bims-skolko Biomed News
on Scholarly communication
Issue of 2026–06–28
forty papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society



  1. Res Integr Peer Rev. 2026 Jun 21. pii: 21. [Epub ahead of print]11(1):
       BACKGROUND: Academic peer review is fundamental for scientific knowledge dissemination, and various initiatives are exploring how the peer review process could be more open, efficient and rewarding. We report an exploratory study where a live community-based review approach was integrated into the editorial workflow of an academic journal (Current Research in Neurobiology; CRNEUR).
    METHODS: This study was conducted with five manuscripts ('cases') submitted as preprints, which underwent Live Review-a structured collaborative review session led by PREreview, an organization with the mission to advance equity and openness in scholarly evaluation. With each case, PREreview team members facilitated a 90-min online discussion where registered participants provided real-time discussion and worked together on the online structured peer review document. Authors could join as observers or to answer questions. Participants then volunteered to write up the session notes into a final review and summary statement. Review participants had the option to sign the review. The finalized review was then published on PREreview's open preprint review platform approximately two weeks after the Live Review session, and it was assigned a CC BY 4.0 license and Digital Object Identifier (DOI) linked to the DOI of the reviewed preprint allowing reviewers to be recognized for their contribution. The published review was then incorporated into CRNEUR's editorial workflow to inform editorial decisions and manuscript outcomes.
    RESULTS: We quantified the speed to first and final editorial decision of the community review (n = 5) in comparison to a larger sample (n = 27) of articles that went through a standard review process at CRNEUR during the same timeframe. First decision times in days after manuscript submission of the Live Reviews were within the Inter Quartile Range (IQR) of the standard review process (community review: median = 75, IQR: 41.3; standard review: median 92, IQR: 41.5), as were final decision times (community review: median 138, IQR: 22.5; standard review: median 211, IQR: 166.0). A survey of the Live Review attendees (n = 13; 30% response rate) on a scale of 1 'Highly Disagree' to 5 'Highly Agree' showed median 'Agree' to 'Highly Agree' scores on several questions including the review being respectful, time efficient and scientifically rigorous (median scores: 5, 4, 4, respectively).
    CONCLUSIONS: The innovative Live Review approach was as efficient as the standard review process in the journal and was rated positively by those surveyed. The small sample size inherent to exploratory studies limits conclusions generalizing to larger sample sizes. We discuss how live, community-based review approaches could be further developed, scaled and sustained.
    Keywords:  Academic review; Case study; Community review; Exploratory; Live Review; Peer review
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-026-00210-5
  2. Curr Med Res Opin. 2026 Jun 24. 1-11
      Patient authors have been increasingly included on company-sponsored research publications, contributing a unique and needed expertise. Patients are routinely and rightfully remunerated for their contributions to advisory boards and non-authorship publication activities, such as peer review. However, the remuneration of patients for authorship activities has remained inconsistent and even contentious. Here, a working group of Good Publication Practice (GPP) steering committee members, patients and patient involvement and engagement experts, and industry partners present six commonly described barriers to and arguments against patient author remuneration. The working group provides practical solutions and counterarguments to enable industry sponsors to equitably, fairly, and transparently remunerate patient authors. The barriers include (1) general resistance to or unawareness of patient authorship; (2) conflict of interest and compliance risks; (3) operational and logistical challenges; (4) concerns about equity, fairness, and scalability; (5) external perceptions within scholarly publishing; and (6) lack of clarity regarding alternative methods of recognition. Solutions to these barriers are supported by a case study from industry to share real-world implementation recommendations. These recommendations provide an action plan for the development and utilization of a framework to enable patient author remuneration, based on one company's experience. In short, the principles and guidance that underpin fair remuneration in other patient engagement activities can and should be extended to authorship, ensuring appropriate recognition of the value that patient authors bring, rather than risking the absence of patient authors altogether.
    Keywords:  consumer; consumer involvement; consumer remuneration; patient authorship; patient centricity; patient engagement; patient involvement; patient remuneration; pharmaceutical industry; public; public involvement
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/03007995.2026.2692129
  3. J Korean Med Sci. 2026 Jun 22. 41(24): e168
       BACKGROUND: Social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) are increasingly used by journals, authors, and institutions to promote newly published research. Well-designed posts can enhance visibility, accelerate knowledge translation, and increase altmetric attention. However, creating accurate and policy-compliant content is time-intensive. Large language models (LLMs) offer a potential solution, yet systematic evaluations of their performance in post-publication promotion remain limited.
