bims-skolko Biomed News
on Scholarly communication
Issue of 2022–08–28
nine papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society
  1. Status Bias in Chinese Scholarly Publishing: An Exploratory Study Based on Mixed Methods.
  2. US government reveals big changes to open-access policy.
  3. Peer review: Risk and risk tolerance.
  4. Thorough review articles require careful analyses of the primary articles, and their authors should avoid haste.
  5. Global Diversity of Authors, Editors, and Journal Ownership Across Subdisciplines of Psychology: Current State and Policy Implications.
  6. Restrictions and their reporting in systematic reviews of effectiveness: an observational study.
  7. A Policy Toolkit for Authorship and Dissemination Policies May Benefit NIH Research Consortia.
  8. Rettelse: Preprint på norsk.
  9. Using open access publications to support your professional development.
  1. Account Res. 2022 Aug 24.
    Status Bias in Chinese Scholarly Publishing: An Exploratory Study Based on Mixed Methods.
    Gengyan Tang, Hao Cai, Jingwen Jia.
      The academic community requires not only responsible research but also responsible academic journals. An exploratory study of Chinese-language academic journals that used mixed methods found Chinese-language academic journals on the humanities and social sciences exhibiting a widespread status bias. Most of them summarily rejected submissions from junior researchers and students without paying due attention to the quality of the research itself. The main reasons for this problem are editorial department resources, the scientific research evaluation system, the editorial department culture, and the wider academic environment. This study recommends that Chinese-language academic journals join the Committee on Publication Ethics, other publishing ethics organizations, and the "Responsible Journals" program as soon as possible.
    Keywords:  Chinese-language academic journals; Scholarly publishing; editorial culture; publishing ethics; status bias
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2022.2117621
  2. Nature. 2022 Aug 26.
    US government reveals big changes to open-access policy.
    Jeff Tollefson, Richard Van Noorden.
      
    Keywords:  Policy; Publishing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02351-1
  3. PLoS One. 2022 ;17(8): e0273813
    Peer review: Risk and risk tolerance.
    Stephen A Gallo, Karen B Schmaling.
      Peer review, commonly used in grant funding decisions, relies on scientists' ability to evaluate research proposals' quality. Such judgments are sometimes beyond reviewers' discriminatory power and could lead to a reliance on subjective biases, including preferences for lower risk, incremental projects. However, peer reviewers' risk tolerance has not been well studied. We conducted a cross-sectional experiment of peer reviewers' evaluations of mock primary reviewers' comments in which the level and sources of risks and weaknesses were manipulated. Here we show that proposal risks more strongly predicted reviewers' scores than proposal strengths based on mock proposal evaluations. Risk tolerance was not predictive of scores but reviewer scoring leniency was predictive of overall and criteria scores. The evaluation of risks dominates reviewers' evaluation of research proposals and is a source of inter-reviewer variability. These results suggest that reviewer scoring variability may be attributed to the interpretation of proposal risks, and could benefit from intervention to improve the reliability of reviews. Additionally, the valuation of risk drives proposal evaluations and may reduce the chances that risky, but highly impactful science, is supported.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273813
  4. Complement Ther Med. 2022 Aug 20. pii: S0965-2299(22)00077-2. [Epub ahead of print] 102875
    Thorough review articles require careful analyses of the primary articles, and their authors should avoid haste.
    Olaf R Van Loon, A J Tom Van Loon.
      
    Keywords:  Manuscript handling; Review studies; Scientific reliability
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctim.2022.102875
  5. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2022 Aug 22. 17456916221091831
    Global Diversity of Authors, Editors, and Journal Ownership Across Subdisciplines of Psychology: Current State and Policy Implications.
    Zhicheng Lin, Ningxi Li.
      Diversity is the fuel of innovation. Global diversity-geographical or international diversification-is indispensable for developing a true psychological science of human beings but remains poorly understood. We surveyed 68 top psychology journals in 10 subdisciplines and examined the global diversity of authors, editors (i.e., members of academic editorial teams), and journal ownership. Results show that (a) the global diversity of authorship, editorship, and ownership is low in top psychology journals, with the United States boasting outsized influences; (b) disparity intensifies along the hierarchy of authors, editors, and journal ownership and substantially differs between subdisciplines and journal types; (c) removing the United States markedly increases global diversity and eliminates differences in diversity between subdisciplines and between authorship and editorship; and (d) more authors and editors are from the journal's home country (vs. a foreign journal) and from the editor-in-chief's home country (vs. a journal with a foreign editor-in-chief), and the home-country biases are most pronounced in the United States-journals from the United States or with U.S. editors-in-chief have the lowest global diversity in authorship and editorship. These results provide substantial novel insights into the global diversity of psychology journals, with implications for a new diversity policy to stimulate the generation of variety and, by extension, innovation.
