Ulrich Herb

As the year nears its end, it's time for a look back at 2023 ...

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## My university job {#my-university-job .wp-block-heading}

### Summa cum Fraude {#summa-cum-fraude .wp-block-heading}

In 2023, a project funded by the [German Research Foundation
(DFG)](https://dfg.de/){target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"}
entitled [Summa cum
Fraude](https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/430681129?context=projekt&task=showDetail&id=430681129&){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"} ended, which was dedicated to the question of
how journals/publishers react to reports of obviously faked/erroneous
publications -- usually, soberingly, not at all. I would like to quote
from the abstract of the [last publication from Summa cum
Fraude](https://dx.doi.org/10.22028/D291-40701){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"}: "Despite evident manipulations, journals
responded with article retractions in only 15 % of the reported cases.
In parallel interviews, experts made improvement suggestions, but mostly
failed to address the apparent issue of journals' inaction. According to
the authors, transparency in handling reports and implementing sanctions
for inactivity are necessary to counter the passivity of journals in
combating scientific misconduct."

This was although respected publishers such as the American Chemical
Society, Elsevier, Nature, Wiley, Springer and the Royal Society of
Chemistry were responsible for the journals. However, it turned out that
it was not so much the publisher as the editor-in-chief who was decisive
in the handling of fake publications. The time spans for retractions or
at least corrigenda are also worrying and sometimes exceed 5 years.

I really enjoyed working on this project with Anne Holtsch, Frank Müller
and Karin Jacobs from the physics department at my university and with
my colleague Tamara Köstenbach from the university library. The three
physicists did the exciting and burdensome investigative work of
reporting and documenting the cases of dubious publications.

### What else? {#what-else .wp-block-heading}

Unfortunately, another proposal (submitted by a different team) for
funding from the DFG and [Agence National de la Recherche
(ANR)](https://anr.fr/){target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"} was
not successful. However, there are plans to further develop and pursue
the concept. Apart from that, everyday university life was characterised
by increasingly bureaucratic procedures and processes relating to Open
Access, so much so that I don't want to look back on it at the end of
the year. And of course, like all those in charge of Open Access in
Germany, the DEAL contracts with Wiley, Springer Nature and Elsevier
kept me busy -- more on this in a few days. However, there were also
some very pleasing things: I was able to intensify my contact with my
university counterpart at the University of Lorraine again and through
him also got into more intensive dialogue with my colleague from the
University of Luxembourg. The work of the Working Group Scientific
Publication System of the Alliance of Science Organizations in Germany
came to an end, but I am happy to be member of a sort of succeeding
Interest Group Advancement of Scientific Publishing of the focus
initiative Alliance of Science Organizations in Germany, I was once
again nominated by the German Rectors' Conference
(Hochschulrektorenkonferenz, HRK).

## Consulting {#consulting .wp-block-heading}

When it comes to consulting, our company
[scidecode](http://scidecode.com){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"} was incredibly successful this year:

- Some 16 months after the Thu Sep 23rd, 2021 kick-off meeting for the
  „Risks and Trust in pursuit of a well-functioning Persistent
  Identifier infrastructure for research" project commissioned by
  [Knowledge
  Exchange](https://www.knowledge-exchange.info/){target="_blank"
  rel="noreferrer noopener"} all the results [were published in
  February](https://www.knowledge-exchange.info/news/articles/2-2-23){target="_blank"
  rel="noreferrer noopener"}, this includes the report („Building the
  plane as we fly it: the promise of Persistent Identifiers") and seven
  case studies on author IDs, organisational IDs, PIDs for research
  instruments and facilities, IGSNs, RePEc IDs, failed PIDs and the role
  of research funders in the consolidation of the PID landscape.
- From January to June, we worked on a study on open access in the
  social sciences, which was intended solely for the client and was
  therefore not published.
- In fall we submitted a successful bid in response to [the ITT that
  cOAlition S put out in
  July](https://www.coalition-s.org/a-study-to-assess-the-impact-of-plan-s-on-the-global-scholarly-communication-ecosystem-invitation-to-tender/){target="_blank"
  rel="noreferrer noopener"} for conducting a study to assess the impact
  of Plan S, work on this is still ongoing.

## Freelancing & Misc. {#freelancing-misc. .wp-block-heading}

Apart from my employment at the university and my entrepreneurship at
scidecode, I conducted [workshops on science
communication](https://pulse49.com/services-and-projects/workshops/workshops-on-strategies-in-scientific-publishing/){target="_blank"
data-type="page" data-id="4952" rel="noreferrer noopener"} for the
University of Applied Sciences Münster, the Protestant University of
Applied Sciences Freiburg, the doctoral programme of the University of
Duisburg-Essen and the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg. I also
worked for the University of Applied Sciences Grisons (Switzerland) as a
reviewer for master theses.

## Publications and presentations {#publications-and-presentations .wp-block-heading}

For me, a retrospective of a year is always also a look back at
publications and presentations. There were the following publications:

- the [aforementioned publication together with Anne Holtsch, Frank
  Müller, Karin and Tamara
  Köstenbach](https://dx.doi.org/10.22028/D291-40701){target="_blank"
  rel="noreferrer noopener"} on Summa cum Fraude,
- a [publication from the consulting project for Knowledge Exchange by
  Pablo de Castro, Laura Rothfritz, Joachim Schöpfel and
  me](https://doi.org/10.29007/97w6){target="_blank"
  rel="noreferrer noopener"},
- two publications for the volume *Grundlagen der
  Informationswissenschaft*, one on ["Verfahren der wissenschaftlichen
  Qualitäts-/Relevanzsicherung/
  Evaluierung"](https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110769043-027){target="_blank"
  rel="noreferrer noopener"} and one that provides a review on the
  [current state of Open
  Access](https://doi.org/doi:10.1515/9783110769043-061){target="_blank"
  rel="noreferrer noopener"} (the latter one was a written together with
  Heinz Pampel)
- And of course we at scidecode produced the report "Building the plane
  as we fly it: the promise of Persistent Identifiers" and seven more
  case studies on PIDs, all these publications are listed
  [here](https://pulse49.com/publications/#reportsexpertpapers){target="_blank"
  rel="noreferrer noopener"}.

There were also [some presentations I delivered in
2023](https://pulse49.com/talks-and-presentations/){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"} (although by far not as much as in the years
before the Corona pandemic), especially two related to the scidecode
project on Persistent Identifiers and [one (together with Tamara
Köstenbach) related to Summa cum
Fraude](https://dx.doi.org/10.22028/D291-39898){data-type="link"
data-id="https://dx.doi.org/10.22028/D291-39898" target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"}. The latter one discussed the possible
contributions libraries could make to safeguarding scientific integrity
and it was given at the [BiblioCon
2023](https://2023.bibliocon.de/?lang=en){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"} (formerly known as German Librarians' Day).
Why am I highlighting this lecture? Despite all the worrying findings on
quality management of scientific journals outlined above, a key point
emphasised in [social
media](https://twitter.com/IG_WBS/status/1661026868659879941){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"} was that we were using a definition of
scientific integrity produced by ChatGPT. Perhaps an indication of the
importance librarians put on AI in the next years.

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As the year nears its end, it’s time for a look back at 2023 … My university job  Summa cum Fraude   In 2023, a project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) entitled Summa cum Fraude ended, which was dedicated to the question of how journals/publishers react to reports of obviously faked/erroneous publications – usually, soberingly, not at all.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

A look back at 2023