What do Retraction Notices Reveal About Institutional Investigations into Allegations Underlying Retractions?

Academic journal publications may be retracted following institutional investigations that confirm allegations of research misconduct. Retraction notices can provide insight into the role institutional investigations play in the decision to retract a publication. Through a content analysis of 7,318 retraction notices published between 1927 and 2019 and indexed by the Web of Science, we found that most retraction notices (73.7%) provided no information about institutional investigations that may have led to retractions. A minority of the retraction notices (26.3%) mentioned an institutional investigation either by journal authorities (12.1%), research performing organizations (10.3%), joint institutions (1.9%), research integrity and ethics governing bodies (1.0%), third-party institutions (0.5%), unspecified institutions (0.4%), or research funding organizations (0.1%). Comparing retraction notices issued before and after the introduction of retraction guidelines by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in 2009 revealed that those published after the guidelines' publication were more likely to report investigations by journal authorities. Comparing retraction notices from different disciplines revealed that those from social sciences and the humanities were more likely to disclose investigations by research performing organizations than those from biomedical and natural sciences. Based on these findings, we suggest that the COPE retraction guidelines in the future make it mandatory to disclose in retraction notices institutional investigations leading to retractions.

The impact of COVID-19 on open access publishing in radiology and nuclear medicine: an in-depth analysis

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous initiatives have been implemented to ensure open access availability of COVID-19-related articles to make published articles accessible for anyone. This study aimed to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on open-access publishing in radiology and nuclear medicine. We conducted a comprehensive analysis of articles and reviews published in these fields during the COVID-19 publishing era using the Web of Science database. We analyzed several indicators between COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 related articles, including the number and percentage of open-access articles, the top ten cited articles, and the number of reviews. In total, 67,100 articles were published in radiology and nuclear medicine between January 2020 and June 2022. Among those, more than half (51.1%) were open-access articles. Among these publications, 2,336 were COVID-19-related, and 64,764 were non-COVID-19-related. However, articles related to COVID-19 had an open access rate of 91.5%, compared to only 49.6% of the non-COVID-19-related articles. Moreover, COVID-19-related articles had a higher percentage of highly cited and hot papers compared to articles not related to COVID-19. Moreover, most highly cited studies were related to chest computerized tomography (CT) scan findings in COVID-19 patients. The findings emphasize the significant proportion of open access COVID-19-related publications in radiology and nuclear medicine, facilitating widespread and timely access to everyone.

Exploring a deep learning neural architecture for closed Literature-based discovery

Scientific literature presents a wealth of information yet to be explored. As the number of researchers increase with each passing year and publications are released, this contributes to an era where specialized fields of research are becoming more prevalent. As this trend continues, this further propagates the separation of interdisciplinary publications and makes keeping up to date with literature a laborious task. Literature-based discovery (LBD) aims to mitigate these concerns by promoting information sharing among non-interacting literature while extracting potentially meaningful information. Furthermore, recent advances in neural network architectures and data representation techniques have fueled their respective research communities in achieving state-of-the-art performance in many downstream tasks. However, studies of neural network-based methods for LBD remain to be explored. We introduce and explore a deep learning neural network-based approach for LBD. Additionally, we investigate various approaches to represent terms as concepts and analyze the affect of feature scaling representations into our model. We compare the evaluation performance of our method on five hallmarks of cancer datasets utilized for closed discovery. Our results show the chosen representation as input into our model affects evaluation performance. We found feature scaling our input representations increases evaluation performance and decreases the necessary number of epochs needed to achieve model generalization. We also explore two approaches to represent model output. We found reducing the model's output to capturing a subset of concepts improved evaluation performance at the cost of model generalizability. We also compare the efficacy of our method on the five hallmarks of cancer datasets to a set of randomly chosen relations between concepts. We found these experiments confirm our method's suitability for LBD.