    METHODS: We conducted a blinded, crossed, offline evaluation of four LLMs: GPT-5 (OpenAI), Gemini 2.5 Pro (Google DeepMind), Grok-3 (xAI), and Perplexity Pro (Perplexity AI), tasked with generating X-style posts (≤ 260 characters) for 36 open access articles from The Lancet Public Health, The Lancet Planetary Health, and Annual Review of Public Health. Posts were generated using a standardized system and user prompt. A single blinded rater scored outputs using a five-domain rubric (factual accuracy, clarity, policy compliance, call-to-action quality, structure/metadata; maximum score 10). Secondary measures included character count, hashtag use, and readability (Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level). General linear models with Bonferroni-adjusted post hoc tests and non-parametric analyses were applied.
    RESULTS: All four models achieved perfect factual accuracy and no policy violations. Mean total quality scores differed significantly by model, P < 0.001. GPT-5 (9.60) and Perplexity Pro (9.60) performed best, followed by Gemini 2.5 Pro (9.47), while Grok-3 scored lower (8.80). Domain analyses showed Grok-3 underperformed in call-to-action quality (1.40 vs. ≥1.97 in other models, P < 0.001) and produced significantly shorter posts (median 194 characters, P < 0.001). Perplexity Pro scored highest for policy compliance, while GPT-5 and Gemini 2.5 Pro achieved superior structural scores. Readability varied: GPT-5 8.9 (7.3-9.2) and Perplexity Pro 7.3 (6.5-8.8) generated more complex outputs, whereas Gemini 2.5 Pro 5.1 (4.8-6.5) and Grok-3 4.5 (3.6-6.3) produced more accessible posts.
    CONCLUSION: LLMs can reliably generate accurate and policy-compliant social media posts for research promotion, with differences in style and readability that may inform audience targeting. GPT-5, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Perplexity Pro produced high-quality outputs, while Grok-3 underperformed across several domains. These findings highlight the potential of LLMs as scalable first-draft tools for post-publication promotion, capable of improving the reach and accessibility of scientific research. Careful model selection, tailored to audience and communication goals, together with human oversight, remains essential.
    Keywords:  Knowledge Management; Large Language Models; Public Health; Publishing; Scholarly Communication; Social Media
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2026.41.e168
  4. Food Technol Biotechnol. 2026 Apr-Jun;64(2):64(2): 138-139
      
  5. Science. 2026 Jun 25. 392(6805): 1330-1331
      TriNetX's built-in analysis tools fuel easy publications reporting misleading results.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aej9810
  6. J Med Internet Res. 2026 Jun 25. 28 e104934
       Unlabelled: Fraudulent papers are on the rise in scientific publishing. In this News and Perspectives article, JMIR Correspondent Cliff Dominy reports on recent cases of false authorship and how they might be prevented to safeguard trust in science.
    Keywords:  artificial intelligence; authorship; editorial policies; open science; peer review; publishing; retraction of publication as topic; scientific misconduct
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2196/104934
  7. Nature. 2026 Jun;654(8120): 1124
      
    Keywords:  Ethics; Publishing; Research data; Scientific community
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-01969-9
  8. World J Surg Oncol. 2026 Jun 24.
      Post-publication peer review faces a emerging systemic vulnerability from 'letter-bombing'-the proliferation of high-volume, potentially machine-generated critiques that exploit citable correspondence units, creating a plausible risk of academic metric inflation. Driven by the democratization of Large Language Models (LLMs), these automated submissions frequently exploit formatting loopholes to manipulate public indicators like the h-index. The problem is particularly observable in data-intensive specialties like surgical oncology, where abstract-level statistical critiques targeting complex clinical trials risk muddying translational research communication. Drawing on documented bibliometric anomalies and confirmed editorial actions, this piece discusses operational definitions of abnormal correspondence volumes and proposes a multi-layered framework. To protect the scientific record, we propose an enforceable framework for editorial boards: implementing strict metadata labeling to close indexing loopholes, verifying author history, and mandating the "Right of Simultaneous Reply" as a universal baseline publishing standard.
