InfoDoc MicroVeille – Veille dédiée aux Sciences de l'Information et des Bibliothèques // Collecting and Sharing research papers in Library and Information science ISSN 2429-3938

Effectiveness of the researcher-led “Peerspectives” peer review training course on review quality, knowledge, and skills among doctoral students in the biomedical sciences: a pre-post study

Posted on 3 juin 2026 by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Jessica L. Rohmann, Nadja Wülk, Kerstin Rubarth, Hannah Grillmaier, Iman Abdikarim, Mariana Lopes Simões, Sara Schroter, Marco Piccininni, Tobias Kurth, Toivo Glatz

Background

Peer review remains a cornerstone of scientific knowledge dissemination, yet comprehensive, practically relevant training is limited. This inspired us to develop Peerspectives, a peer review training course for doctoral students in the biomedical sciences in Berlin, Germany. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of the Peerspectives course on editor-judged quality of peer review reports.

Methods

Doctoral students in health research fields who enrolled in the Peerspectives course between October 2020 and August 2022 were invited to participate in the study, and 80 consented. The ~18 week-long course provided training on the structure, purpose, and conduct of peer review and editorial processes in biomedical journals. It included 12 h of lectures, homework assignments, and 12 h of hands-on, small-group workshops, during which students reviewed original research manuscripts currently under consideration at The BMJ under the guidance of experienced mentors.

The primary outcome was the overall quality of the peer review reports as judged by two independent BMJ editors using the global score of the Review Quality Instrument (RQI) pre- and post-intervention. Additionally, we compared participants’ post-course scores with those of actual BMJ reviewers. We also compared participants’ self-assessed knowledge and skills related to scholarly peer review (1–5 Likert scale) before and after the course.

Results

After course completion, the editor-assessed overall quality of the participants’ peer review reports was higher than before the course (median increase of 0.5 points, p < 0.001; mean increase of 0.36 points, p < 0.001). The RQI scores of participants’ post-course reports were not non-inferior to those of actual BMJ reviewers for the same manuscripts. Self-assessed peer review-related knowledge skills increased across all questionnaire items after course completion. Greatest improvements were seen in understanding reviewer expectations (increase in means from 2.9 to 4.5), confidence in reviewing (2.5 to 3.9), and knowing what to look for while reviewing (2.8 to 4.2).

Conclusions

Providing doctoral students with comprehensive training resulted in an editorially significant increase in review report quality and improved understanding of the role and expectations of peer reviewers in the scholarly publishing processes and confidence in giving constructive feedback.

URL : Effectiveness of the researcher-led “Peerspectives” peer review training course on review quality, knowledge, and skills among doctoral students in the biomedical sciences: a pre-post study

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-026-00220-3

Towards a more informed and balanced use of scientific performance metrics

Posted on 3 juin 2026 by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Jaap J A Denissen, Klaas Sijtsma, Wil M P van der Aalst

The goal of scientific assessment is to predict which individuals can make optimal use of limited resources within a specific context to make optimal allocation decisions. In academic contexts that pertain to individual-level allocations, this is most relevant for decisions on whom to hire for academic positions, nominate for awards, or whose research projects to fund.

The current perspective paper draws upon insights from decades of psychometric research and more recent research on scientific performance to derive a set of five psychometric criteria that should be met for optimal assessment procedures in academia. Although data-driven decision making has gained popularity in most domains, there is increasing resistance against using quantitative measurements in scientific assessment.

Recently, several stakeholders have proposed to jettison such measurements and focus instead on qualitative indicators or narratives. We argue that both quantitative and qualitative assessment do not always meet our five criteria, but solely relying on qualitative indicators appears to be a suboptimal strategy.

We argue instead that there are smarter ways to use quantitative indicators so that they become more reliable, predictive, and ultimately also more efficient and equitable. We conclude with a set of recommendations for scientific quality assessment that is based on the most recent psychometric and scientific insights. In an appendix, we apply these recommendations to a Dutch case study of how researcher information is considered in the application procedure for a prestigious individual grant.

