Last week, The Scholarly Kitchen posted an article by Angela Cochran,Vice President of Publishing at the American Society of Clinical Oncology, about the inability of publishers to deal with research fraud. She writes: Cochran’s argument is that although publishers manage the peer review process, it was never an expectation of peer review that they would perform ‘forensic analysis’ of datasets and associated materials.

What reforms in how we assess and value research are necessary to better equip public science systems for the existential challenges of the 21st century? How can we understand and tackle issues such as inequitable access to scientific literature, increasing strain on peer review systems, and publisher oligopolies?

Imagine national science policy as a musical chair game. The contestants are the science system actors, such as researchers, research groups, universities, companies, among others. Some actors can have more expertise dancing at the rhythm of salsa than hip-hop, while others might be more agile in finding a seat when the music pauses. The government plays or pauses the music, modulates its speed or changes the genre.

Open access policy mandates have never been an effective way of convincing researchers of the benefits of exploring alternative, open publishing practices. Forcing someone to do something will not help them engage with the reasons for doing it. Instead, the mandate feels like a simple tickbox exercise that can be ignored once fulfilled.

A conference called “The promises and pitfalls of preregistration” was hosted by the Royal Society in London from 4th-5th March 2024. Here, I discuss the presentations by Chris Donkin and Stephan Lewandowsky, both of which consider some of the potential “pitfalls” of preregistration.

In this interview Theresa Züger gives exciting insights about the risks and opportunities AI bears for research work and talked about tools her team is developing.

Scholarly book evaluation often prioritises ‘prestige’, which leads to inconsistent and unfair outcomes. My previous research shows that such systems consider neither the intrinsic quality of the research nor the accessibility of the work itself.

Der Blog wächst um die Themen der DINI Arbeitsgruppe Kompetenzzentrum Interoperable Metadaten (AG KIM). Metadaten bilden die Grundlage für die Datenverarbeitung und für den Datenaustausch. Damit ergeben sich viele Überschneidungen und Anknüpfungspunkte zu den Themen der AG FIS und AG E-Pub. Über den Blog wollen wir unsere Arbeitsergebnisse veröffentlichen und über unsere Arbeit informieren. Die DINI AG KIM gibt es seit 2012.

Auf dem Youtube-Kanal {ungeskripted} gibt es ein spannendes Interview mit Elias Gudwis, der unter ghostwriting-gudwis.de eine Ghostwriting-Agentur mit Fokus Haus-, Bachelor- und Masterarbeiten betreibt. “Lustigerweise” hat die Plagiatsaffäre um Guttenberg dazu geführt, dass die Nachfrage gestiegen ist, weil Ghostwriter bezüglich Plagiate ihr Handwerk verstehen.

The Centre for Open Science’s symposium on “Critical Perspectives on the Metascience Reform Movement” took place on 7 ^th March 2024. It was organised by Sven Ulpts, and it includes presentations by Bart Penders, Tom Hostler, Stephan Guttinger, Sarahanne Field, Nicole Nelson, and Berna Devezer.