bims-skolko Biomed News
on Scholarly communication
Issue of 2022‒11‒20
sixteen papers selected by
Thomas Krichel
Open Library Society
  1. Is novel research worth doing? Evidence from peer review at 49 journals.
  2. Clinical Images in Dermatology Manuscripts - A Study of Journal Submission Guidelines.
  3. Pressure to publish is 'fuelling illegal practices in palaeontology'.
  4. Readership awareness series - Paper 2: Conflict of interest.
  5. Academic Tracker: Software for tracking and reporting publications associated with authors and grants.
  6. Dissemination of doctor of nursing practice project findings: Benefits and challenges associated with publishing in healthcare journals.
  7. Proper Scholarly Writing for Non-Native English-Speaking Authors: Choosing Active and Passive Voice, Rewording, and Refining Texts.
  8. Learning by Doing: Student & Faculty Reflections on a Collaborative Model for Conducting and Publishing Mixed Methods Research in a Graduate Course.
  9. Status quo of systematic reviews published in high-impact journals in Korea: A study focused on protocol registration and GRADE use.
  10. Clinical Trial Data-sharing Policies Among Journals, Funding Agencies, Foundations, and Other Professional Organizations: A Scoping Review.
  11. On the importance of metadata when sharing and opening data.
  12. Contextualizing Gender Disparity in Editorship in Psychological Science.
  13. The Covid-19 pandemic and publishing in nutrition and dietetics.
  14. Institution and gender-related differences in publication speed before and during COVID-19.
  15. The evolution of the British Journal of Anaesthesia: the first 100 years.
  16. Leadership of AAAP scientists and journals in animal science: achievements, limitations, and challenges.
  1. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022 Nov 22. 119(47): e2118046119
    Is novel research worth doing? Evidence from peer review at 49 journals.
    Misha Teplitskiy, Hao Peng, Andrea Blasco, Karim R Lakhani.
      There are long-standing concerns that peer review, which is foundational to scientific institutions like journals and funding agencies, favors conservative ideas over novel ones. We investigate the association between novelty and the acceptance of manuscripts submitted to a large sample of scientific journals. The data cover 20,538 manuscripts submitted between 2013 and 2018 to the journals Cell and Cell Reports and 6,785 manuscripts submitted in 2018 to 47 journals published by the Institute of Physics Publishing. Following previous work that found that a balance of novel and conventional ideas predicts citation impact, we measure the novelty and conventionality of manuscripts by the atypicality of combinations of journals in their reference lists, taking the 90th percentile most atypical combination as "novelty" and the 50th percentile as "conventionality." We find that higher novelty is consistently associated with higher acceptance; submissions in the top novelty quintile are 6.5 percentage points more likely than bottom quintile ones to get accepted. Higher conventionality is also associated with acceptance (+16.3% top-bottom quintile difference). Disagreement among peer reviewers was not systematically related to submission novelty or conventionality, and editors select strongly for novelty even conditional on reviewers' recommendations (+7.0% top-bottom quintile difference). Manuscripts exhibiting higher novelty were more highly cited. Overall, the findings suggest that journal peer review favors novel research that is well situated in the existing literature, incentivizing exploration in science and challenging the view that peer review is inherently antinovelty.
    Keywords:  bias; novelty; peer review; publishing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2118046119
  2. Indian Dermatol Online J. 2022 Nov-Dec;13(6):13(6): 734-736
    Clinical Images in Dermatology Manuscripts - A Study of Journal Submission Guidelines.
    Feroze Kaliyadan, Paola Pasquali, Karalikkattil T Ashique, Puravoor Jayasree, Mahdi Al Dhafiri.
      Background: Images are an important element of any scientific publication, more so for a very visual specialty such as dermatology. Dermatology journals generally include detailed instructions related to images submitted with the manuscripts, including technical aspects such as file format, resolution, and editing. We aimed to review and critically analyze instructions for images in the top 50 dermatology journals [as per the latest Clarivate journal citation report (JCR) ranking].Methods: The top 50 journals as per the latest Clarivate JCR were included in the study. Instructions for images were reviewed for each of the journals. The main points analyzed included file type, resolution, size limits, editing limits, support for post-processing of images and details regarding patient consent.
