bims-skolko Biomed News
on Scholarly communication
Issue of 2023–10–29
25 papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society
  1. Causes for Retraction in the Biomedical Literature: A Systematic Review of Studies of Retraction Notices.
  2. Strategies to Mitigate Against Least-Publishable Units in Medical and Scientific Research Publications.
  3. Editorial: Be positive about the negative in pharmacology: Neuropharmacology 2022.
  4. Post-Publication Policy Statements on Scientific Journals' websites.
  5. Open Access publishing: benefits and challenges.
  6. Ethics in Research and Publications.
  7. Peer reviewers' willingness to review, their recommendations and quality of reviews after the Finnish Medical Journal switched from single-blind to double-blind peer review.
  8. Reviewing scientific manuscripts in 2023: is it (still) worth the time?
  9. The Peer Review Process.
  10. Peer Review Questions & Answers: How? Part III: Writing the Reviewer Report.
  11. Current Ethics Policies in 36 Preprint Servers: Relevance for Academic Medicine.
  12. Should we be joint first authors?
  13. ChatGPT and scientific papers in veterinary neurology; is the genie out of the bottle?
  14. Transparency in research: An analysis of ChatGPT usage acknowledgment by authors across disciplines and geographies.
  15. ChatGPT in medical literature undergoing a SWOT analysis: Concise Review.
  16. Artificial Intelligence in Scientific Writing: A Deuteragonistic Role?
  17. How to … write an abstract.
  18. A Survey of the Course: 'How to Successfully Write a Scientific Article'.
  19. Data sharing in neuroimaging: experiences from the BIDS project.
  20. How are exclusively data journals indexed in major scholarly databases? An examination of four databases.
  21. The changing face of MedEdPublish.
  22. Publishing in a Medical Journal: insights from successive Editors-in-chief of JNC.
  23. Molecules Editorial: Greetings from the Editor-in-Chief.
  24. A tribute to the outgoing Editor-in-Chief, Physiotherapy Theory & Practice.
  25. 'I'm a powder keg': ousted eLife editor on being fired in wake of Israel-Hamas remarks.
  1. J Korean Med Sci. 2023 Oct 23. 38(41): e333
    Causes for Retraction in the Biomedical Literature: A Systematic Review of Studies of Retraction Notices.
    Soo Young Hwang, Dong Keon Yon, Seung Won Lee, Min Seo Kim, Jong Yeob Kim, Lee Smith, Ai Koyanagi, Marco Solmi, Andre F Carvalho, Eunyoung Kim, Jae Il Shin, John P A Ioannidis.
       BACKGROUND: Many studies have evaluated the prevalence of different reasons for retraction in samples of retraction notices. We aimed to perform a systematic review of such empirical studies of retraction causes.
    METHODS: The PubMed/MEDLINE database and the Embase database were searched in June 2023. Eligible studies were those containing sufficient data on the reasons for retraction across samples of examined retracted notices.
    RESULTS: A 11,181 potentially eligible items were identified, and 43 studies of retractions were included in this systematic review. Studies limited to retraction notices of a specific subspecialty or country, journal/publication type are emerging since 2015. We noticed that the reasons for retraction are becoming more specific and more diverse. In a meta-analysis of 17 studies focused on different subspecialties, misconduct was responsible for 60% (95% confidence interval [CI], 53-67%) of all retractions while error and publication issues contributed to 17% (95% CI, 12-22%) and 9% (95% CI, 6-13%), respectively. The end year of the retraction period in all included studies and the proportion of misconduct presented a weak positive association (coefficient = 1.3% per year, P = 0.002).
    CONCLUSION: Misconduct seems to be the most frequently recorded reason for retraction across empirical analyses of retraction notices, but other reasons are not negligible. Greater specificity of causes and standardization is needed in retraction notices.
    Keywords:  Misconduct; Retraction; Retraction of Publication; Withdrawal
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2023.38.e333
  2. Arthroscopy. 2023 Nov;pii: S0749-8063(23)00650-3. [Epub ahead of print]39(11): 2255-2256
    Strategies to Mitigate Against Least-Publishable Units in Medical and Scientific Research Publications.
    Brian R Waterman, James H Lubowitz, Jefferson C Brand, Michael J Rossi.
