bims-skolko Biomed News
on Scholarly communication
Issue of 2021‒09‒19
23 papers selected by
Thomas Krichel
Open Library Society
  1. Creating an amateur press corps of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to cover breaking science and improve lay-writing skills.
  2. Medical publishing: a flawed model in dire need of reform.
  3. Reimagining authorship guidelines to promote equity in co-produced academic collaborations.
  4. Preprint advocates must also fight for research integrity.
  5. The Journal of Craniofacial Surgery Advances to Preprint Servers; the Good the Bad and the Ugly, Getting Together at High Noon to Implement, Evaluate and Execute.
  6. Reviewers on Reviewing for Psychological, Health and Medical Journals.
  7. The importance of publishing research protocols for pharmacoeconomic studies.
  8. The Effect of Replications on Citation Patterns: Evidence From a Large-Scale Reproducibility Project.
  9. Author and journal self-citation in Emergency Medicine original research articles.
  10. Disconnected psychology and neuroscience-implications for scientific progress, replicability and the role of publishing.
  11. Reproducibility: expect less of the scientific paper.
  12. [How to write a clinical research paper that can be published].
  13. [To be or not to be: some considerations on the authorship of scientific articles].
  14. Better Writing in Scientific Publications Builds Reader Confidence and Understanding.
  15. How to write a guideline: a proposal for a manuscript template that supports the creation of trustworthy guidelines.
  16. Open Pharma recommendations for plain language summaries of peer-reviewed medical journal publications.
  17. Improving and spreading plain language summaries of peer-reviewed medical journal publications.
  18. [Care to share: Four lessons we can learn from data sharing in older person care research].
  19. Revisiting open-access versus non-open-access conventional publications in cytopathology.
  20. Reporting quality of abstracts of randomized controlled trials related to implant dentistry.
  21. Opening the door to Open Access.
  22. A COVID-19 publishing revolution? Not yet.
  23. Open - An Obvious Concept!
  1. J Clin Transl Sci. 2021 ;5(1): e150
    Creating an amateur press corps of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to cover breaking science and improve lay-writing skills.
    Kimberly McGhee, Tammy Loucks, Sheila Champlin, Matthew Greseth, Paula Traktman.
      The Science Writing Initiative for Trainees is a science communications internship program for biomedical graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at the Medical University of South Carolina. Interns serve as an amateur press corps, writing news stories and press releases about recent high-impact research articles. Since 2016, 25 interns have written more than 100 EurekAlert! press releases that have received more than a half million views. Interns learn to explain science across the translational spectrum and to convey findings in plain language to a lay audience, serving as ambassadors for science.
    Keywords:  Science communications; career development; general public; graduate education; interdisciplinary; internship; lay public; plain language; science writing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1017/cts.2021.829
  2. Eur J Psychiatry. 2021 Sep 06.
    Medical publishing: a flawed model in dire need of reform.
    N Gupta, S Kapur.
      Recently, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, high-profile retractions of some papers published in prestigious medical journals have highlighted the necessity for structural reform to the current model of medical publishing. We discuss what ails the current system and what can be done to remedy it.
    Keywords:  Misconduct publishing open access fraud research
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpsy.2020.12.001
  3. Glob Public Health. 2021 Sep 14. 1-13
    Reimagining authorship guidelines to promote equity in co-produced academic collaborations.
    Sam Miles, Alicia Renedo, Cicely Marston.
      Authorship of academic papers is a currency that can bring career advantages in academia and other industries. How authorship should be decided is not always clear, particularly in co-produced research with non-academic collaborators, for which existing authorship guidelines are largely silent. In this paper, we critically reflect on what constitutes written authorship in the context of co-produced health research. We present examples from our own work to illustrate the argument we make, including publishing a co-authored paper with non-academic partners. We consider questions of what constitutes authorship and how it is mutually understood. We discuss some of the opportunities and limits to participation and how these might translate into academic authorship as a collaborative research output. Finally, we explore the potential of authorship guidelines as a resource for critical reflection on what we mean by co-produced work and how we recognise contributions to global health research. We suggest that authorship guidelines should be adapted to encourage attribution of co-produced research to include non-academic as well as academic collaborators, and we provide a draft guideline for how this might be done.