    Keywords:  bias; editor; global diversity; journal; psychology
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916221091831
  6. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2022 Aug 20. 22(1): 230
    Restrictions and their reporting in systematic reviews of effectiveness: an observational study.
    Jasmin Helbach, Dawid Pieper, Tim Mathes, Tanja Rombey, Hajo Zeeb, Katharina Allers, Falk Hoffmann.
       BACKGROUND: Restrictions in systematic reviews (SRs) can lead to bias and may affect conclusions. Therefore, it is important to report whether and which restrictions were used. This study aims to examine the use of restrictions regarding language, publication period, and study type, as well as the transparency of reporting in SRs of effectiveness.
    METHODS: A retrospective observational study was conducted with a random sample of 535 SRs of effectiveness indexed in PubMed between 2000 and 2019. The use of restrictions and their reporting were analysed using descriptive statistics.
    RESULTS: Of the total 535 SRs included, four out of every ten (41.3%) lacked information on at least one of the three restrictions considered (language, publication period, or study type). Overall, 14.6% of SRs did not provide information on restrictions regarding publication period, 19.1% regarding study type, and 18.3% regarding language. Of all included SRs, language was restricted in 46.4%, and in more than half of the SRs with restricted language (130/248), it was unclear whether the restriction was applied during either the search or the screening process, or both. The restrictions were justified for publication period in 22.2% of the respective SRs (33/149), study type in 6.5% (28/433), and language in 3.2% (8/248). Differences in reporting were found between countries as well as between Cochrane and non-Cochrane reviews.
    CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that there is a lack of transparency in reporting on restrictions in SRs. Authors as well as editors and reviewers should be encouraged to improve the reporting and justification of restrictions to increase the transparency of SRs.
    Keywords:  Cochrane reviews; Effectiveness; Methodological quality; Reporting quality; Restriction; Systematic reviews
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-022-01710-w
  7. Account Res. 2022 Aug 23.
    A Policy Toolkit for Authorship and Dissemination Policies May Benefit NIH Research Consortia.
    Linda Brubaker, Jesse Nodora, Tamara Bavendam, John Connett, Amy M Claussen, Cora E Lewis, Kyle Rudser, Siobhan Sutcliffe, Jean F Wyman, Janis M Miller.
       PURPOSE: Authorship and dissemination policies vary across NIH research consortia. Our purpose was to describe elements of real-life policies in use by eligible U01 clinical research consortia.
    METHODS: Principal investigators of eligible, active U01 clinical research projects identified in the NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools database were asked to share relevant policies. The characteristics of key policy elements, determined a priori, were reviewed and quantified, when appropriate.
    RESULTS: Eighty-one research projects met search criteria and 21 groups provided policies which were examined for key elements (e.g., in quotations): "manuscript proposals reviewed and approved by committee" (90%); "guidelines for acknowledgements" (86%); "formation of the writing team" (71%); "process for final manuscript review and approval" (71%), "responsibilities for lead author" (67%), "guidelines for other types of publications" (67%); "draft manuscript review and approval" (62%); "recommendation for number of members per consortium site" (57%); and "requirement to identify individual contributions in the manuscript" (19%).
    CONCLUSIONS: Authorship/dissemination policies for large team science research projects are highly variable. Creation of an NIH policies repository and accompanying toolkit with model language and recommended key elements could improve comprehensiveness, ethical integrity, and efficiency in team science work while reducing burden and cost on newly funded consortia and directing time and resources to scientific endeavors.
    Keywords:  author contributions; author responsibilities; corporate authorship; external authorship; guidelines; publication duplication; writing teams
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2022.2116318
  8. Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen. 2022 Aug 16. 142(11):
    Rettelse: Preprint på norsk.
    Lise Skogstad Loftsgaard.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4045/tidsskr.22.0500
  9. J Vis Commun Med. 2022 Aug 23. 1-3
    Using open access publications to support your professional development.
    David Bryson.
      As members of the Institute of Medical Illustrators (IMI), we have access to the Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine when we log into the website but many other resources that might be useful for our learning and continuing professional development (CPD) are not as readily available and may be behind pay walls. We cannot become a member of every organisation and health regions may allow access to some but not all journals. Open access means that some books, articles and journals can be accessed by anyone, rather than having to have a subscription to access them. The aim of this article is to look at some of the benefits of open access for the CPD of medical illustrators including where open access resources can be found to support personal and professional development.
    Keywords:  CPD; Health Communications; Open Access; Service Development; education; learning
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/17453054.2022.2111299
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