    Keywords:  Academic Misconduct; Bibliometrics; Generative Artificial Intelligence; Large Language Models (LLMs); Medical Publishing; Peer-Review Integrity; Publication Ethics; Scientific Correspondence; Surgical Oncology
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12957-026-04465-6
  9. Br J Pharmacol. 2026 Jun 21.
      The rise of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has ushered in a new era in scientific publishing. Alongside its benefits, it has also introduced new challenges, particularly in relation to publication fraud. This editorial outlines the current position of the British Journal of Pharmacology on the use of AI in pharmacology, publishing and peer review.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/bph.70550
  10. Tomography. 2026 Jun 11. pii: 85. [Epub ahead of print]12(6):
      This Editorial provides insights on artificial intelligence (AI)-based scientific manuscript revision, which could be considered an opportunity to alleviate the reviewer crisis in the field of scientific writing [...].
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/tomography12060085
  11. Sci Data. 2026 Jun 24.
      We evaluated the reusability of publicly available single-cell RNA-sequencing studies (scRNA-seq) from the Gene Expression Omnibus, focusing on the prevalent 10x Genomics-based datasets. Through semi-automated and manual curation, we assessed the availability of cell-level expression count matrices and cell-type annotations. Only around 40% of studies provided readily usable processed count data that could be reliably mapped to GEO metadata, and fewer than 10% included author-provided cell-type labels. Although most studies had raw sequencing files available, few could be re-analyzed automatically without reliance on heuristics. Our findings show that existing practices for scRNA-seq data distribution and sharing are insufficient for effective reuse, and highlight the urgent need for repositories to strengthen and enforce submission requirements, particularly for processed data and cell-type annotations.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-07582-9
  12. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2026 Jun 26. pii: djag199. [Epub ahead of print]
      The National Cancer Institute's (NCI's) Office of Data Sharing (ODS), established in 2018, advances a comprehensive vision and strategy to ensure that the scientific outputs of NCI-supported research maximally benefit the cancer community and are in alignment with federal data management, sharing, and public access expectations. NCI's large portfolio of scientific research spans the full continuum of cancer science from basic and population studies to translational and clinical research and generates a diverse landscape of research outputs including data, publications, clinical trials, tools, and resources. The NCI ODS serves as a critical coordinator across this ecosystem to steward NCI's data sharing strategy during all phases of the research data lifecycle, engaging investigators, institutions, program staff, and technology partners via 3 pillars: Policy, Program, and Process. The office leads the NCI implementation of data sharing and public access policies, supports programs that identify and promote high-value research outputs with broad potential for reuse, and designs and manages user-centered processes for cancer data access and submission to NIH controlled-access repositories. ODS also draws from deep expertise to consult and provide expert data sharing guidance across scientific domains and engage with the community on data sharing issues. To develop a mechanism for sustained community engagement, the ODS annual Data Sharing Symposium was launched in 2023 as ODS flagship event which serves as a venue to exchange ideas and confront emerging issues. Through these initiatives, ODS is helping to build a coordinated and FAIR data ecosystem to accelerate cancer research and improve patient care and outcomes.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djag199
  13. PLoS Comput Biol. 2026 Jun;22(6): e1014419
      Have you ever lost hours navigating supplementary materials-clicking between the main text and dozens of auxiliary files only to encounter broken links, illegible figures, and undefined variables and acronyms? If so, you're not alone. What should support scientific communication has instead become an obstacle: supplementary information (SI) increasingly suffers from inconsistent formatting, poor accessibility, and fragmented organization that impedes rather than advances understanding. This is disheartening since the SI, if used effectively, has the power to enhance transparency, credibility, and reproducibility of research. Therefore, we propose 10 simple rules to help authors design SI that genuinely increase the impact of their research. The rules emphasize treating SI with the same care as the main text, using it strategically to support the scientific narrative while preserving clarity and focus. Key recommendations include creating a single, well-structured, self-contained SI master document; ensuring explicit cross-referencing between the main text and SI; making SI machine-readable; and avoiding the misuse of SI as a substitute for proper data repositories. We also highlight the importance of creativity in choosing appropriate formats and strict adherence to journal-specific guidelines. Finally, when available, we advocate the use of standardized templates to improve consistency, readability, and reuse across studies. By following these rules, authors can substantially increase the scientific impact of their work while at the same time contributing to more sustainable research practices.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014419
  14. Sleep Breath. 2026 Jun 20. pii: 193. [Epub ahead of print]30(4):
       OBJECTIVE: Citation skew refers to the unequal distribution of citations to articles within a journal. The study aimed to assess citation skew in sleep science journals and whether the journal impact factor (JIF) predicts individual article citation rates.
