1. What a new Publons Report on Peer Review Says About Diversity, and More
For centuries academic journals have brought modern research from around the globe into regularly published pages for consumption. At the heart of this system is peer review. But as the research market grows exponentially the peer review system is feeling the strain. The Publons Global State of Peer Review Report reveals significant patterns in reviews and reviewing, with implications for global science, notes Tom Culley and team, in their guest post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog.
The blog post says (quote): Editors play a critical role in the peer review process, particularly when it comes to selecting reviewers and sourcing reviews. So where are all the editors, and who are they inviting to peer review? The report shows that journal editors tend to be located in established regions, such as the US and UK. Interestingly, editors tend to invite reviewers from their own geographical regions much more than chance would predict, implying a possible bias toward selecting reviewers from established regions. Reviewing practices across different fields were investigated by categorising article submission and peer review completion data. Using this approach they showed that, on average, 2.7 reviews are completed for each submission across all research areas. In tune with the high percentage of reviewers in the survey, Clinical Medicine is clearly the largest research area by publication output. On a review-per-submission basis, however, this field produces the fourth lowest number of reviews per submission. The report also shows how some research areas have managed to speed up review turnaround times, while others remain stagnant………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Advanced Technologies on the Horizon for Knowledge Managers – But We're Not There Yet
Sharing knowledge across the enterprise is not a new challenge – but the way knowledge professionals approach this task is rapidly evolving. To elucidate the new challenges, CCC conducted a survey of knowledge management professionals across 17 industries, including healthcare, technology, government and insurance. Jill Shuman, in her post in the CCC Blog, discusses what they have learned from the study.
The blog post says (quote): Artificial intelligence and machine learning are buzzwords across all industries and job functions, but where do these tools come into play in the knowledge management arena? At the most basic level, companies need systems to store, process, and retrieve information and knowledge. This is likely to look different from company to company, depending on the systems, sources, and services enterprises have built into their businesses over time. We know their goal is to be able to take data that have been integrated and evaluated, and ultimately turn the insights from this mass of information into knowledge. "Fully digital knowledge management systems offer features that previous iterations were not capable of. A cloud-based enterprise knowledge system means no dusty rows of metal filing cabinets and no teetering stacks of paper. Automated metadata tagging and instant document recall with the click of a mouse make the user-experience of present KM nearly effortless."………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Patient peer review in academic journals: Next steps in the journey
For science to be truly open, research must go beyond simply being available to all, and actively engage the patients and the public who both fund and benefit from it. In her post in the BioMed Central Blog, Ella Flemyng tells us about the novel structure of the co-produced Research Involvement and Engagement, highlighting recent developments for patient peer review and discussing what the future might hold for patient involvement in academic journals.
The blog post says (quote): Academic journals are the gate keepers of new research, research directly intended to improve patients' lives. Therefore, ensuring the research published in these journals is understandable, relevant and accessible to patients and the public is key to facilitating their engagement. Open access has been fundamental to this, making articles freely accessible to everyone, including patients and the public. Some journals have gone one step further here, publishing plain English summaries alongside articles to help increase the understanding of a paper for a non-specialist scientist. BMC launched the journal, Research Involvement and Engagement, which considers articles on patient and public involvement and engagement in health and social research, with an Editorial Board that is equally representative of all key stakeholders. All submissions to the journal are peer reviewed by patients and academics and are edited by a patient and an academic Editor pair, who have equal weight in editorial decisions. The British Medical Journal (The BMJ) has a Patient and Public Partnership, which aims to make patient partnership embedded within the journal and includes patient review for relevant research papers………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Linguistic analysis reveals the hidden details of research grant proposal peer review reports
Despite peer review panels being the most common way of selecting applicants for research funding, little is known about how selections are made. New methods for large-scale text analysis allow for review panels' written reports to be analysed and studied for patterns. In their post in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, Peter van den Besselaar and Ulf Sandström show how the frequency of positive and negative evaluation words correlate with applicants' final scores, and also reveal how panels' apparent conservatism means that the potentially groundbreaking, high-risk/high-gain research is unlikely to advance through the process and be selected for funding.
The blog post says (quote): For the study, they used linguistic categories assumed relevant for review texts, among others: negation words; negative evaluation words; positive evaluation words; superlatives, research project words; track record words. The question is whether they can predict the score an application gets from the relative frequencies of the linguistic categories in the reviews, and if so, what does this tell about the panel process? Not unexpectedly, positive evaluation words and superlatives correlate positively with the score, and negation words and the negative evaluation words correlate negatively. Also, research project words and track record words correlate negatively with the score, so the more words used to discuss the research project and the track record of an applicant, the lower the score the applicant is given, on average. In fact, as literature suggests, more discussion about the applicant and application is a sign of disagreement and the higher the level of disagreement between panelists, the lower the score………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
5. An explosion of openness is about to hit scientific publishing
Many scientists have championed the idea that publicly-funded research should be openly available to all, not locked away in pricey journals. Yet most journal articles are still accessible only to those able to pay the hefty subscription - to the detriment of the diffusion of knowledge in society. Major European countries are mandating that publicly-funded research should appear only in open-access journals, notes a post in The Economist Blog.
The blog post says (quote): If the content of the journals is free, how do open access publications pay their costs? After all, the bills add up, including administrative work, publishing (in print or digitally), marketing, distribution (for print) and in particular, organising the peer-review process that is essential for quality. Under the open-access model, the fees are reversed: scientists pay to have their research published. The costs range from nothing to several thousand pounds per paper. On the other hand, a large university can expect to pay over a million pounds in subscription charges each year for a collection of journals. A particularly contentious plank of Plan S is that the publication fees for open-access journals are to be capped across Europe. An exact figure has yet to be set. Nevertheless, the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers, which represents 145 publishers, warned that any price cap risks "undermining quality"………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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