    Keywords:  Authorship; co-production; community participation; ethics; patient and public involvement
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2021.1971277
  4. Nature. 2021 Sep 13.
    Preprint advocates must also fight for research integrity.
    Gowri Gopalakrishna.
      
    Keywords:  Publishing; Research management
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02481-y
  5. J Craniofac Surg. 2021 Sep 01. 32(6): 1967-1968
    The Journal of Craniofacial Surgery Advances to Preprint Servers; the Good the Bad and the Ugly, Getting Together at High Noon to Implement, Evaluate and Execute.
    Mutaz B Habal.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/SCS.0000000000008065
  6. J Clin Psychol Med Settings. 2021 Sep 18.
    Reviewers on Reviewing for Psychological, Health and Medical Journals.
    Barry A Hong, Elizabeth D Cash, Barbara A Cubic, Danny Wedding.
      Being a reviewer is an honor and it continues to be a very rewarding experience throughout a career. Reviewers get the opportunity to maintain scientific standards and assist in growing the scientific psychological literature. Being a reviewer enhances and integrates scientific values and clinical skills following the scientist-practitioner model. However, for the inexperienced reviewer, the experience can be very scary and intimidating. Everyone's experience with reviewing is highly personal and at the same time, the activity is both common and universal for academic psychologists. In this interview article, three seasoned reviewers respond to questions about their experience as journal reviewers reflecting in their answers their collective wisdom and knowledge in this area.
    Keywords:  Edit; Ethics; Medical; Psychological; Review
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10880-021-09821-0
  7. Eur J Hosp Pharm. 2021 Sep 15. pii: ejhpharm-2021-002987. [Epub ahead of print]
    The importance of publishing research protocols for pharmacoeconomic studies.
    Aniek Dane, Anne-Sophie Klein Gebbink, P Hugo M van der Kuy.
      
    Keywords:  clinical trial; commerce; economics; pharmaceutical; pharmacy administration; research design
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1136/ejhpharm-2021-002987
  8. Psychol Sci. 2021 Sep 17. 9567976211005767
    The Effect of Replications on Citation Patterns: Evidence From a Large-Scale Reproducibility Project.
    Felix Schafmeister.
      Replication of existing research is often referred to as one of the cornerstones of modern science. In this study, I tested whether the publication of independent replication attempts affects the citation patterns of the original studies. Investigating 95 replications conducted in the context of the Reproducibility Project: Psychology, I found little evidence for an adjustment of citation patterns in response to the publication of these independent replication attempts. This finding was robust to the choice of replication criterion, various model specifications, and the composition of the contrast group. I further present some suggestive evidence that shifts in the underlying composition of supporting and disputing citations have likely been small. I conclude with a review of the evidence in favor of the remaining explanations and discuss the potential consequences of these findings for the workings of the scientific process.
    Keywords:  open data; preregistered; scientific communication; statistical analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976211005767
  9. Am J Emerg Med. 2021 Sep 06. pii: S0735-6757(21)00740-3. [Epub ahead of print]50 481-485
    Author and journal self-citation in Emergency Medicine original research articles.
    Muhuntha Sri-Ganeshan, Kimberly P Walker, Travis J Lines, Tom J L Neal-Williams, David McD Taylor.
      OBJECTIVE: To determine author and journal self-citation rates in a sample of original emergency medicine (EM) research articles.METHODS: We undertook a retrospective observational study of original research articles published in 2019 in the top six English language general EM journals. Data comprised the total numbers of articles, citations, authors and self-citations for each author (author self-citations) as well as the number of articles in the reference list that had been previously published in the same journal (journal self-citations).