    Results: Only half the journals (25) had clear, detailed, and specific instructions for the images. Only one journal specifically mentioned pixels per inch (PPI) as the descriptive term, and the remaining used dots per inch (DPI), whereas 6 did not mention either. Twenty-three journals did not mention the recommended size of the image. The most common minimum resolution mentioned was 300 DPI (41 journals). Although 24 of the journals mentioned editing limits, none of the journals elaborated on image plagiarism in the instructions. Twenty-one of the fifty did not mention a clear policy on patient consent.
    Conclusions: Image submission guidelines for dermatology journals need to be made more elaborate yet easier to understand. Developing a consensus, followed by standardization of these submission guidelines, can help both authors and journals.
    Keywords:  Clinical images; consent; dermatology images; journal instructions; resolution; scientific publication
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4103/idoj.idoj_223_22
  3. Nature. 2022 Nov 16.
    Pressure to publish is 'fuelling illegal practices in palaeontology'.
    Clare Watson.
      
    Keywords:  Palaeontology; Publishing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03745-x
  4. Ocul Surf. 2022 Nov 13. pii: S1542-0124(22)00096-9. [Epub ahead of print]
    Readership awareness series - Paper 2: Conflict of interest.
    Mohammad Javed Ali, Ali Djalilian.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtos.2022.11.004
  5. PLoS One. 2022 ;17(11): e0277834
    Academic Tracker: Software for tracking and reporting publications associated with authors and grants.
    P Travis Thompson, Christian D Powell, Hunter N B Moseley.
      In recent years, United States federal funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), have implemented public access policies to make research supported by funding from these federal agencies freely available to the public. Enforcement is primarily through annual and final reports submitted to these funding agencies, where all peer-reviewed publications must be registered through the appropriate mechanism as required by the specific federal funding agency. Unreported and/or incorrectly reported papers can result in delayed acceptance of annual and final reports and even funding delays for current and new research grants. So, it's important to make sure every peer-reviewed publication is reported properly and in a timely manner. For large collaborative research efforts, the tracking and proper registration of peer-reviewed publications along with generation of accurate annual and final reports can create a large administrative burden. With large collaborative teams, it is easy for these administrative tasks to be overlooked, forgotten, or lost in the shuffle. In order to help with this reporting burden, we have developed the Academic Tracker software package, implemented in the Python 3 programming language and supporting Linux, Windows, and Mac operating systems. Academic Tracker helps with publication tracking and reporting by comprehensively searching major peer-reviewed publication tracking web portals, including PubMed, Crossref, ORCID, and Google Scholar, given a list of authors. Academic Tracker provides highly customizable reporting templates so information about the resulting publications is easily transformed into appropriate formats for tracking and reporting purposes. The source code and extensive documentation is hosted on GitHub (https://moseleybioinformaticslab.github.io/academic_tracker/) and is also available on the Python Package Index (https://pypi.org/project/academic_tracker) for easy installation.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277834
  6. Nurs Outlook. 2022 Nov 14. pii: S0029-6554(22)00146-4. [Epub ahead of print]
    Dissemination of doctor of nursing practice project findings: Benefits and challenges associated with publishing in healthcare journals.
    Francisco J Ayala, Evan DeBoard, Julee Waldrop, Katherine Pereira, Marilyn H Oermann, Susan G Silva.
      BACKGROUND: Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programs require a project to improve outcomes in a health care setting. However, dissemination methods vary.PURPOSE: This evaluation examined benefits and challenges associated with submitting project manuscripts to a peer-reviewed health care journal in a DNP program with this requirement.
    METHODS: Benefits and challenges were assessed with surveys completed by 85 DNP program alumni and 28 DNP mentors and by interviewing 5 faculty who teach in the DNP program and 5 editors of nursing journals.