The Importance of Lay Summaries for Improving Science Communication

Lay summaries help the public connect with your research. Communicate your science with these guidelines for crafting lay summaries

"Technical" Contributors and Authorship Distribution in Health Science

In health sciences, technical contributions may be undervalued and excluded in the author byline. In this paper, I demonstrate how authorship is a historical construct which perpetuates systemic injustices including technical undervaluation. I make use of Pierre Bourdieu's conceptual work to demonstrate how the power dynamics at play in academia make it very challenging to change the habitual state or "habitus". To counter this, I argue that we must reconceive technical contributions to not be a priori less important based on its nature when assigning roles and opportunities leading to authorship. I make this argument based on two premises. First, science has evolved due to major information and biotechnological innovation; this requires 'technicians' to acquire and exercise a commensurate high degree of both technical and intellectual expertise which in turn increases the value of their contribution. I will illustrate this by providing a brief historical view of work statisticians, computer programmers/data scientists and laboratory technicians. Second, excluding or undervaluing this type of work is contrary to norms of responsibility, fairness and trustworthiness of the individual researchers and of teams in science. Although such norms are continuously tested because of power dynamics, their importance is central to ethical authorship practice and research integrity. While it may be argued that detailed disclosure of contributions (known as contributorship) increases accountability by clearly identifying who did what in the publication, I contend that this may unintentionally legitimize undervaluation of technical roles and may decrease integrity of science. Finally, this paper offers recommendations to promote ethical inclusion of technical contributors.

Letter writing assignment for exercise physiology students

Letters to the editor are an important part of democratic societies. In academic journals, letters serve as a form of postpublication review and thus permit continued discussion and debate of scientific ideas. However, letters and their importance are rarely taught to university students. Therefore, the aim of the present paper is to propose a lecture and an assignment that introduce the exercise physiology student to letters. The lecture includes an overview of the history of letters, the definition and purposes of letters, letter themes, examples of letters published in exercise physiology journals, and a search method for discovering letters. The student is then assigned a project comprised of two parts. Part 1 requires the student to independently discover a letter exchange in a scientific journal, including the original research article, the letter commenting on the article, and the reply to the letter. The student then writes a report that summarizes the exchange. The report includes an analysis of the letter's themes and the validity of the arguments made. Part 2 of the assignment requires the student to independently discover an article published in the past year that they believe requires comment. The student then writes a letter, commenting on the article. Students who write convincing letters can be encouraged to submit their letter to the journal. The assignment should help prepare the next generation of journal editors, reviewers, and readers for the task of preserving and participating in a practice that serves to refine knowledge.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Letters to the editor are a form of postpublication review and thus help to refine knowledge through discussion and debate, yet exercise physiology students are rarely introduced to letters in their formal education. Here, the author proposes a lecture and an assignment that the university educator can use to help students understand the importance of letters. In the assignment, the student, among other tasks, critiques an existing letter exchange and writes a letter for potential publication.

Like, Comment, and Share: Speech-Language Pathologists' Use of Social Media for Clinical Decision Making

Many social media sites are dedicated for speech-language pathologists (SLPs); however, the extent to which SLPs utilize them in clinical decision making and evidence-based practice (EBP) is not well understood. The purpose of this study was to explore SLPs' use of traditional and modern resources, including social media, within clinical decision making for assessment and intervention practices. Using a stratified random sampling approach, we invited school-based SLPs in Florida and Ohio and on pediatric-focused, SLP Facebook sites to complete an online survey. The majority (N = 271) reported using social media for professional purposes at least once per week: most frequently Facebook (19-25% of SLPs) or Pinterest (15-18% of SLPs) to learn about new treatment ideas or resources for (12-18%) or read others' summaries of treatment-related research (8-11%), but rarely to pose or answer a clinical question (3-5%). The number of reasons for one's professional social media use was moderately correlated with frequency of social media use, traditional EBP training, and reading a greater number of articles from ASHA and other sources. The results warrant further consideration of how to leverage social media as a tool to increase SLPs' knowledge and implementation of EBP.

Fifteen Years and Counting: The Dissemination Impact of Behavior Analysis in Practice

When Behavior Analysis in Practice (BAP) was founded 15 years ago, questions were raised about whether a practitioner-focused journal was really needed to complement our field's well-established applied research periodicals. Like research journals, BAP publishes primary research reports for which scholarly citations are one measure of impact. Unlike most research journals, it also was intended to achieve dissemination impact, which implies influence on people who may not conduct research or leave behind citations. Using altmetric data as an objective measure of dissemination impact, we present evidence that BAP is becoming a leader in this domain among applied behavior analysis journals, and thus appears to be accomplishing exactly what it was designed to. We recommend explicitly relying on dissemination impact data to help shape the journal's future development.