      Least-publishable units, aka minimal publishable units, smallest publishable units, fractions of scholarly effort, and "salami slicing" divide a single research publication into a number of papers with small amounts of information in each paper. This results in quantity rather than quality; is ethically inappropriate; creates extra work for readers, future authors, reviewers, and editors; and can result in redundancy, self-plagiarism, publication overlap, and duplicate reporting of patient data that can result in inaccurate conclusions in systematic reviews. Increased awareness and actionable intervention can help to reverse this growing trend.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arthro.2023.08.003
  3. Front Pharmacol. 2023 ;14 1256508
    Editorial: Be positive about the negative in pharmacology: Neuropharmacology 2022.
    Adrian Preda, Rene Oliveira Beleboni.
      
    Keywords:  negative findings; publication bias; research transparency; results reproducibility; scientific integrity
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2023.1256508
  4. Am J Obstet Gynecol MFM. 2023 Oct 23. pii: S2589-9333(23)00344-0. [Epub ahead of print] 101202
    Post-Publication Policy Statements on Scientific Journals' websites.
    Quint Langeveld, B W Mol.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajogmf.2023.101202
  5. Eur J Cardiovasc Nurs. 2023 Oct 24. pii: zvad099. [Epub ahead of print]
    Open Access publishing: benefits and challenges.
    Anna Strömberg, Tone M Norekvål, Philip Moons, Sandra Lauck.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjcn/zvad099
  6. Indian J Orthop. 2023 Nov;57(11): 1722-1734
    Ethics in Research and Publications.
    Srinivas B S Kambhampati, Jagdish Menon, Lalit Maini.
       Background: The purpose of this study is to present a comprehensive overview of the ethical issues and the processes involved in research and publishing in India. The study examines the present ethical norms, guidelines, frameworks and developments in India, providing insights into the nation's current status of research and recommendations for publication. This document will be a useful starting point and reference document for those embarking on research and publication in Orthopaedics in India.
    Materials: A survey of the literature was done, which included scholarly papers, reports, rules, and policies pertaining to Indian publishing norms and research ethics. the document starts with a general introduction to ethics, followed by the evolution of ethics in research and the current International as well as Indian codes of ethics. Subsequently, the discussion is divided into two broad headings of ethics in research and ethics in publishing. Under each heading, there are many specific areas in orthopaedics that would require the application of a unique set of ethics. These areas are discussed separately as subheadings.
    Results and Discussion: The review draws attention to the complexity of ethical issues in Indian and international research and publishing in orthopaedics. Where available, specific guidelines about the topic in India or international guidelines are discussed. The importance of informed consent, data integrity, plagiarism, authorship disputes, and conflicts of interest are only a few of the key results. It is obvious that ethical norms and regulations, such as those offered by the University Grants Commission (UGC), the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and the Council of Publication Ethics (COPE) are crucial in determining how research is conducted and how papers are published. The types of studies discussed include research in humans and animals, research with stem cells, metal implants and devices, orthobiologics, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, computer modelling, virtual reality, 3D printing and bioprinting, tissue banking and data management. The roles of different personnel in research and publications are discussed.
    Conclusions: Ethics in research and publishing play a crucial role in establishing the authority and standard of scholarly work in India. This study underlines the key concepts of ethics that guide various types of studies and the publication process. It also highlights the requirement for frameworks and guidelines for certain unique areas of research in orthopaedics.
    Keywords:  Ethics; Publications; Regulations in research; Research
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s43465-023-00971-x
  7. Res Integr Peer Rev. 2023 Oct 24. 8(1): 14
    Peer reviewers' willingness to review, their recommendations and quality of reviews after the Finnish Medical Journal switched from single-blind to double-blind peer review.
    Piitu Parmanne, Joonas Laajava, Noora Järvinen, Terttu Harju, Mauri Marttunen, Pertti Saloheimo.
       BACKGROUND: There is a power imbalance between authors and reviewers in single-blind peer review. We explored how switching from single-blind to double-blind peer review affected 1) the willingness of experts to review, 2) their publication recommendations, and 3) the quality of review reports.
    METHODS: The Finnish Medical Journal switched from single-blind to double-blind peer review in September 2017. The proportion of review invitations that resulted in a received review report was counted. The reviewers' recommendations of "accept as is", "minor revision", "major revision" or "reject" were explored. The content of the reviews was assessed by two experienced reviewers using the Review Quality Instrument modified to apply to both original research and review manuscripts. The study material comprised reviews submitted from September 2017 to February 2018. The controls were the reviews submitted between September 2015 and February 2016 and between September 2016 and February 2017. The reviewers' recommendations and the scorings of quality assessments were tested with the Chi square test, and the means of quality assessments with the independent-samples t test.
