Besides combating research fraud, AI can also automate the process of peer review process. With Google Translate, which follows rules-based machine translation, one can improve the peer review process. While computers may play an increasingly useful role in editorial and peer review processes, it will still require a human-in-the-loop element. However, peer reviewers cannot be replaced by machines - humans are needed to review language competence. As the machines are only as good as the people who programmed them, machine intelligence can never keep pace with scientific research. Hence, humans are needed to evaluate and provide feedback on manuscripts and feed information to computers to help them improve. In a similar vein, administrators handling research manuscripts will continue to be necessary for dealing with the unexpected: answering questions and managing projects………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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