Étiquette : scientific communication

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Evaluation of Faculty Knowledge of Predatory Journals in the United States: A Cross-Institutional Survey

Authors : Nicole R. Webber, Stephanie Wiegand, Jason A. Cohen, John M. Reynolds, Lisa Ancelet, Arlene V. Salazar

Predatory journals are a known hazard in modern academic research publishing, with research and anecdotal accounts indicating that they exploit inexperienced researchers. Most literature on the topic centres on specific disciplines and/or countries deemed ‘more vulnerable’ to publishing scams.

At the time of publication, no studies have examined a full range of disciplines at institutions across the United States. Our research collected responses from 1098 faculty at 17 US doctoral universities using a multi-disciplinary survey to assess self-reported knowledge and awareness of predatory publishing.

In this analysis, we investigated participants’ reported knowledge levels of predatory journals in relation to four aspects: academic discipline, years employed in academic research, number of articles published, and early career researcher status.

We conclude that the relationship between experience and knowledge of predatory publishing depends on the definition of experience employed, and that the number of recent articles published by a faculty member is a more reliable indicator of knowledge about predatory publishing than the other measures of experience investigated.

URL : Evaluation of Faculty Knowledge of Predatory Journals in the United States: A Cross-Institutional Survey

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.2020

 

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Does ChatGPT Ignore Article Retractions and Other Reliability Concerns?

Authors : Mike Thelwall, Marianna Lehtisaari, Irini Katsirea, Kim Holmberg, Er-Te Zheng

Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT seem to be increasingly used for information seeking and analysis, including to support academic literature reviews. To test whether the results might sometimes include retracted research, we identified 217 retracted or otherwise concerning academic studies with high altmetric scores and asked ChatGPT 4o-mini to evaluate their quality 30 times each.

Surprisingly, none of its 6510 reports mentioned that the articles were retracted or had relevant errors, and it gave 190 relatively high scores (world leading, internationally excellent, or close). The 27 articles with the lowest scores were mostly accused of being weak, although the topic (but not the article) was described as controversial in five cases (e.g., about hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19).

In a follow-up investigation, 61 claims were extracted from retracted articles from the set, and ChatGPT 4o-mini was asked 10 times whether each was true. It gave a definitive yes or a positive response two-thirds of the time, including for at least one statement that had been shown to be false over a decade ago.

The results therefore emphasise, from an academic knowledge perspective, the importance of verifying information from LLMs when using them for information seeking or analysis.

URL : Does ChatGPT Ignore Article Retractions and Other Reliability Concerns?

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.2018

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EN

How do women and men differ in research collaborations based on authorship positions? The Spanish case

Authors : Fernanda Morillo, Manuel Escabias, Zaida Chinchilla-Rodríguez

This study examines gender disparities in authorship and collaboration within the Spanish scientific workforce, focusing on international and industry co-authored publications. Drawing on a comprehensive dataset of over 165,000 publications and more than 170,000 identified authors affiliated with Spanish institutions, the analysis explores how gender interacts with authorship position, research field, career stage, and team size.

The results reveal a consistent under-representation of women in both types of collaboration, particularly in key authorship roles (first, last, and corresponding author). While women are more active at early career stages, their visibility in leadership roles tends to diminish over time, especially as the number of co-authors increases. Field-specific patterns show that even in highly feminized disciplines, such as Biomedical & Health Sciences, women are less likely to appear in prominent authorship positions.

These findings raise important concerns about current research assessment practices that rely heavily on byline position as a proxy for contribution or leadership. The study contributes to ongoing discussions on responsible metrics and proposes policy recommendations to promote more equitable evaluation systems that reflect the collaborative and diverse nature of research careers.

URL : How do women and men differ in research collaborations based on authorship positions? The Spanish case

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2025.1631931

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EN

Scholarly Publications: Criteria, Types, and Recognition From the Researchers’ Perspective

Authors : Christian Kaier, Lisa Schilhan, Lisa Schilhan, Hilmar Brohmer

Based on a survey, this study investigates the perceptions of researchers in Austria concerning scholarly publications, exploring criteria, types, and emerging types of publication and their future recognition. The findings reveal that researchers value a diverse set of criteria, with content-related factors prioritised over formal ones. While traditional publication types remain dominant, novel forms, such as data publications and replication studies, are gaining recognition.

Researchers (n = 616) express a desire for broader recognition of diverse types of work, particularly data publications, teaching materials, and software or code. The findings also exhibit the predominantly research-to-research focus of scholarly communication, with limited emphasis on science-to-public engagement. An analysis of career stages shows that pre-doctoral and post-doctoral researchers tend to be more open-minded than professors regarding the future recognition of some novel types of publication.

There are evident differences between disciplines, highlighting the need for a nuanced, subject-specific approach to evaluation and documentation. Overall, the survey results call for greater consideration of novel publication types in research assessment and documentation. Accordingly, libraries should enhance their research support services to assist in the publication, documentation, and archiving of additional types of publication.