Data, measurement and empirical methods in the science of science

The advent of large-scale datasets that trace the workings of science has encouraged researchers from many different disciplinary backgrounds to turn scientific methods into science itself, cultivating a rapidly expanding 'science of science'. This Review considers this growing, multidisciplinary literature through the lens of data, measurement and empirical methods. We discuss the purposes, strengths and limitations of major empirical approaches, seeking to increase understanding of the field's diverse methodologies and expand researchers' toolkits. Overall, new empirical developments provide enormous capacity to test traditional beliefs and conceptual frameworks about science, discover factors associated with scientific productivity, predict scientific outcomes and design policies that facilitate scientific progress.

Authorship in Scientific Manuscripts

Authorship in scientific manuscripts indicates intellectual contribution of individuals to a research project and authors play a key role in the research and dissemination of results of a research project. It is important for authors to follow guidelines on authorship and submission of manuscripts and to agree on the order of authorship before beginning the project. Criteria for authorship, roles and responsibilities of authors, author metrics and misconduct of authors and their consequences are discussed in this editorial. Properly assigning authorship ensures transparency, accountability, and fairness in the scientific community.

Applying the good publication practice 2022 guidelines in the Asia-Pacific region: a practical guide

OBJECTIVE

The Asia-Pacific region (APAC) represents a unique environment for the publication of biomedical research, particularly industry-funded research. Awareness and adoption of international guidelines on ethical publication practices continues to increase across APAC, but the reframing and expansion of many of the recommendations in the Good Publication Practice (GPP) 2022 guidelines versus GPP3 published in 2015 have important implications for publishing industry-funded biomedical research in the region.

METHODS

This manuscript provides practical guidance for stakeholders in APAC on interpreting and applying the recommendations made in the GPP 2022 guidelines.

RESULTS

Key focus areas include navigating new opportunities for communicating industry-funded research, such as plain language summaries, social media, and preprints; implementing formal processes to improve the integrity of published research in APAC; and methods of promoting transparency and inclusion when publishing industry-funded research. Key APAC-specific issues, including encore presentations, leadership on publication ethics in the region, access to professional resources, and support for educating regional stakeholders are also discussed.

CONCLUSIONS

Overall, this manuscript offers a pragmatic guide for stakeholders in industry-sponsored research on applying GPP 2022 in practice with a focus on effectively integrating these guidelines in an APAC context.

How to build up big team science: a practical guide for large-scale collaborations

The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of big team science (BTS), endeavours where a comparatively large number of researchers pool their intellectual and/or material resources in pursuit of a common goal. Despite this burgeoning interest, there exists little guidance on how to create, manage and participate in these collaborations. In this paper, we integrate insights from a multi-disciplinary set of BTS initiatives to provide a how-to guide for BTS. We first discuss initial considerations for launching a BTS project, such as building the team, identifying leadership, governance, tools and open science approaches. We then turn to issues related to running and completing a BTS project, such as study design, ethical approvals and issues related to data collection, management and analysis. Finally, we address topics that present special challenges for BTS, including authorship decisions, collaborative writing and team decision-making.

Task state representations in vmPFC mediate relevant and irrelevant value signals and their behavioral influence

The ventromedial prefrontal-cortex (vmPFC) is known to contain expected value signals that inform our choices. But expected values even for the same stimulus can differ by task. In this study, we asked how the brain flexibly switches between such value representations in a task-dependent manner. Thirty-five participants alternated between tasks in which either stimulus color or motion predicted rewards. We show that multivariate vmPFC signals contain a rich representation that includes the current task state or context (motion/color), the associated expected value, and crucially, the irrelevant value of the alternative context. We also find that irrelevant value representations in vmPFC compete with relevant value signals, interact with task-state representations and relate to behavioral signs of value competition. Our results shed light on vmPFC's role in decision making, bridging between its role in mapping observations onto the task states of a mental map, and computing expected values for multiple states.

