More journal articles are now including statements about conflicts of interest and data sharing. Biomedical research is shifting to become more open and transparent by providing increasing amounts of information about funding, conflicts of interest and data sharing in its publications, according to a survey of recent papers. Read more in Nature.
publishing
Most insect studies lack crucial species information
Survey results suggest that a lot of entomology research could be impossible to replicate. More than 98% of entomology papers contain so little species information on the insects being studied that they are essentially impossible to replicate, according to a survey of more than 550 articles published in 2016. Read more in Nature.
Obsession with novelty sidelines deeper learning
Too much focus on generating new ideas in science is driving the replication crisis. An overemphasis on novelty has meant that funders and journal editors are neglecting the equally important work of revisiting old problems, says molecular biologist, Barak Cohen, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “If we always have to be finding something […]
Automated software saves researchers valuable hours
Online tools are lightening the load for authors and journal editors. An international partnership is developing online tools that could save authors and journal editors hours in manuscript checking, while ensuring, with the help of peer review, that published science is high-quality, replicable, and useful. Read more in Nature Index.
Mapping the spread of predators and prey
Bogus journals and their victims are widespread, study finds. The advent of open-access publishing has made scientific literature more accessible, but it has also given rise to ‘predatory’ publishers — shady outfits that will reproduce just about anything that resembles a research paper, without the safeguards of peer review or quality editorial standards. David Moher, […]
Canadian researchers do more with less
Growing participation in large international research projects may explain the drop in Canada’s index performance. Researchers at Canadian institutions are publishing more papers in top journals, but make up a smaller part of the collaborative teams that publish them, according to the latest data from Nature Index. Between 2012 and 2015, the number of publications […]
CMAJ gets interim editor amid governance shake-up
Dr. Diane Kelsall, a long-time CMAJ deputy editor and editor of CMAJ Open, has been appointed interim editor of the CMAJ as part of the journal owner’s restructuring and modernization plan. On Feb. 29, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) board of directors dismissed the journal’s editor-in-chief, Dr. John Fletcher, who had held the post for four […]
Montreal institute going ‘open’ to accelerate science
Experiment aims to show whether forgoing patents and freeing up data can boost neuroscience research. Guy Rouleau, the director of McGill University’s Montreal Neuro logical Institute (MNI) and Hospital in Canada, is frustrated with how slowly neuroscience research translates into treatments. “We’re doing a really shitty job,” he says. “It’s not because we’re not trying; […]
AuthorAID to add online courses for social scientists
AuthorAID, a network that helps scientists in developing countries publish and communicate their work, is seeking partners to help develop courses specific to social sciences. These would be online courses, following the success of the recent move to do more courses online instead of face-to-face — expanding the initiative’s reach while reducing costs. “We want to […]
On the record
The open science movement is just the latest development in the long history of scholarly communication. The essence of science has always been communication. Nothing gets entered into the scientific record until it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal so that it can be explained to the scientific community at large, allowing them to […]