    RESULTS: 3213 individual authors and 581 articles were examined. Most authors did not self-cite at all although 62 self-cited five or more times in a single article. The mean (SD) and median (IQR) numbers of individual author self-citations/article/year were 0.6 (1.3) and 0 (0-1), respectively. Overall, author self-citations accounted for 2.4% of all cited articles. There was a weak positive but significant correlation between the number of individual author self-citations/article/year and the number of articles published by the author (r = 0.38, p < 0.001). There was no correlation between the journal impact factor (IF) and the author self-citation rate (r = 0.14, p = 0.79). The journals differed significantly in their author self-citation rates (p < 0.001). Annals of Emergency Medicine had the highest journal self-citation rate at 8.1% (95%CI 7.0%-9.2%) self-citations/100 citations/year, almost twice that of some other journals. There was a large but non-significant positive correlation between the journal IF and journal self-citation rates (r = 0.78, p = 0.07).
    CONCLUSION: Both author and journal self-citation rates in the articles examined are relatively low compared to other medical and scientific disciplines.
    Keywords:  Authorship; Journal; Research; Self-citation
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajem.2021.09.005
  10. Commun Biol. 2021 Sep 17. 4(1): 1099
    Disconnected psychology and neuroscience-implications for scientific progress, replicability and the role of publishing.
    Christian Beste.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02634-9
  11. Nature. 2021 Sep;597(7876): 329-331
    Reproducibility: expect less of the scientific paper.
    Olavo B Amaral, Kleber Neves.
      
    Keywords:  Publishing; Research data; Research management
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02486-7
  12. Zhonghua Yi Xue Za Zhi. 2021 Sep 14. 101(34): 2658-2661
    [How to write a clinical research paper that can be published].
    Y M Zhao, H L Chu.
      A clinical research paper which could be published should be based on a qualified clinical research, which includes a reasonable topic from clinical settings, concentrating resources to answer a question, having new findings and drawing concrete conclusions. The author should prepare a scientific story, which originates from clinical scenarios, with working hypothesis and research design, standardized organization and implementation, reasonable analysis and evaluation. The conclusion should be based on the research results, and go back to the problems and needs to form a closed loop. The key point of writing a clinical research paper is to provide complete information and show a complete research process according to the writing format and specification of the paper. Finally, the key points of the current paper help avoid detours and improve the probability of paper publication.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3760/cma.j.cn112137-20210510-01105
  13. J Healthc Qual Res. 2021 Sep-Oct;36(5):pii: S2603-6479(21)00076-2. [Epub ahead of print]36(5): 251-252
    [To be or not to be: some considerations on the authorship of scientific articles].
    Manuel Arranz.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhqr.2021.08.001
  14. Front Psychol. 2021 ;12 714321
    Better Writing in Scientific Publications Builds Reader Confidence and Understanding.
    Benjamin S Freeling, Zoë A Doubleday, Matthew J Dry, Carolyn Semmler, Sean D Connell.
      Scientific publications are the building blocks of discovery and collaboration, but their impact is limited by the style in which they are traditionally written. Recently, many authors have called for a switch to an engaging, accessible writing style. Here, we experimentally test how readers respond to such a style. We hypothesized that scientific abstracts written in a more accessible style would improve readers' reported readability and confidence as well as their understanding, assessed using multiple-choice questions on the content. We created a series of scientific abstracts, corresponding to real publications on three scientific topics at four levels of difficulty-varying from the difficult, traditional style to an engaging, accessible style. We gave these abstracts to a team of readers consisting of 170 third-year undergraduate students. Then, we posed questions to measure the readers' readability, confidence, and understanding with the content. The scientific abstracts written in a more accessible style resulted in higher readability, understanding, and confidence. These findings demonstrate that rethinking the way we communicate our science may empower a more collaborative and diverse industry.
    Keywords:  accessibility; confidence; interdisciplinarity; readability; scientific writing; traditional style; understanding
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.714321
  15. Blood Adv. 2021 Sep 14. pii: bloodadvances.2020003577. [Epub ahead of print]
    How to write a guideline: a proposal for a manuscript template that supports the creation of trustworthy guidelines.
