Academic publishing and scholarly communications: Good reads, May 2018

The month of May has rushed past us, and a lot has transpired on the scholarly communication and academic publishing front. If you have been too busy to catch the buzz, do not worry! Our excellent editorial team has you covered. This month, conversations around the lack of reproducibility, challenges faced by researchers who move abroad, issues that libraries around the world are facing, and more such topics gained traction. So here’s a curated list of the most interesting discussions of this month. Happy reading! 

1. Have you heard of the term "preproducibility"? You must have heard and read about reproducibility. But in an article published in Nature, Philip B. Stark, a professor of statistics at the University of California, proposes preproducibility as a way of ensuring reproducibility. Stark states that as a reviewer, he finds it difficult to evaluate manuscripts that lack enough underlying information about the experiments and analysis. The lack of a standard terminology and definition across disciplines for reproducibility, replicability, repeatability, etc. is a shortcoming that comes in the way of assessment of scientific literature, he believes. He likens preproducibility to "a scientific recipe" as against a list of ingredients and says that preproducibility is all about "show me" and not "trust me." What preproducibility involves would depend on the discipline but will assist the editors and reviewers to come to more conclusive and confident decisions about a manuscript. He concludes by saying that authors should pledge "not to review papers that are not preproducible" as well as pledge "not to submit papers without providing" enough underlying data.

2. When you think of writing a research paper, do you think in terms of a story? In this interesting article, Anna Clemens, science journalist and editor of scientific manuscripts, discusses how authors can make their research papers engaging. She says that stories are powerful and they keep us focused, so authors should use this strategy when writing their papers. The six plot elements that constitute the fibre of any story are character, setting, tension, action, climax, and resolution. Authors can use this approach in their paper where the main character is the ''object of the study," the setting is the background of the paper, the tension is the gap in the current knowledge that is being studied, the action is the way results are found, the climax is the conclusions drawn from the study, and the resolution is the context or implications of the findings. Having such a narrative makes the paper compelling, Clemens states. She adds that if authors keep in mind the chronology and purpose, then the elements of the entire paper would come together. More authors should consider adopting this approach, she says, as it will make their "writing a page-turner."

3. Challenges faced by researchers when they move abroad: In this engaging post, Roberta Kwok talks about a practical problem faced by researchers when they move to a lab in another country. Moving abroad is about much more than superficially adjusting to a new place, climate, and people. When they move abroad, researchers at all levels need to adapt to "different communication styles and different workplace and academic hierarchies." It is these differences that could make or break their experience. It is important for researchers as well as supervisors to actively understand each other’s cultures and try and be conscious of the way they communicate to each other. The author also states how it is easy to fall prey to the tendency to fit people within certain stereotypes, which could in turn influence how they are treated or approached. She concludes by sharing an important piece of advice: "Whether they are welcoming international students or starting work in new countries, scientists can ease the transition by remaining non-judgemental."

4. The plethora of challenges libraries face: Libraries play a critical role in the academic research and publishing ecosystem. In recent years, the constant and dynamic changes in the publishing industry have placed immense pressure on libraries to not only keep up but also to adapt to and deliver against the expectations from them. This post discusses some of the challenges libraries face today, such as changing expectations from various stakeholders who rely on them, the availability of alternative sources of information, changing technologies, financial uncertainties, and so on. Given this flux, libraries could adopt the useful strategy of collaboration to boost their own efficiency. This post takes a detailed look at some of the current challenges libraries the world over face and how collaboration could open up several opportunities for them.

5. The need for training PhD students to be critical thinkers: In this article, the writer Gundula Bosch captures the predicament faced by modern education today in a pragmatic and easy-to-understand manner. Talking about the disparity between the need for specialised researchers in science and the larger goals of education, she draws on her own experience to help understand how to put philosophy back in the PhD. By citing examples from her own intervention in curricula at the John Hopkins University, Baltimore, she enlightens the readers on worries that professors have in letting their students branch out into interdisciplinary areas. Providing descriptions of conversations with professors and the many efforts at introducing "big picture” thinking about science researchers, Bosch illustrates the importance of helping researchers understand the real world and larger implications of their work in order to make space for critically-informed scientific researchers. Truly, a cause worth embracing.

If you like these recommendations, you might also like our previously published Scholarly Communications Good Reads collections.

And if you’d like to stay tuned to important happenings in the journal publishing industry, visit our Industry News section.