    METHODS: The top ten sleep science journals were identified via the Journal Citation Report (JCR), and the number of citations in 2022 for all original and review articles from 2020 to 2021 was analyzed.
    RESULTS: Among 3,949 articles with 16,373 citations, a substantial proportion had either zero (16.0%) or one citation (18.7%) in 2022. Only 27.7% of articles exceeded their journal's JIF, while 72.3% fell below it. Review articles demonstrated higher citation rates than original research. Citation distribution was highly skewed, with 12.5% of articles accounting for 50% of all citations. Although citation rate correlated significantly with JIF (r = 0.21, p < 0.001), JIF explained only ~ 4.4% of the variance in article-level citations.
    CONCLUSION: Citation distributions in leading sleep journals are highly skewed, and journal impact factor has limited utility for predicting individual article influence. These findings support interpreting JIF cautiously and emphasize the value of article-level indicators and qualitative appraisal when assessing research impact. Future studies incorporating multiple JIF cycles and article-level citation provenance, including self-citation and citation-network effects, are needed to better characterize the drivers and temporal stability of citation behavior in sleep medicine.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Health informatics; Research; Sleep medicine; Sleep science; Sleep surgery
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-026-03735-7
  15. PLoS One. 2026 ;21(6): e0352401
      Authorship on academic publications is consequential for researchers in science fields. One's position in a list of authors is typically used to signal information about author contributions and status, with the first and last author positions regarded as the most prestigious and important for career advancement. Therefore, any inequities that exist in the allocation of authorship (e.g., associated with gender or geography) could affect researchers' career progression. We assessed patterns in authorship at EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit organization that conducted One Health and conservation research. We compiled a corpus of 451 peer-reviewed journal articles published from 2011-2022, each of which had at least one EcoHealth Alliance-affiliated author, and gathered information on the gender and country affiliation of authors in first and last author positions. Within the corpus, we found that gendered male researchers and researchers with high-income country (HIC) affiliations were often in prestigious author positions. Specifically, we found that gendered male authors represented 60% of first and last authors, 65% of first and last authorships (FLAs), and 91% of highly productive authors (those with ≥ 10 FLAs). Last authorships were particularly male-dominated, with 2.7 times as many last authorships by gendered male authors as by gendered female authors. Our network analysis revealed that gendered male authors were more structurally important to the author network on average and comprised 65% of highly "powerful" authors in the network. HICs were also overrepresented in the corpus, with 72% of FLAs listing an HIC affiliation. Though our analysis was based on articles with at least one EcoHealth Alliance-affiliated author, authorship affiliations in the corpus extended to nearly 250 institutions across 43 countries, suggesting broader applicability of our findings. We conclude by offering recommendations-informed by the patterns observed in our data and based on our personal experiences as researchers-that we believe would help address the gender and geography disparities in authorship patterns we observed.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0352401
  16. Eur J Cardiovasc Nurs. 2026 Jun 23. pii: zvag148. [Epub ahead of print]
      
    Keywords:  Artificial intelligence; Hallucination; Natural Language Processing; Scientific integrity
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjcn/zvag148
  17. J Vet Diagn Invest. 2026 Jun 24. 10406387261456730
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/10406387261456730
  18. Front Res Metr Anal. 2026 ;11 1809274
       Introduction: This study analyzes the literature on academic book publishing in Ibero-America indexed in Scopus and Web of Science, with the aim of describing its evolution and mapping co-occurrence and co-authorship networks to identify the current state of the field and existing gaps.
    Methods: A systematic review was conducted following the PRISMA 2020 protocol. Records were managed with Rayyan and analyzed using VOSviewer and R, incorporating thematic analysis of 44 selected studies.
    Results: The findings show a stronger concentration of publications in the last decade and an emerging field focused on editorial practices, open access, editorial professionalization, evaluation, and indicators. Co-authorship is concentrated in a few centers, and structural limitations persist that hinder robust comparisons.