    Robby Nieuwlaat, Wojtek Wiercioch, Jan L Brożek, Nancy Ann Marie Santesso, Robert Kunkle, Pablo Alonso-Coello, David R Anderson, Shannon Bates, Mary Cushman, Philipp Dahm, Alfonso Iorio, Wendy Lim, Gary H Lyman, Saskia Middeldorp, Paul Monagle, Reem A Mustafa, Ignacio Neumann, Thomas Ortel, Bram Rochwerg, Sara K Vesely, Daniel M Witt, Adam Cuker, Holger J Schunemann.
      Trustworthy health guidelines should provide recommendations, document the development process, and highlight implementation information. Our objective was to develop a guideline manuscript template to help authors write a complete and useful report. The McMaster Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) centre collaborated with the American Society of Hematology (ASH) to develop guidelines for the management of venous thromboembolism. A template for reporting the guidelines was developed based on prior approaches and refined using input from other key stakeholders. The proposed guideline manuscript template includes: 1) title for guideline identification; 2) abstract, including a summary of key recommendations; 3) overview of all recommendations [executive summary]; 4) the main text, providing sufficient detail on the entire process including objectives, background, and methodological decisions from panel selection and conflict of interest management to criteria for updating, as well as supporting information such as links to online (interactive) tables. The template further allows for tailoring to the specific topic, using examples. Initial experience with the ASH guideline manuscript template was positive, and challenges included drafting descriptions of recommendations involving multiple management pathways, tailoring the template for a specific guideline, and choosing key recommendations to highlight. Feedback from a larger group of guideline authors and users will be needed to evaluate its usefulness and refine. The proposed guideline manuscript template is the first detailed template for transparent and complete reporting of guidelines. Consistent application of the template may simplify preparing an evidence-based guideline manuscript and facilitate its use.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1182/bloodadvances.2020003577
  16. Curr Med Res Opin. 2021 Sep 12. 1-2
    Open Pharma recommendations for plain language summaries of peer-reviewed medical journal publications.
    Adeline Rosenberg, Slávka Baróniková, Linda Feighery, William Gattrell, Rikke Egelund Olsen, Adam Watson, Tim Koder, Christopher Winchester.
      Plain language summaries of peer-reviewed medical journal publications are a means of sharing research with a broad range of audiences and may improve the transparency, accountability, accessibility, discoverability, and inclusivity of medical research. There is currently an ongoing, industry-wide effort to establish consensus on plain language summaries, and initiatives are already in place that provide detailed guidance on plain language best practice, co-creation methods, patient-focused content, graphic and digital considerations, and publisher-specific guidelines. However, there remains a need for a foundational set of recommendations that complement existing initiatives to outline the minimum steps needed to develop discoverable, plain language summaries that are trustworthy, credible, and of high quality. Here, we present the Open Pharma recommendations for plain language summaries of peer-reviewed medical journal publications. These recommendations were initially developed by the Open Pharma Accessibility workstream and were extensively reviewed and refined during an expert roundtable and a focused, public consultation. Open Pharma is a multi-sponsor collaboration of pharmaceutical companies, non-pharmaceutical funders, publishers, patients, academics, regulators, editors, and societies seeking to identify and drive positive changes in the publishing of pharmaceutical company-funded research. We recommend that plain language summaries should be in the style of an abstract, free of technical jargon, unbiased, non-promotional, peer reviewed, and easily accessed. Plain language summaries should also meet the technical requirements to be indexed in directories such as PubMed. Ultimately, these recommendations are intended to be a concise outline of a minimum standard that provides top-line guidance on plain language summaries for authors, medical writers, publishers, and research funders.
    Keywords:  Plain language summary; accessibility; discoverability; inclusivity pharmaceutical research; public engagement
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/03007995.2021.1971185
  17. Curr Med Res Opin. 2021 Sep 12. 1-2
    Improving and spreading plain language summaries of peer-reviewed medical journal publications.
    Richard Smith.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/03007995.2021.1974824
  18. Tijdschr Gerontol Geriatr. 2021 Sep 07. 52(3):
    [Care to share: Four lessons we can learn from data sharing in older person care research].