    RESULTS: A total of 118 double-blind first-round reviews of 59 manuscripts were compared with 232 single-blind first-round reviews of 116 manuscripts. The proportion of successful review invitations when reviewing single-blinded was 67%, and when reviewing double-blinded, 66%. When reviewing double-blinded, the reviewers recommended accept as is or minor revision less often than during the control period (59% vs. 73%), and major revision or rejection more often (41% vs 27%, P = 0.010). For the quality assessment, 116 reviews from the double-blind period were compared with 104 reviews conducted between September 2016 and February 2017. On a 1-5 scale (1 poor, 5 excellent), double-blind reviews received higher overall proportion of ratings of 4 and 5 than single-blind reviews (56% vs. 49%, P < 0.001). Means for the overall quality of double-blind reviews were 3.38 (IQR, 3.33-3.44) vs. 3.22 (3.17-3.28; P < 0.001) for single-blind reviews.
    CONCLUSIONS: The quality of the reviews conducted double-blind was better than of those conducted single-blind. Switching to double-blind review did not alter the reviewers' willingness to review. The reviewers became slightly more critical.
    Keywords:  Double-blind peer review; Peer review; Quality of peer review; Scientific publication; Single-blind peer review
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-023-00140-6
  8. EuroIntervention. 2023 Oct 23. pii: EIJ-D-23-00455. [Epub ahead of print]19(8): 628-629
    Reviewing scientific manuscripts in 2023: is it (still) worth the time?
    Nicolas Amabile, Giulio Stefanini.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4244/EIJ-D-23-00455
  9. Ir Med J. 2023 Oct 19. 116(9): 845
    The Peer Review Process.
    J F A Murphy.
      
  10. J Pain Palliat Care Pharmacother. 2023 Oct 25. 1-3
    Peer Review Questions & Answers: How? Part III: Writing the Reviewer Report.
    Laura Meyer-Junco.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/15360288.2023.2271817
  11. Acad Med. 2023 Oct 24.
    Current Ethics Policies in 36 Preprint Servers: Relevance for Academic Medicine.
    Jaime A Teixeira da Silva, Serhii Nazarovets.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000005507
  12. Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract. 2023 Oct 26.
    Should we be joint first authors?
    Patricia O'Sullivan, Ayelet Kuper, Jennifer Cleland.
      This column is intended to address the kinds of knotty problems and dilemmas with which many scholars grapple in studying health professions education. In this article, the authors address the question of co-first authorship bearing in mind the why, when and how of this consideration as well as the potential consequences. This guidance should help authors and mentors when this situation arises.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-023-10285-0
  13. Front Vet Sci. 2023 ;10 1272755
    ChatGPT and scientific papers in veterinary neurology; is the genie out of the bottle?
    Samira Abani, Holger Andreas Volk, Steven De Decker, Joe Fenn, Clare Rusbridge, Marios Charalambous, Rita Goncalves, Rodrigo Gutierrez-Quintana, Shenja Loderstedt, Thomas Flegel, Carlos Ros, Thilo von Klopmann, Henning Christian Schenk, Marion Kornberg, Nina Meyerhoff, Andrea Tipold, Jasmin Nicole Nessler.
      
    Keywords:  ChatGPT; artificial intelligence (AI); ethics; generative AI; integrity; machine learning; plagiarism; scientific writing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2023.1272755
  14. Account Res. 2023 Oct 25.
    Transparency in research: An analysis of ChatGPT usage acknowledgment by authors across disciplines and geographies.
    Raghu Raman.
       PURPOSE: This study aims to systematically analyze the acknowledgment of generative AI tools, particularly ChatGPT, in academic publications. It delves into patterns across multiple dimensions, including geographical distribution, disciplinary affiliations, journals, and institutional representation.
    METHODOLOGY: Using a dataset from the Dimensions database consisting of 1,226 publications from November 2022 to July 2023, the study employs a variety of analytical techniques, including temporal analysis and distribution mapping across fields of research and geographical locations.