    Discussion: The results highlight tensions in integrating books into scientific evaluation systems and in recognizing scientific development in areas of knowledge where books remain central. The study identifies gaps in the contextualization of evaluation frameworks that recognize the linguistic and publishing diversity of the Ibero-American region, calling for the consolidation of regulatory evaluation frameworks that strengthen scientific quality in academic publishing.
    Keywords:  Ibero-America; academic books; semantic networks and co-authorship; systematic review; university publishing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2026.1809274
  19. Oncol Nurs Forum. 2026 Jun 24. 53(4): 1-2
      As an editor, I think of myself as a disseminator, not a researcher. Serving as an editor is my contribution to helping oncology nursing science reach the clinicians and scholars who can translate it into practice. In that wa.
    Keywords:  oncology nursing research; quality of life; symptom management
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1188/26.ONF.e26535337
  20. IEEE J Transl Eng Health Med. 2026 ;14 vi-xi
      The IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine (JTEHM) exists at the intersection of biomedical engineering and clinical practice. Published articles go beyond laboratory proof-of-concept to provide tangible, real-world evidence of translation into clinical settings. This editorial provides the rationale for manuscripts submitted to IEEE JTEHM to demonstrate evidence of clinical translation. It also provides examples of acceptable forms of evidence and offers guidance to authors on how to meet this expectation. Clinical and Impact-By requiring demonstrated clinical translational evidence IEEE JTEHM endeavours to publish high-quality research with scientific novelty and practical clinical impact. This expectation strengthens the journal's aim to accelerate the adoption of innovative solutions into healthcare systems and ultimately deliver quantifiable benefits to patients.
    Keywords:  Translational engineering; clinical endpoints; clinical impact; clinical translation; clinical validation
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1109/JTEHM.2026.3680558
  21. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2026 Jun 30. 123(26): e2524991123
      By immersing participants in consistent virtual environments, VR enhances study realism, reduces confounding variables, and improves procedural control, offering a promising solution for scientists interested in studying behavior "in the wild." The availability and documentation of data enabled by VR also help address replicability challenges. Despite vast potential, VR research is hindered by fragmentation, proprietary tools, and a lack of standardized practices, which limit its overall impact. This collaborative study presents an interactive checklist to support VR research from across disciplines to meet three essential protocols-interoperability, procedural standardization, and data sharing-that address these challenges by promoting open science and providing a common, easy-to-evaluate format for researchers to present projects to ethics boards, reviewers, and beyond. Together, these protocols can help VR research overcome replication barriers, democratize access to advanced tools, and establish VR as a robust method for rigorous, replicable scientific inquiry.
    Keywords:  open science; replication; research protocols; virtual reality
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2524991123
  22. Environ Monit Assess. 2026 Jun 27. pii: 778. [Epub ahead of print]198(7):
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-026-15528-2
  23. Proc Biol Sci. 2026 Jun 17. pii: 20261176. [Epub ahead of print]293(2073):
      A key point of discussion at the 2024 Proceedings B annual Editorial Board meeting was that our paper submissions typically come from the same tiny subset of countries. Indeed, only 11 countries represent 77% of our corresponding submitting authors, with the remaining 23% submitted by authors from countries that each submit 1% or fewer of the papers Proceedings B receives each year. The geographical bias is also stark in acceptances; 69% of accepted papers in 2024 came from North America and northern/western Europe. During a break-out session at the board meeting, we developed the idea for a special feature focused on research by scientists in underrepresented countries and regions. These are researchers who may face barriers in scientific publication simply because of where they live. While this set of countries and regions, what we called 'the other 1%', does include high-income countries that are underrepresented in submissions owing to their small size (e.g. The Netherlands, Belgium or Denmark), most are located in what is often called the 'Global South'. Researchers in these areas are doing important, high-quality work, but can face challenges unrelated to the quality of their science when it comes to publishing in international journals. These challenges range from fewer resources, to less experience with these journals, to research topics or use of methodologies that are less common outside their geographical area; the latter issue means that the impact and broad importance of this work may be underestimated by reviewers and editors. Indigenous researchers, and especially those whose work focuses on topics specific to their area, may face similar barriers. For these reasons, we focused on amplifying work from these groups in this special feature.
    Keywords:  diversity; scientific methodologies; transdisciplinarity
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2026.1176