Academic publishing and scholarly communications: Good reads, September 2016
September was a busy month for the scholarly publishing community, with loads of work to catch up with after vacations. To add to this, Peer Review Week 2016 created a flurry of activity! Has all the buzz kept you away from your reading about the goings-on in the industry? Don’t worry! We’re here as always, with our list of the most interesting discussions of the month, handpicked by our editors especially for you. Besides Peer Review Week, which was highlight of the month, there were exchanges around Elsevier’s patent for online peer review, the emerging trend of outsourcing clinical trials, the need for animal testing in biomedicine, and more. Happy reading!
1. The world’s most prolific peer reviewer: In keeping with this year’s theme for Peer Review Week - Recognition for Review - Publons awarded the Sentinels of Science prize “to honour the expert peer reviewers and editors who stand guard over research quality, and lead the charge for better, faster science.” Jonas Ranstam, a medical physicist in Sweden received the award for the most prolific peer reviewer, for having reviewed 661 papers across 16 scientific fields in slightly less than a year - approximately two reviews per day on an average!
2. Elsevier’s new patent for online peer review: Elsevier has been awarded a patent for its "waterfall" system, the software that allows the internal transfer of a rejected manuscript along with peer review reports to another Elsevier journal, with the author's permission. This patent will prevent other journals or publishers from using a similar system. Academics are particularly worried about the impact this patent could have if applied on Open Source Journals like PLOS ONE. Academics fear that this can indirectly be used against the open peer review system.
3. The ethics of outsourcing clinical trials: This thought-provoking post talks about the ethical and commercial aspect of the emerging trend of outsourcing clinical trials to third world/developing countries such as Africa, China, India, and parts of Eurasia. With increasing demand for urgent solutions to some of the world's most critical problems, the need to conduct clinical trials on readily available and neutral subjects has increased. This has led to the rise of mediating companies that have started outsourcing clinical trials to developing countries where participants are more easily available due to a combination of factors, such as population size and a blind faith in Western medicine. But all is not well in this business as more and more deaths associated with clinical trials are being reported. Is this practice of outsourcing clinical trials ethical? Do participants know about inherent risks involved in such trials? Is outsourcing these studies an ethical practice? This post raises these and similar issues about clinical trials.
4. UN’s efforts to address antibiotic resistance: Stepping up the efforts to deal with global health crises, the United Nations (UN) called for a high-level meeting to address the critical issue of antibiotic resistance. The upcoming General Assembly will focus on efforts that need to be taken at a global level to help understand the relatively new phenomenon of resistance to antibiotics and its implications on healthcare outcomes for diseases such as ebola, Zika, etc. The day-long session on this topic in the UN's General Assembly is expected to conclude with "the first ever UN resolution on the importance of combating antibiotic resistance and—people hope—some sort of commitment to action." If this meeting reaches a definite conclusion, this could impact the immediate future of hot research topics and channels where funding is directed across the globe.
5. Research institutes in Germany defend animal testing: In recent years, animal activists have been protesting against the use of animals in experiments. Hence, researchers feel pressurized to justify their work to ensure that their experiments are completed and findings are published without any controversies. Thus, Germany's major research institutes have joined hands to begin a project with the intention of publicly defending "responsible" animal testing and create awareness about why it is central to biomedical science. The five-year project, Tierversuche verstehen (Understanding animal testing), will cost €250,000 per year and will be reviewed after 3 years. Central to this project is their website that will have researcher testimonials, background information, and other content that will provide an insight into the necessity of responsible animal testing. However, animal activists have deplored the initiative by saying that the website provides no facts about the flaws of animal tests, and is an attempt at justifying animal research and brainwashing the public.
6. Understanding the needs of early career professionals: The Early Career Subcommittee, a subset of the Society for Scholarly Publishing’s Professional Development Committee, conducted a survey to understand the current needs of early career professionals (ECPs), the resources available to them, and how they prepare themselves for their career. From the responses of 507 ECP participants, it was found that the average age of ECPs is 30. Some of the most important findings of the survey are: (1) 46% stated that “Finding the right role” is the greatest challenge at the start of their careers; (2) 40% stated that on entering academic publishing, they applied for a position found by coincidence or because a job search engine matched the job to their skillset; (3) colleagues were reported to be the primary source of information and learning for 78%; (4) as many as 69% confirmed attending an industry-related webinar, but only 2% paid for themselves. You can also read the Editage Insights post on this topic.
7. Is legal confusion standing in the way of data sharing? Daniel Himmelstein, a data scientist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, launched Hetionet - a free online resource that compiles data on links between drugs, genes, and diseases from 28 public sources. However, when he contacted the concerned researchers for permissions to reproduce their data, he received mixed responses. While some researchers felt that no permissions were required since the data was stored in a public repository and was meant to be used freely, others stated that there could be legal problems. Although data might be stored in a public repository, occasionally, there are copyright related issues and other terms and conditions: for instance, the EU has its own rights and regulations for databases that can prevent data from being republished without legal tangles. Himmelstein says that "The confusion has the power to slow down science" as researchers cannot freely combine data sets for further research.
This is it for this month! We’ll be back with another list in October. Follow our monthly reading lists for more such interesting updates. And if you would like to stay tuned to important happenings in the journal publishing industry, visit our Industry News section.
Published on: Sep 29, 2016
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