Automated detection of over- and under-dispersion in baseline tables in randomised controlled trials

Background: Papers describing the results of a randomised trial should include a baseline table that compares the characteristics of randomised groups. Researchers who fraudulently generate trials often unwittingly create baseline tables that are implausibly similar (under-dispersed) or have large differences between groups (over-dispersed). I aimed to create an automated algorithm to screen for under- and over-dispersion in the baseline tables of randomised trials. Methods: Using a cross-sectional study I examined 2,245 randomised controlled trials published in health and medical journals on PubMed Central. I estimated the probability that a trial's baseline summary statistics were under- or over-dispersed using a Bayesian model that examined the distribution of t-statistics for the between-group differences, and compared this with an expected distribution without dispersion. I used a simulation study to test the ability of the model to find under- or over-dispersion and compared its performance with an existing test of dispersion based on a uniform test of p-values. My model combined categorical and continuous summary statistics, whereas the uniform test used only continuous statistics. Results: The algorithm had a relatively good accuracy for extracting the data from baseline tables, matching well on the size of the tables and sample size. Using t-statistics in the Bayesian model out-performed the uniform test of p-values, which had many false positives for skewed, categorical and rounded data that were not under- or over-dispersed. For trials published on PubMed Central, some tables appeared under- or over-dispersed because they had an atypical presentation or had reporting errors. Some trials flagged as under-dispersed had groups with strikingly similar summary statistics. Conclusions: Automated screening for fraud of all submitted trials is challenging due to the widely varying presentation of baseline tables. The Bayesian model could be useful in targeted checks of suspected trials or authors.

Wildfire-related smoke inhalation worsens cardiovascular risk in sleep disrupted rats

Introduction

As a lifestyle factor, poor sleep status is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and may be influenced by environmental stressors, including air pollution.

Methods

To determine whether exposure to air pollution modified cardiovascular effects of sleep disruption, we evaluated the effects of single or repeated (twice/wk for 4 wks) inhalation exposure to eucalyptus wood smoke (ES; 964 μg/m3 for 1 h), a key wildland fire air pollution source, on mild sleep loss in the form of gentle handling in rats. Blood pressure (BP) radiotelemetry and echocardiography were evaluated along with assessments of lung and systemic inflammation, cardiac and hypothalamic gene expression, and heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of cardiac autonomic tone.

Results and Discussion

GH alone disrupted sleep, as evidenced by active period-like locomotor activity, and increases in BP, heart rate (HR), and hypothalamic expression of the circadian gene Per2. A single bout of sleep disruption and ES, but neither alone, increased HR and BP as rats transitioned into their active period, a period aligned with a critical early morning window for stroke risk in humans. These responses were immediately preceded by reduced HRV, indicating increased cardiac sympathetic tone. In addition, only sleep disrupted rats exposed to ES had increased HR and BP during the final sleep disruption period. These rats also had increased cardiac output and cardiac expression of genes related to adrenergic function, and regulation of vasoconstriction and systemic blood pressure one day after final ES exposure. There was little evidence of lung or systemic inflammation, except for increases in serum LDL cholesterol and alanine aminotransferase. These results suggest that inhaled air pollution increases sleep perturbation-related cardiovascular risk, potentially in part by increased sympathetic activity.

Automated detection of over- and under-dispersion in baseline tables in randomised controlled trials