    FINDINGS: Benefits of completing a manuscript included sharing knowledge to improve health care outcomes and enhancing nursing scholarship. Among alumni, 81% reported manuscript development was beneficial and 69% published their work. Most students, most faculty, and all editors endorsed the requirement with alternatives for projects lacking rigor or innovation. Challenges included need for faculty involvement and editorial/statistical resources.
    DISCUSSION: Despite challenges, there are benefits of publishing rigorous and innovative DNP work.
    Keywords:  DNP manuscript requirement; DNP scholarly projects; Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP); Writing for publication
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2022.07.011
  7. J Korean Med Sci. 2022 11 14. 37(44): e312
    Proper Scholarly Writing for Non-Native English-Speaking Authors: Choosing Active and Passive Voice, Rewording, and Refining Texts.
    Takako Kojima, Helena A Popiel.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2022.37.e312
  8. Innov High Educ. 2022 Nov 04. 1-18
    Learning by Doing: Student & Faculty Reflections on a Collaborative Model for Conducting and Publishing Mixed Methods Research in a Graduate Course.
    Gina R Costello, Kimberly R Davis, Oliver S Crocco.
      Due to time constraints and faculty resources, one-semester research methods courses, especially mixed methods, often do not result in meaningful student-produced work that contributes to scholarly literature. As publishing increasingly becomes expected for graduate students, instructors may seek ways to incorporate publishing opportunities into course curriculum. This case study presents one instructor's collaborative teaching and publishing model along with graduate student feedback and recommendations for reproducibility of the course model. The model described in the course-based research model vignette was designed to give students practical experience working with raw data, presenting preliminary findings, navigating the IRB process, drafting a manuscript, determining authorship, and identifying and submitting the manuscript to a journal. Acknowledging the importance of and the challenges to graduate student publishing, the instructor in this case study sought to reduce some of the barriers for students. Post-course, the researchers employed a single-case study methodology that includes elements of participatory action research to answer research questions about student participants' learning experiences related to conducting a collaborative mixed methods study and the research and publishing process. The interview protocol included questions about the participants' perceptions about the success of the collaborative teaching methods to teach mixed methods research, their prior experience with research projects, and their interest and engagement with the publishing process during and after the course. The discussion includes practical information for instructors interested in implementing a similar model.
    Keywords:  case study; collaborative publishing; faculty student collaboration; graduate students; mixed methods; research methods
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-022-09629-2
  9. Epidemiol Health. 2022 Nov 15. e2022108
    Status quo of systematic reviews published in high-impact journals in Korea: A study focused on protocol registration and GRADE use.
    Mi Ah Han, Seong Jung Kim, Eu Chang Hwang, Jae Hung Jung.
      Objectives: This study investigated the status quo of systematic reviews published in major journals in Korea from the perspective of protocol registration and adopting the grading of recommendation, assessment, development and evaluation (GRADE) system.Methods: We examined systematic reviews published in Korea's top 15 medical journals from 2018 to 2021. Teams of two reviewers assessed the study eligibility criteria and extracted data independently and in duplicate. We collected the information on study characteristics, protocol registration, GRADE use of reviews included, and reviewed the "Instructions to Authors" of the selected journals to assess any guidance related to systematic reviews.
    Results: Out of the 126 identified reviews, 18 (14.3%) reported that they registered or published their protocol. Only 5 (4.0%) rated the certainty of evidence; and all 5 used the GRADE system. Only 6 of 15 journals mentioned systematic reviews in their "Instructions for Authors." Six journals endorsed Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) for systematic review reporting; however, 2 were mandatory, 3 were recommended, and 1 was unclear. None of the journals included mentioned protocol registration or certainty of evidence in their authors' guidelines.
    Conclusion: Overall, the proportion of prior protocol registration of systematic reviews and adoption of the GRADE approach to rate the certainty of evidence was very low. Our study highlights the adherence to the systematic review standards of medical journals in Korea, including a prior protocol registration and certainty of evidence assessment. Our review helps improve the quality of systematic reviews in Korea.
