Archives des mots-clés : biomedical research

Fear of the academic fake? Journal editorials and the amplification of the ‘predatory publishing’ discourse

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Authors : Kelsey Inouye, David Mills

This analysis of 229 editorials and opinion pieces published in science and medical journals explores the affective discourses used to characterise so‐called predatory publishing. Most (84%, n = 193) deploy one or more of three related categories of metaphorical and figurative language (fear, fakery and exploitation) to strengthen their rhetorical case.

This paper examines the deployment, co‐occurrence and amplification of this language across the science publishing system, focusing particularly on the role of major science journals in adopting and normalising this emotive discourse.

The analysis shows how few editorials offer alternative perspectives on these developments (n = 9), and their relative invisibility in scholarly debates.

URL : Fear of the academic fake? Journal editorials and the amplification of the ‘predatory publishing’ discourse

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1377

Accuracy of PubMed-based author lists of publications and use of author identifiers to address author name ambiguity: a cross-sectional study

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Authors : Paul Sebo, Sylvain de Lucia, Nathalie Vernaz

Objective

To assess the accuracy of PubMed-based author lists of publications and use of author identifiers to address author name ambiguity.

Methods

In this Swiss study conducted in 2019, 300 hospital-based senior physicians were asked to generate a list of their publications in PubMed and complete a questionnaire (type of query used, number of errors in their list of publications, knowledge and use of ORCID and ResearcherID).

Results

156 physicians (52%) agreed to participate, 145 of whom published at least one article (mean number of publications: 60 (SD 73)). Only 17% used the advanced search option. On average, there were 5 articles in the lists that were not co-authored by participants (advanced search: 1.0 (SD 2.6) vs. 5.9 (SD 13.9), p value 0.02) and 3 articles co-authored by participants that did not appear in the lists (advanced search: 1.5 (SD 2.0) vs. 3.6 (SD 8.4), p-value 0.05). Although 82% were aware of ORCID, only 16% added all their articles (39% and 6% respectively for ResearcherID).

Conclusions

When used by senior physicians, the advanced search in PubMed is accurate for retrieving authors’ publications. Author identifiers are only used by a minority of physicians and are therefore not recommended in this context, as they would lead to inaccurate results.

URL : Accuracy of PubMed-based author lists of publications and use of author identifiers to address author name ambiguity: a cross-sectional study

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03845-3

Openness in Big Data and Data Repositories. The Application of an Ethics Framework for Big Data in Healthand Research

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Authors : Vicki Xafis, Markus K. Labude

There is a growing expectation, or even requirement, for researchers to deposit a variety of research data in data repositories as a condition of funding or publication. This expectation recognizes the enormous benefits of data collected and created for research purposes being made available for secondary uses, as open science gains increasing support.

This is particularly so in the context of big data, especially where health data is involved. There are, however, also challenges relating to the collection, storage, and re-use of research data.

This paper gives a brief overview of the landscape of data sharing via data repositories and discusses some of the key ethical issues raised by the sharing of health-related research data, including expectations of privacy and confidentiality, the transparency of repository governance structures, access restrictions, as well as data ownership and the fair attribution of credit.

To consider these issues and the values that are pertinent, the paper applies the deliberative balancing approach articulated in the Ethics Framework for Big Data in Health and Research (Xafis et al. 2019) to the domain of Openness in Big Data and Data Repositories.

Please refer to that article for more information on how this framework is to be used, including a full explanation of the key values involved and the balancing approach used in the case study at the end.

URL : Openness in Big Data and Data Repositories. The Application of an Ethics Framework for Big Data in Healthand Research

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s41649-019-00097-z

The Most Widely Disseminated COVID-19-Related Scientific Publications in Online Media: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Top 100 Articles with the Highest Altmetric Attention Scores

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Authors : Ji Yoon Moon, Dae Young Yoon, Ji Hyun Hong, Kyoung Ja Lim, Sora Baek, Young Lan Seo, Eun Joo Yun

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global pandemic. This study’s aim was to identify and characterize the top 100 COVID-19-related scientific publications, which had received the highest Altmetric Attention Scores (AASs).

Hence, we searched Altmetric Explorer using search terms such as “COVID” or “COVID-19” or “Coronavirus” or “SARS-CoV-2” or “nCoV” and then selected the top 100 articles with the highest AASs. For each article identified, we extracted the following information: the overall AAS, publishing journal, journal impact factor (IF), date of publication, language, country of origin, document type, main topic, and accessibility.

The top 100 articles most frequently were published in journals with high (>10.0) IF (n = 67), were published between March and July 2020 (n = 67), were written in English (n = 100), originated in the United States (n = 45), were original articles (n = 59), dealt with treatment and clinical manifestations (n = 33), and had open access (n = 98).