    Juliëtte Beuken, Maaike Muntinga, René Melis, Jane Cramm, Jenny van der Steen, Karin Habets, Franca Leeuwis.
      Sharing data offers opportunities to make research into older person care more efficient. However, this is not yet common practice in the Netherlands. To optimally utilize the potential of data sharing, insight into factors that promote the implementation of data sharing in older person care research is important. In the TOPICS-MDS project, research data from the National Program for Older Person Care (NPO) was collected, managed and reused on a large scale. The experiences of stakeholders involved in this project can teach us more about the needs researchers have when sharing their data. For this study, we interviewed 23 people involved in different ways in data sharing in TOPICS-MDS about their experiences in the data sharing process. Thematic analysis yielded four overarching themes, which we converted into the following lessons: those who want to promote data sharing must ensure 1) visibility of the added value of data sharing, 2) trust in the database, 3) transparency of the process and 4) communication. These lessons complement the results of previous research with concrete advice. Optimizing data sharing in older person research is both promising and challenging. It requires dedication and involvement from both the researcher and the research participant, and appreciation for both.
    Keywords:  Data sharing; Geriatric Health Services; Qualitative Evaluation; Research
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.36613/tgg.1875-6832/2021.03.01
  19. Cytojournal. 2021 ;18 21
    Revisiting open-access versus non-open-access conventional publications in cytopathology.
    Andre Kajdacsy-Balla, Vinod B Shidham.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.25259/Cytojournal_37_2021
  20. J Periodontol. 2021 Sep 13.
    Reporting quality of abstracts of randomized controlled trials related to implant dentistry.
    Max C Menne, Nikolaos Pandis, Clovis M Faggion.
      BACKGROUND: Abstracts of scientific articles should be accurate and detailed in summarizing the information in the full-text because they are the first article section the reader examines. This study assessed the reporting quality of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) abstracts related to implant dentistry and examined associations between reporting quality and study characteristics.METHODS: On the 17th of January 2021, we searched the PubMed database for abstracts of RCTs published in high-ranked periodontology and implant dentistry journals from 2016 to 2021. For each abstract, we assessed if the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials for abstracts (CONSORT-A) checklist items were reported completely, partially, or not reported. An Overall CONSORT Score (OCS) and relative score (OCS%) were calculated as a proxy to checklist adherance. Linear regression models were fitted to analyze associations between trial characteristics and completeness of reporting.
    RESULTS: Four-hundred and thirty four of the 678 retrieved abstracts were eligible for inclusion. The mean OCS and OCS% were 6,23 (standard deviation [SD] = 1.56) or 41.5% (SD = 10.4), respectively. Items most frequently reported included the title (n = 434; 100%), intended intervention (n = 425; 98%) and conclusions (n = 430; 99%). Participant allocation, blinding, and trial registration were rarely completely reported with frequencies of 2%, 3% and 4%, respectively. We found that number of authors, continent, type of RCT, number of centers, report of ethical approval, funding, structure and length of the abstract were associated with better abstract reporting.
    CONCLUSION: The reporting quality of abstracts in RCTs related to implant dentistry is suboptimal. Journals should start to incorporate and endorse the use of the CONSORT-A guidelines in their instructions to authors to enhance reporting quality. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/JPER.21-0396
  21. Australas J Ageing. 2021 Sep;40(3): 235-236
    Opening the door to Open Access.
    Debra L Waters.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/ajag.12996
  22. Science. 2021 09 10. 373(6560): 1182-1183
    A COVID-19 publishing revolution? Not yet.
    Jeffrey Brainard.
      [Figure: see text].
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1126/science.acx9043
  23. Chimia (Aarau). 2021 Sep 15. 75(9): 808-809
    Open - An Obvious Concept!
    Lars Bjørnshauge.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2533/chimia.2021.808
This page is being maintained by Thomas Krichel. It was last updated on 2021‒09‒21 at 02:09:40.