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Journalology

Journalology #45: Pariah to partner

Published almost 2 years ago • 8 min read

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Hello fellow journalologists,

I’m back from ALPSP and I’ve been skim-reading the wires to bring you a summary of last week’s scholarly publishing news. I created this newsletter at pace and decided to skip a couple of sections with a view to getting this out to subscribers as soon as possible.

News

​Publishers settle ResearchGate copyright battle (paywall)

Elsevier and the American Chemical Society (ACS) had ordered the academic social network to take down papers that they said infringed copyright. But following years of dispute, the members of the Coalition for Responsible Sharing have agreed to a legal settlement with ResearchGate that ensures copyright-compliant sharing, meaning the lawsuits in Germany and the US are resolved. At the point of upload, the ResearchGate platform will check rights information for content published by ACS and Elsevier. ResearchGate will then immediately determine how the content can be shared on its site.

Times Higher Education (Patrick Jack)

JB: See also ResearchGate press release. ResearchGate has moved from pariah to trusted partner (see Issue 42 of Journalology for a summary of recent collaborations), and is likely to become an increasingly influential member of the scholarly publishing community.

​Crossref acquires Retraction Watch data and opens it for the scientific community​

The Center for Scientific Integrity, the organisation behind the Retraction Watch blog and database, and Crossref, the global infrastructure underpinning research communications, both not-for-profits, announced today that the Retraction Watch database has been acquired by Crossref and made a public resource. An agreement between the two organisations will allow Retraction Watch to keep the data populated on an ongoing basis and always open, alongside publishers registering their retraction notices directly with Crossref.

Crossref (press release)

JB: See also the RetractionWatch story on this acquisition, which provides interesting background. RetractionWatch started as a simple blog and has morphed into something truly valuable. The founders deserve our appreciation.

​Frontiers adopts CCC Ringgold Identify Database to enhance data quality​

Open access publisher Frontiers has adopted the CCC Ringgold Identify Database as its Persistent Identifier (PID) solution. The unique numerical identifier system applied to organizations in the scholarly communications sector enhances data quality and promotes open access publishing.
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The highly granular dataset also supports the shift to open access publishing models. Publishers like Frontiers can explore information around funding and discount eligibility under institutional and consortia agreements and assist in compliance with institutional and funder mandates, such as Plan S or OSTP. The Ringgold system lends itself to interoperability as it complements other PIDs in place, including ORCID IDs, DOIs, and ISNI IDs. This makes it possible to join records across internal and external systems for a more comprehensive overview.

Frontiers (press release)

​The American Chemical Society acquires ChronosHub, an open access management platform​

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is proud to announce that ChronosHub is joining ACS as an independent subsidiary working alongside ACS Publications to enhance the publication experience for researchers. As an ardent supporter of authors and open science, it was a natural fit for ACS to invest in ChronosHub — an innovative open access (OA) management platform that streamlines publishing workflows and ensures effective collaboration between all stakeholders. Together, ACS and ChronosHub will develop a new state-of-the-art, OA-friendly publishing experience that will simplify the complexities of today's scientific publishing environment.

American Chemical Society (press release)

​Sage offers free access to over 1,100 journals to journalists​

Sage offers journalists free access to the articles in all of our 1,100 journals upon request... Sage also provides paywall-free links to the Sage articles journalists cite so the audience can read the underlying scholarship for free.

Sage (announcement)

JB: Other publishers do a similar thing: Academic journals that give journalists free access​

​Turmoil at Sage journal as retractions mount​

In the midst of a tumultuous year, the journal Concurrent Engineering: Research and Applications, a Sage title, is retracting 21 papers after an investigation identified signs of “compromised” peer review. Clarivate delisted the journal from its Web of Science index in March for failing to meet editorial quality criteria. Founding editor Biren Prasad, who managed the journal since 1992, also retired earlier this year, and the publisher took over management of peer review.

Retraction Watch (Ellie Kincaid)

​Beyond article-based charges: working group established​

Following an open call for applicants, we received over 60 high-quality applications. After a thorough review process, with a focus on ensuring that the group represents a diverse range of stakeholders who are committed to supporting a more equitable publishing business model, we are pleased to announce that the following organisations have been invited to join the group.

Plan S (announcement)

JB: A diverse range of stakeholders? Hardly. 60 institutions applied, but that full list is not available as far as I can tell. The publishers that were selected between them are responsible for a tiny proportion of the total global article output. The big commercial players were presumably excluded (assuming they applied) because they didn’t demonstrate enough commitment to “a more equitable publishing business model”.

​Publishing open access with Springer Nature delivers highest global usage and benefits for researchers​

Authors publishing open access (OA) with Springer Nature see their work used more than if they had published with other mixed model or pure OA publishers. Its second annual OA report, released today and expanded to cover its hybrid as well as fully OA journals, also highlights the role Springer Nature is playing in driving the global transition to OA.

Springer Nature (press release)

JB: It would be reasonable to assume that the report was written with potential investors in mind, rather than the academic community.

​OA articles for Nature journals have been used up

It’s no longer possible to publish open access at Nature journals with FinELib’s agreement. The article quota, which was acquired has been used up, and there are no more articles left in the current agreement, which is in effect until December 31, 2024.
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The open articles acquired for Nature and Nature Research journals were used up noticeably faster than expected. The acquired article quantity was based on publication data available at the time, but the amount of published articles was much higher than anticipated.

FinELib (announcement)

JB: Nature journals are popular (especially when someone else is paying the APC). Stop the press.