    FINDINGS: Acknowledgments are most frequent from authors affiliated with U.S. institutions, followed by significant contributions from China and India. Fields such as Biomedical and Clinical Sciences are highly represented, along with Information and Computing Sciences. Prominent journals like "The Lancet Digital Health" and preprint platforms including "bioRxiv" frequently feature acknowledgments, suggesting an accelerating role for AI tools in expediting research publication.
    LIMITATIONS: The scope of this study is restricted to the Dimensions database, possibly missing data from other platforms or non-indexed literature. Moreover, the study does not evaluate the quality or ethics of the acknowledgments.
    PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The results are instructive for a range of stakeholders, including researchers, academic publishers, and institutions. They offer a foundational understanding that can inform future policies and research on the ethical and transparent use of AI in academia.
    ORIGINALITY: This research is the first empirical investigation of its kind to systematically examine acknowledgment patterns concerning generative AI tools, thus filling an identified gap in existing scholarship.
    Keywords:  ChatGPT; ethics in publishing; fields of research; generative AI; research integrity; science policy; social science research ethics
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2023.2273377
  15. J Med Internet Res. 2023 Sep 27.
    ChatGPT in medical literature undergoing a SWOT analysis: Concise Review.
    Daniel Gödde, Sophia Nöhl, Carina Wolf, Yannick Rupert, Lukas Rimkus, Jan Ehlers, Frank Breuckmann, Timur Sellmann.
       BACKGROUND: ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a 175-billion-parameter natural language processing model, thereby already being involved in scientific contents and publications. Its influence ranges from providing quick access to information on medical topics, assisting to generate medical and scientific articles and papers, performing medical data analyses and even interpreting complex data sets.
    OBJECTIVE: The future role of ChatGPT remains uncertain and a matter of debate already shortly after its release. The aim of this review was to analyze the role ChatGPT in medical literature during the first three months after its release.
    METHODS: We here performed a concise review of literature published in PubMed from 12-1-2022 to 3-31-2023. In order to find all publications related to ChatGPT or considering ChatGPT, the search term was kept simple ("ChatGPT" in AllFields). All publications were included that were available as full text in German or English. All accessible publications were evaluated according to specifications by the author team, e.g. impact factor, publication modus, article type, publication speed, type of chat GPT integration or content. The conclusions of the articles were used for later SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities or threats) analysis. All data were analyzed on a descriptive basis.
    RESULTS: Of 178 studies in total, 160 could be evaluated. The average impact factor was 4.423 (0 - 96.216), average publication speed was 16 days (0-83 days). Of all articles, there were 77 editorials, 43 essays, 21 studies, six reviews, six case reports, six news, and one meta-analysis. Of those, 54.4% were published as open access with 11% provided on preprint servers. Over 400 quotes with information on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats were detected. By far the most were related to weaknesses. ChatGPT excels in its ability to express ideas clearly and formulate general contexts comprehensibly. It performs so well that even experts in the field have difficulties in identifying abstracts generated by ChatGPT, whereas the time-limited scope and precisely the need for corrections by experts were mentioned as weaknesses and threats. Opportunities include assistance in formulating medical issues for non-native English speakers as well as the possibility of timely participation in the development of such artificial intelligence tools, since it is in its early stages and can therefore still be influenced.
    CONCLUSIONS: Artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT are already part of the medical publishing landscape. Despite apparent opportunities, policies and guidelines have to be implemented to ensure benefits in education, clinical practice and research rather than threats such as scientific misconduct, plagiarism or accuracy.
    CLINICALTRIAL:
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2196/49368
  16. Cureus. 2023 Sep;15(9): e45513
    Artificial Intelligence in Scientific Writing: A Deuteragonistic Role?
    Benny Wohlfarth, Samuel R Streit, Sissel Guttormsen.
      In this article, we reflect on the pros and cons of artificial intelligence (AI)-augmented scientific writing for more comprehensible research towards society to gain trust for science-led policy. For this purpose, we integrated our thoughts into the Factors of Perceived Trustworthiness from Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman's Model of Trust and made propositions to define AI's role in trustful scholarly communication.
    Keywords:  ai regulation; chatbots; large language models (llms); research integrity; swa (scientific writing assistance)
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.45513
  17. Clin Teach. 2023 Oct 24. e13631
    How to … write an abstract.
    Danica Anne Sims.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/tct.13631
  18. Curr Pediatr Rev. 2023 Oct 17.
    A Survey of the Course: 'How to Successfully Write a Scientific Article'.
    Tamara Sljivancanin Jakovljevic, Nadja Nikolic, Jelena Martic.