    Keywords:  Editorial policies; GRADE approach; Guidelines; Journal article; Research report; Systematic review
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4178/epih.e2022108
  10. J Clin Epidemiol. 2022 Nov 11. pii: S0895-4356(22)00289-X. [Epub ahead of print]
    Clinical Trial Data-sharing Policies Among Journals, Funding Agencies, Foundations, and Other Professional Organizations: A Scoping Review.
    Austin L Johnson, J Michael Anderson, Max Bouvette, Israel Pinero, Shelby Rauh, Bradley Johnson, Micah Kee, Benjamin Heigle, Andrea C Tricco, Matthew J Page, Patti McCall Wright, Matt Vassar.
      OBJECTIVES: To identify the similarities and differences in data-sharing policies for clinical trial data that are endorsed by biomedical journals, funding agencies, and other professional organizations. Additionally, to determine the beliefs, and opinions regarding data-sharing policies for clinical trials discussed in articles published in biomedical journals.STUDY DESIGN: Two searches were conducted, a bibliographic search for published articles that present beliefs, opinions, similarities, and differences regarding policies governing the sharing of clinical trial data. The second search analyzed the gray literature (non-peer-reviewed publications) to identify important data-sharing policies in selected biomedical journals, foundations, funding agencies, and other professional organizations.
    RESULTS: A total of 471 articles were included after database search and screening, with 45 from the bibliographic search and 426 from the gray literature search. A total of 424 data-sharing policies were included. Fourteen of the 45 published articles from the bibliographic search (31.1%) discussed only advantages specific to data-sharing policies, 27 (27/45; 60%) discussed both advantages and disadvantages, and 4 (4/45; 8.9%) discussed only disadvantages specific. A total of 216 journals (of 270; 80%) specified a data-sharing policy provided by the journal itself. One hundred industry data-sharing policies were included, and 32 (32%) referenced a data-sharing policy on their website. One hundred and thirty-six (42%) organizations (of 327) specified a data-sharing policy.
    CONCLUSION: We found many similarities listed as advantages to data-sharing and fewer disadvantages were discussed within the literature. Additionally, we found a wide variety of commonalities and differences - such as the lack of standardization between policies, and inadequately addressed details regarding the accessibility of research data - that exist in data-sharing policies endorsed by biomedical journals, funding agencies, and other professional organizations. Our study may not include information on all data sharing policies and our data is limited to the entities' descriptions of each policy.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2022.11.009
  11. BMC Genom Data. 2022 Nov 12. 23(1): 79
    On the importance of metadata when sharing and opening data.
    Francois Sabot.
      While data sharing increases, most open data are difficult to re-use or to identify due to the lack of related metada. In this editorial, I discussed about the importance of those metadata in the context of genomic, and why they are mandatory to ensure the success of data sharing.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12863-022-01095-1
  12. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2022 Nov 14. 17456916221117159
    Contextualizing Gender Disparity in Editorship in Psychological Science.
    Zhicheng Lin, Ningxi Li.
      Discourse on gender diversity tends to overlook differences across levels of hierarchy (e.g., students, faculty, and editors) and critical dimensions (e.g., subdisciplines and geographical locations). Further ignored is its intersection with global diversity-representation from different countries. Here we document and contextualize gender disparity from perspectives of equal versus expected representation in journal editorship, by analyzing 68 top psychology journals in 10 subdisciplines. First, relative to ratios as students and faculty, women are underrepresented as editorial-board members (41%) and-unlike previous results based on one subfield-as editors-in-chief (34%) as well. Second, female ratios in editorship vary substantially across subdisciplines, genres of scholarship (higher in empirical and review journals than in method journals), continents/countries/regions (e.g., higher in North America than in Europe), and journal countries of origin (e.g., higher in American journals than in European journals). Third, under female (vs. male) editors-in-chief, women are much better represented as editorial-board members (47% vs. 36%), but the geographical diversity of editorial-board members and authorship decreases. These results reveal new local and broad contexts of gender diversity in editorship in psychology, with policy implications. Our approach also offers a methodological guideline for similar disparity research in other fields.