​Overwhelmingly positive response to new Institutional Membership model, says PeerJ, as they welcome five new members​

The Open Access publisher PeerJ says that the response to their new model for Open Access - Annual Institutional Memberships, or AIMs - has been overwhelmingly positive, and they are delighted by the groundswell of enthusiasm for non-APC Open Access by new and prospective members.
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A PeerJ Annual Institutional Membership (AIM) provides unlimited, frictionless OA publishing for institutional partners and their faculty, and are simple to manage, easy to purchase and provide great cost saving opportunities.

PeerJ (press release)

JB: PeerJ has signed up a total of six institutional subscribers, but the language in this press release seems to suggest that a couple of zeroes were left off the end of that figure. Does five new subscribers represent a “groundswell of enthusiasm”? I’ll leave you to decide.

​Editage Launches Research Companion: A Holistic Approach to Empower US Researchers​

The new offering from Editage goes beyond conventional publication aids. Along with language refinement and pre-submission peer reviews, researchers can also benefit from targeted services such as Q1/Q2 journal support and AI-powered editing. Further, by partnering with academic publishers, journals, and societies, Editage enhances the visibility of research through strategic avenues like effective social media plans, compelling research graphics, and engaging reels.

Editage (press release)

​'Abolish academic authorship', says LERU report​

The idea of “authorship” could be abolished in many academic disciplines with researchers instead listed as “contributors” in “movie-style credits” at the end of a published paper, a leading university group has suggested.
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Calling for more transparency on the roles carried out by researchers listed on scholarly papers, the advice paper from the League of European Research Universities (Leru) proposes that the notion of an “author” has become obsolete in those research fields where dozens of authors – or sometimes hundreds – are listed on a published paper.

Times Higher Education (Jack Grove)

Opinion

​How IOP Publishing are building greater author understanding and engagement through ResearchGate​

ResearchGate is in a unique position where they have really great insight into researcher audiences. They've got millions of researcher users who build up their profiles and are actively using the platform. For a lot of publishers, where we only have IP addresses available to recognise individuals or institutions, to get that deeper level of insights and understanding is key as we look to improve our marketing and communication to researchers.

ResearchGate (interview with Claire Webber)

​Party like it’s LK-99​

It is also worth reflecting on the role that preprints have played in the story. One can certainly argue that many of their advantages were on full display here: rapid dissemination of results, a low barrier for entry for anyone who wanted to contribute to the discussion, and a quick resolution of the debate. Also, without the preprints and resulting replication experiments, some of the other interesting facets of the material’s behaviour would not have been discovered.

Nature Physics (unsigned editorial)

JB: You may remember the social media excitement about this potential room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductor a few months ago. This editorial thoughtfully outlines how the community worked to (fail to) replicate the initial experiments.

​Community-developed checklists for publishing images and image analyses (paywall)

Here, we present community-developed checklists for preparing light microscopy images and describing image analyses for publications. These checklists offer authors, readers and publishers key recommendations for image formatting and annotation, color selection, data availability and reporting image-analysis workflows. The goal of our guidelines is to increase the clarity and reproducibility of image figures and thereby to heighten the quality and explanatory power of microscopy data.

Nature Methods (Christopher Schmied et al)

​Publishers, Don’t Use AI Detection Tools!​

The imperfections of AI detectors are becoming more evident as they often misidentify genuine human-generated content. Studies have shown error rates of up to 9% and higher, a number way too high to live with. One notable case was an AI tool flagging the US Constitution as AI-produced. This false positive not only highlights the glaring imperfection of these detectors but also underscores the potential for pitfalls awaiting academic authors who treat these reports as authoritative. A humorous yet disturbing case of such confusion arose after a professor from Texas A&M failed his entire class after ChatGPT responded in the affirmative when he asked if it had written the papers handed in by the students.

The Scholarly Kitchen (Avi Staiman)

​Having the Courage to Explain Research in Plain Language​

One of the main reasons the text reads so poorly was that the authors were trying so hard to speak academese. We are breeding generations of researchers who feel compelled to use complicated language in the belief (mistaken? I’m not sure) that it impresses peer reviewers, or even is a requirement for publication. In many cases the authors are not English speakers, which is both an excuse (a reason why the published article may not read perfectly to a native speaker) but also a very good example of the problem (it’s hard enough to write in another language without having to try and adopt an ‘academic dialect’ within that).

The Scholarly Kitchen (Charlie Rapple)

JB: Charlie likes using parentheses within sentences as much as me.

​How to curb bias in manuscript assessments​

And, much like a doctor’s clinical eye, editors who have handled heaps of manuscripts or who have interacted with an uncountable number of scientists may unduly trust their gut, especially when they find themselves with a large load of old manuscripts; also, they may have favourite topics, find certain types of manuscript boring and be set in their ways. In addition, while novice editors may be readily swayed by the opinion of the most negative reviewer, the old-timers may be tempted to overly rely on a smaller pool of trusted reviewers.

Nature Biomedical Engineering (unsigned editorial)

And finally...

The 2023 SDG Summit is taking place today in New York, which marks the halfway point between 2015 and 2030. Here’s a selection of articles pegged to the summit.

​Bucking the system: the extraordinary story of how the SDGs came to be​

​What scientists need to do to accelerate progress on the SDGs​

​To achieve sustainable development, the world needs to mobilize around a big science approach once more​

​Is sustainability research the victim or saviour of a broken academic publishing system?​

​The world’s goals to save humanity are hugely ambitious — but they are still the best option​

I am travelling again this week, so next week’s newsletter may be delayed too. Better late than never, right?

Until next time,

James

P.S. The ALPSP annual conference was excellent last week. It was good to meet up with old friends and make new acquaintances, including some Journalology subscribers. If you haven’t attended before you should consider adding it to your calendar for next year (11-13 September, 2024).

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Journalology

James Butcher

The Journalology newsletter helps editors and publishing professionals keep up to date with scholarly publishing, and guides them on how to build influential scholarly journals.

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