URL : Towards a more informed and balanced use of scientific performance metrics

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvag023

Developing digital stories in research for science communication: reflections from researchers

Posted on 27 mai 2026 by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Leanne Townsend, Mikelis Grivins, Christina Noble, Claire Hardy, Livia Ortolani, Gusztáv Nemes, Marta Baena-Sanz, Mags Currie, Mar Delgado

Audiovisual communication methods such as digital storytelling can reach wide audiences to realise greater societal research impact. Increasingly, researchers embrace (or are expected to embrace) these approaches but often lack relevant skills.

This paper draws on Horizon Europe-funded research where digital stories were developed in 20 European regions. Findings from a survey completed by the researchers highlight skills- and engagement-based challenges and explore how capacity to develop digital stories was built.

The paper focuses on the role of digital storytelling in science communication, and the challenges researchers face in developing these outputs, including in ensuring meaningful participant involvement and the authentic representation of participants’ voices within the final narratives.

We discuss how to better support researchers to embrace digital storytelling as a science communication method, with recommendations for effective research impact.

URL : Developing digital stories in research for science communication: reflections from researchers

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/148520260131095010

Modeling the impact of research data unavailability on science

Posted on 27 mai 2026 by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Jorge Chamorro-Padial, Francisco-Javier Rodrigo-Ginés, Rosa Rodríguez-Sánchez, R.M. Gil, Roberto García

Scientific progress depends on the accessibility and reproducibility of research outputs. Unfortunately, datasets and other referenced resources in academic publications frequently become unavailable over time, limiting reproducibility and reuse.

In this work, we quantitatively analyze the potential impact of research data unavailability by applying economic, probabilistic, and network based models to scientific citation networks. Rather than measuring knowledge directly, we use citation based network metrics as proxies for the dissemination and potential reuse of scientific results, and study how the absence of data-linked resources affects impact propagation and productivity-related indicators.

We further examine the resilience of citation networks under different modeling assumptions and analyze the role of highly influential nodes, or superpropagators, in amplifying the effects of dataset loss.

Our results reveal structural dependencies on vulnerable data sources and show that the magnitude of the impact depends strongly on network position and model assumptions.

These findings provide quantitative evidence of the systemic consequences of data unavailability and underline the importance of long-term data preservation and accessibility policies in scientific research.

URL : Modeling the impact of research data unavailability on science

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2026.101813

Challenges of Open Access Adoption in Low-Resource Settings: Lessons From Tunisia

Posted on 22 mai 2026 by Hans Dillaerts

Author : Ridha Mhamdi

Introduction

Open Access (OA) publishing is a transformative movement that removes subscription barriers to facilitate unrestricted dissemination of scholarly research. This study aims to identify gaps in OA adoption in Tunisia, assess whether Gold OA publications enhance the visibility and impact of research, and determine how OA publishing aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Methods

Using Scopus data, we performed a bibliometric analysis of Tunisian research (2020-2024), including publication trends, citation metrics, SDG alignment, and funding sources of OA publications.

Results

Despite high regional productivity, over 60% of publications by Tunisian researchers remain paywalled, limiting their visibility. Hybrid Gold OA demonstrated the highest citation impact, while the advantage of Gold OA was constrained by publication in lower-prestige journals. Although Medicine, Computer Science, and Engineering were the dominant fields in OA output, only 40% of OA publications were aligned with the SDGs.

International collaboration, notably with Saudi Arabia, was a key driver of OA adoption. However, high article processing charges (APCs) and a heavy reliance on institutional funding present significant financial barriers.

Conclusion

Tunisia’s OA expansion is hindered by financial sustainability challenges and a misalignment with SDG-focused research. To enhance global research visibility and contribution to sustainable development, we recommend strategic policy shifts: redirecting funds from subscriptions to OA models, pursuing transformative agreements, supporting Diamond OA, and incentivizing high-impact, sustainability-focused research.

URL : Challenges of Open Access Adoption in Low-Resource Settings: Lessons From Tunisia

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.21182

Visions and Infrastructures of Open Science

Posted on 19 mai 2026 by Hans Dillaerts

Author : Parissa Mokhtabad Amrei

Open Science practices are shaping both science and policymaking. This thesis examines the visions of Open Science and their enactments through four empirical cases. It provides an understanding of what Open Science means in terms of infrastructures: in cases where Open Science practices exhibit infrastructuring efforts, where they reconfigure existing infrastructures, or where such infrastructuring efforts are not sustained.

URL : https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/552096