       BACKGROUND: The aim of the present survey was to analyze the knowledge and skills in medical paper writing of physicians who attended the course "how to write successfully a scientific paper."
    METHODS: A blind survey was used to analyze participants' knowledge on the topic of the course "how to write successfully a scientific paper." Before starting the workshop, participants anonymously filled out the input questionnaire containing 12 preliminary data questions. The three-hour course included a lecture on the steps of creating and writing a scientific article with examples. At the end, all participants anonymously completed the exit questionnaire consisting of 18 questions. Differences and associations between the collected data were analyzed using appropriate statistical tests.
    RESULTS: The survey included 22 participants, most of whom were women (16, 72.7%). The participants' educational level was proportional to their age. 12 of the participants had an intermediate level, while the others reported higher English proficiency. Half of the participants had never published an article. A significant difference was observed between English level and being the first author of an article published in a scientific journal (p = 0.044). Before class, only 13.6% of participants knew that guidelines are mandatory for making clinical decisions according to evidence- based medicine. There was a significant positive correlation between sex and current affiliation (p = 0.038). A negative correlation was observed between sex and article publication (p = 0.037). A positive correlation was observed between English level and current affiliation (p = 0.020). There was a negative correlation observed between previous sources of learning scientific article writing and having already published an article (p = 0.025). A positive correlation was found between reading an article and publishing it (p = 0.046). Statistical analysis showed a significant difference between reading frequency, number of published articles, being the first author, and knowing the title of a scientific article (p = 0.036, p = 0.027, and p = 0.030, respectively).
    CONCLUSION: The results of the questionnaires revealed discrepancies in prior research engagement and understanding of scientific concepts and rules. This survey highlights the importance of the course "how to successfully write a scientific article" in improving participants' knowledge of scientific work and the process of creating an article for submission to medical journals.
    Keywords:  Manuscript; medical; publishing; questionnaires.; scholarly communication; surveys
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2174/0115733963277385230920054052
  19. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2023 Oct 24.
    Data sharing in neuroimaging: experiences from the BIDS project.
    Melanie Ganz, Russell A Poldrack.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-023-00762-1
  20. Sci Data. 2023 Oct 25. 10(1): 737
    How are exclusively data journals indexed in major scholarly databases? An examination of four databases.
    Chenyue Jiao, Kai Li, Zhichao Fang.
      The data paper is becoming a popular way for researchers to publish their research data. The growing numbers of data papers and journals hosting them have made them an important data source for understanding how research data is published and reused. One barrier to this research agenda is a lack of knowledge as to how data journals and their publications are indexed in the scholarly databases used for quantitative analysis. To address this gap, this study examines how a list of 18 exclusively data journals (i.e., journals that primarily accept data papers) are indexed in four popular scholarly databases: the Web of Science, Scopus, Dimensions, and OpenAlex. We investigate how comprehensively these databases cover the selected data journals and, in particular, how they present the document type information of data papers. We find that the coverage of data papers, as well as their document type information, is highly inconsistent across databases, which creates major challenges for future efforts to study them quantitatively, which should be addressed in the future.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02625-x
  21. MedEdPublish (2016). 2021 ;11 1
    The changing face of MedEdPublish.
    Richard Hays, Trevor Gibbs, Julie Hunt, Barbara Jennings, Ken Masters.
      
    Keywords:  medical education; open science; publishing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.12688/mep.17500.1
  22. J Nucl Cardiol. 2023 Oct 23.
    Publishing in a Medical Journal: insights from successive Editors-in-chief of JNC.
    Ahmed Tawakol.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s12350-023-03380-7
  23. Molecules. 2023 Oct 19. pii: 7171. [Epub ahead of print]28(20):
    Molecules Editorial: Greetings from the Editor-in-Chief.
    Thomas J Schmidt.
      Dear readers, authors, reviewers, editors, coworkers and staff of Molecules, [...].
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28207171
  24. Physiother Theory Pract. 2023 Oct 24. 1
    A tribute to the outgoing Editor-in-Chief, Physiotherapy Theory & Practice.
    Morey J Kolber.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/09593985.2023.2271767
  25. Nature. 2023 Oct 25.
    'I'm a powder keg': ousted eLife editor on being fired in wake of Israel-Hamas remarks.
    Nicola Jones.
      
    Keywords:  Publishing; Scientific community
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03330-w
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