Our study provides important information pertaining to the dissemination of scientific knowledge about COVID-19 in online media.

URL : The Most Widely Disseminated COVID-19-Related Scientific Publications in Online Media: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Top 100 Articles with the Highest Altmetric Attention Scores

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9020239

Assessment of transparency indicators across the biomedical literature: How open is open?

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Authors : Stylianos Serghiou, Despina G. Contopoulos-Ioannidis, Kevin W. Boyack, Nico Riedel, Joshua D. Wallach, John P. A. Ioannidis

Recent concerns about the reproducibility of science have led to several calls for more open and transparent research practices and for the monitoring of potential improvements over time. However, with tens of thousands of new biomedical articles published per week, manually mapping and monitoring changes in transparency is unrealistic.

We present an open-source, automated approach to identify 5 indicators of transparency (data sharing, code sharing, conflicts of interest disclosures, funding disclosures, and protocol registration) and apply it across the entire open access biomedical literature of 2.75 million articles on PubMed Central (PMC).

Our results indicate remarkable improvements in some (e.g., conflict of interest [COI] disclosures and funding disclosures), but not other (e.g., protocol registration and code sharing) areas of transparency over time, and map transparency across fields of science, countries, journals, and publishers.

This work has enabled the creation of a large, integrated, and openly available database to expedite further efforts to monitor, understand, and promote transparency and reproducibility in science.

URL : Assessment of transparency indicators across the biomedical literature: How open is open?

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001107

Publication rate and citation counts for preprints released during the COVID-19 pandemic: the good, the bad and the ugly

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Authors : Diego Añazco, Bryan Nicolalde, Isabel Espinosa, Jose Camacho , Mariam Mushtaq, Jimena Gimenez, Enrique Teran

Background

Preprints are preliminary reports that have not been peer-reviewed. In December 2019, a novel coronavirus appeared in China, and since then, scientific production, including preprints, has drastically increased. In this study, we intend to evaluate how often preprints about COVID-19 were published in scholarly journals and cited.

Methods

We searched the iSearch COVID-19 portfolio to identify all preprints related to COVID-19 posted on bioRxiv, medRxiv, and Research Square from January 1, 2020, to May 31, 2020. We used a custom-designed program to obtain metadata using the Crossref public API.

After that, we determined the publication rate and made comparisons based on citation counts using non-parametric methods. Also, we compared the publication rate, citation counts, and time interval from posting on a preprint server to publication in a scholarly journal among the three different preprint servers.

Results

Our sample included 5,061 preprints, out of which 288 were published in scholarly journals and 4,773 remained unpublished (publication rate of 5.7%). We found that articles published in scholarly journals had a significantly higher total citation count than unpublished preprints within our sample (p < 0.001), and that preprints that were eventually published had a higher citation count as preprints when compared to unpublished preprints (p < 0.001).

As well, we found that published preprints had a significantly higher citation count after publication in a scholarly journal compared to as a preprint (p < 0.001). Our results also show that medRxiv had the highest publication rate, while bioRxiv had the highest citation count and shortest time interval from posting on a preprint server to publication in a scholarly journal.

Conclusions

We found a remarkably low publication rate for preprints within our sample, despite accelerated time to publication by multiple scholarly journals. These findings could be partially attributed to the unprecedented surge in scientific production observed during the COVID-19 pandemic, which might saturate reviewing and editing processes in scholarly journals.

However, our findings show that preprints had a significantly lower scientific impact, which might suggest that some preprints have lower quality and will not be able to endure peer-reviewing processes to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

URL : Publication rate and citation counts for preprints released during the COVID-19 pandemic: the good, the bad and the ugly

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10927

From Old School to Open Science: The Implications of New Research Norms for Educational Psychology and Beyond

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Authors : Hunter Gehlbach, Carly Robinson

Recently, scholars have noted how several “old school” practices—a host of well-regarded, long-standing scientific norms—in combination, sometimes compromise the credibility of research.

In response, other scholarly fields have developed several “open science” norms and practices to address these credibility issues. Against this backdrop, this special issue explores the extent to which and how these norms should be adopted and adapted for educational psychology and education more broadly.

Our introductory article contextualizes the special issue’s goals by: overviewing the historical context that led to open science norms (particularly in medicine and psychology); providing a conceptual map to illustrate the interrelationships between various old school as well as open science practices; and then describing educational psychologists’ opportunity to benefit from and contribute to the translation of these norms to novel research contexts.

We conclude by previewing the articles in the special issue.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.35542/osf.io/za7p5