URL : Scholarly Publications: Criteria, Types, and Recognition From the Researchers’ Perspective

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.2019

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EN

Inequity, precarity, and disparity: Exploring systemic and institutional barriers in open access publishing

Authors : Philips Ayeni, Vincent Larivière

Despite increasing advocacy for open access (OA), its uptake in some disciplines has remained low. Existing studies have linked the low uptake of OA in the humanities and social sciences (HSS) to disciplinary norms, limited funding for article processing charges (APCs), and researchers’ preferences.

However, there is a growing concern about inequity in the scholarly communication landscape, as OA publishing has remained unaffordable to many researchers. This study investigates systemic and institutional barriers to OA publishing in Canada, as well as strategies for improving the uptake of and equity in OA publishing.

Using semi-structured interviews, qualitative data was collected from 20 professors from the HSS disciplines of research-intensive universities in the country. Data was analyzed using the NVivo software, following the reflexive thematic analysis approach.

Findings revealed five systemic and institutional barriers to OA publishing: (1) unaffordable APCs; (2) precarious career stage and tenure requirements; (3) unequal privileges; (4) gender; and (5) conflicting and unsupportive institutional OA policies.

We conclude that there needs to be a concerted effort in promoting and funding viable and sustainable OA models, which removes the financial burden of OA publishing from researchers.

There is also an increasing need to promote OA culture within academia and provide institutional support for OA publishing. Notably, the model of academic scholarship that places prominence on journal metrics for tenure and promotion needs to be reformed. Some recommendations for reducing systemic and institutional barriers to OA publishing are provided.

URL : Inequity, precarity, and disparity: Exploring systemic and institutional barriers in open access publishing

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006251353385

 

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EN

The gender gap in scholarly self-promotion on social media

Authors : Hao Peng, Misha Teplitskiy, Daniel M. Romero, Emőke-Ágnes Horvát

Self-promotion in science is ubiquitous but may not be exercised equally by everyone. Research on self-promotion in other domains suggests that, partly due to adverse reactions to non-gender-conforming career-enhancing behaviors, women tend to self-promote less often than men.

We test whether this pattern extends to online spaces by examining scholarly self-promotion over six years using 23M tweets about 2.8M research papers authored by 3.5M scientists. We find that, overall, women are about 28% less likely than men to self-promote their papers on Twitter (now X) despite accounting for important confounds.

The differential adoption of Twitter does not fully explain the gender gap in self-promotion, which is large even in relatively gender-balanced research areas, where adversity is expected to be smaller.

Moreover, we find that the gender gap increases with higher performance and academic status, being most pronounced for research-prolific women from top-ranked institutions who publish papers in high-impact journals.

We also find differential returns with respect to gender: while self-promotion is associated with increased tweets of papers compared to no self-promotion, the increase is slightly smaller for women than for men. Our findings reveal that scholarly self-promotion online varies meaningfully by gender and can contribute to a measurable gender gap in the visibility of scientific ideas.

URL : The gender gap in scholarly self-promotion on social media

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60590-y

 

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Worth the Cost? Researchers’ Use and Experience With Commercial Services for Research Outreach

Author : Hamid R. Jamali

Introduction

Research outreach activities aim to communicate specific research findings to non-specialist audiences. In recent years, commercial outreach services have emerged that offer fee-based assistance in transforming research findings into accessible reader-friendly content, including multimedia content, and promotional material aimed at broader audiences.

They may also publish the content on their own platforms, such as magazines or websites, to further enhance research visibility and dissemination. The experiences associated with these services are poorly understood. This study examined the motivation for use, challenges, and perceived value of commercial services for research outreach among researchers.

Methods

An online questionnaire surveyed researchers who had published with two commercial services, ResearchOutreach.org or ResearchFeatures.com, between January 2022 and February 2024, yielding 104 responses (20% response rate).

Results

Most respondents used commercial services to increase their research visibility and reach a broader audience. Factors influencing researchers’ decision to use commercial services included convenience, professionalism, broad audience access, and insufficient university outreach support.Most respondents (91.5%) were satisfied with the representation of their research, and about half faced no challenges.

One-third said they would recommend the service; however, issues like content quality, time consumption, and high costs were noted. Interestingly, a third of the participants paid personally, and around 67% reported no significant impact from the publication on their work.

Discussion

While commercial outreach services can enhance research visibility, their cost-effectiveness and impact vary. A significant portion of researchers reported little to no tangible benefits from these services, which raises concerns about their cost-effectiveness and the accuracy of marketing claims.

Conclusion

This study reveals a mix of positive and negative experiences with commercial outreach services, which highlights that their usefulness depends on individual circumstances and expectations. Concerns around cost and effectiveness persist. More transparent evaluations are needed. Collaboration between institutions and service providers might help support effective research dissemination and ensure equitable access to outreach resources.

URL : Worth the Cost? Researchers’ Use and Experience With Commercial Services for Research Outreach

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.18409