    Keywords:  editorship; gender diversity; global diversity; policy; psychology
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916221117159
  13. J Hum Nutr Diet. 2022 Dec;35(6): 1012-1015
    The Covid-19 pandemic and publishing in nutrition and dietetics.
    Simon C Langley-Evans.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/jhn.13060
  14. PLoS One. 2022 ;17(11): e0277011
    Institution and gender-related differences in publication speed before and during COVID-19.
    Claudia Acciai, Benjamin C Holding, Jesper W Schneider, Mathias W Nielsen.
      The COVID-19 pandemic elicited a substantial hike in journal submissions and a global push to get medical evidence quickly through the review process. Editorial decisions and peer-assessments were made under intensified time constraints, which may have amplified social disparities in the outcomes of peer-reviewing, especially for COVID-19 related research. This study quantifies the differential impact of the pandemic on the duration of the peer-review process for women and men and for scientists at different strata of the institutional-prestige hierarchy. Using mixed-effects regression models with observations clustered at the journal level, we analysed newly available data on the submission and acceptance dates of 78,085 medical research articles published in 2019 and 2020. We found that institution-related disparities in the average time from manuscript submission to acceptance increased marginally in 2020, although half of the observed change was driven by speedy reviews of COVID-19 research. For COVID-19 papers, we found more substantial institution-related disparities in review times in favour of authors from highly-ranked institutions. Descriptive survival plots also indicated that scientists with prestigious affiliations benefitted more from fast-track peer reviewing than did colleagues from less reputed institutions. This difference was more pronounced for journals with a single-blind review procedure compared to journals with a double-blind review procedure. Gender-related changes in the duration of the peer-review process were small and inconsistent, although we observed a minor difference in the average review time of COVID-19 papers first authored by women and men.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277011
  15. Br J Anaesth. 2022 Nov 12. pii: S0007-0912(22)00583-9. [Epub ahead of print]
    The evolution of the British Journal of Anaesthesia: the first 100 years.
    William Fitch, Graham Smith, Jennifer M Hunter, Charles S Reilly, Ravi P Mahajan, Hugh C Hemmings.
      At this centenary of the British Journal of Anaesthesia (BJA) in 2023, six of its 12 editors/editors-in-chief detail developments over the decades that have led to the BJA becoming a high-impact international scientific journal. As a charity, the BJA supports academic research and training in anaesthesia, critical care, and pain medicine including funding of research grants and postgraduate education. Building on this foundation, the BJA continues to innovate as it aims to become fully electronic, expand into open access publishing, and increase the diversity of its editorial board.
    Keywords:  electronic publishing; general anaesthesia; history of medicine; peer review; publication metrics
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bja.2022.10.013
  16. Anim Biosci. 2022 Nov 14.
    Leadership of AAAP scientists and journals in animal science: achievements, limitations, and challenges.
    Jong Kyu Ha.
      The Asian-Australasian Association of Animal Production Societies (AAAP), the only international scientific organization in animal science representing Asia and Pacific region, showed a remarkable development since its inception in 1980. The number of member countries increased from 8 to 19 while 19 congresses were held in 11 different member countries. The AAAP also helped creating the official journal, Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences in 1988 with the title being changed to Animal Bioscience in 2021. It is an open access journal indexed by most global databases and has become one of the most respected global journals in animal science. Through scientific meetings and journal publication, the AAAP has made a tremendous contribution to the advancement of animal science and industry throughout its member countries over the last 40 years. This paper summarizes the advances in animal science in the Asia-Pacific region, together with the roles of the AAAP scientists and journals in developing animal science.
    Keywords:  AAAP; AJAS; Animal Bioscience; Role of Society
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.5713/ab.22.0409
This page is being maintained by Thomas Krichel. It was last updated on 2022‒11‒21 at 15:08:57.