Background: Papers describing the results of a randomised trial should include a baseline table that compares the characteristics of randomised groups. Researchers who fraudulently generate trials often unwittingly create baseline tables that are implausibly similar (under-dispersed) or have large differences between groups (over-dispersed). I aimed to create an automated algorithm to screen for under- and over-dispersion in the baseline tables of randomised trials. Methods: Using a cross-sectional study I examined 2,245 randomised controlled trials published in health and medical journals on PubMed Central. I estimated the probability that a trial's baseline summary statistics were under- or over-dispersed using a Bayesian model that examined the distribution of t-statistics for the between-group differences, and compared this with an expected distribution without dispersion. I used a simulation study to test the ability of the model to find under- or over-dispersion and compared its performance with an existing test of dispersion based on a uniform test of p-values. My model combined categorical and continuous summary statistics, whereas the uniform test used only continuous statistics. Results: The algorithm had a relatively good accuracy for extracting the data from baseline tables, matching well on the size of the tables and sample size. Using t-statistics in the Bayesian model out-performed the uniform test of p-values, which had many false positives for skewed, categorical and rounded data that were not under- or over-dispersed. For trials published on PubMed Central, some tables appeared under- or over-dispersed because they had an atypical presentation or had reporting errors. Some trials flagged as under-dispersed had groups with strikingly similar summary statistics. Conclusions: Automated screening for fraud of all submitted trials is challenging due to the widely varying presentation of baseline tables. The Bayesian model could be useful in targeted checks of suspected trials or authors.

The relation between social media mentions and academic citations in orthodontic journals: A preliminary study

BACKGROUND

To study the relation between social media mentions and academic citations for articles published in peer-reviewed orthodontic journals.

METHODS

Articles published in early 2018 in seven peer-reviewed orthodontic journals were retrospectively analyzed in September 2022. Citation counts of the articles were evaluated using two databases: Google Scholar (GS) and Web of Science (WoS). The Altmetric Attention Score, Twitter, Facebook mentions, and Mendeley reads were tracked using the Altmetric Bookmarklet. The citation counts and social media mentions were correlated using Spearman rho.

RESULTS

A total of 84 articles were identified during the initial search; 64 (76%) were original studies and systematic review articles and included in the analysis. A total of 38% of the articles had at least one mention on social media. Over the study period, the average number of citations of the articles mentioned on social media was higher than the non-mentioned articles for GS and WoS, respectively. Moreover, significant positive correlations existed between the Altmetric Attention Score and the number of citations in GS and WoS (r_s = 0.31, P = 0.001 and r_s = 0.26, P = 0.04).

CONCLUSIONS

Social media mentions and citations of articles published in peer-reviewed orthodontic journals are correlated, with a clear difference in the number of citations in articles mentioned on social media versus those not mentioned, indicating possible increased reach of articles disseminated on social media.

Can the absolute configuration of cyclic peptides be determined with vibrational circular dichroism?

Cyclic peptides show a wide range of biological activities, among others as antibacterial agents. These peptides are often large and flexible with multiple chiral centers. The determination of the stereochemistry of molecules with multiple chiral centers is a challenging and important task in drug development. Chiroptical spectroscopies such as vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) can distinguish between different stereoisomers. The absolute configuration (AC) of a stereoisomer can be determined by comparing its experimental spectra to computed spectra of stereoisomers with known AC. In this way, the AC of rigid molecules with up to seven chiral centers has been assigned (Bogaerts et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2020, 22, 18014). The question arises whether this is possible with more conformationally flexible molecules such as cyclic peptides. We here investigate to what extent the AC of cyclic peptides can be determined with VCD. More specifically, we investigate the maximum number of chiral centers a cyclic peptide can have in order to be able to unambiguously assign the AC with VCD. We present experimental and computed IR and VCD spectra for a series of eight tetrapeptides and hexapeptides with two, three and four chiral centers. We use our recently developed computational protocol with a conformational search based on sampling with meta-dynamics. We use visual inspection to compare the computed spectra of different stereoisomers with an experimental spectrum of the corresponding cyclic peptide with known AC. We find that the AC of the investigated cyclic peptides with two chiral centers can be unambiguously assigned with VCD. This is however not possible for all of the cyclic peptides with three chiral centers and for none of those with four chiral centers. At best, one can limit the number of possible stereoisomers in those cases. Our work shows that other techniques are needed to assign the AC of cyclic peptides with three or more chiral centers. Our study also constitutes a warning that the spectra of all stereoisomers should be computed before attempting to match to an experimental spectrum, to avoid an accidental erroneous match.

An Opportunity to Increase Collaborative Science in Fetal, Infant, and Toddler Neuroimaging

The field of fetal, infant, and toddler (FIT) neuroimaging research—including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy, among others—offers pioneering insights into early brain development and has grown in popularity over the past 2 decades. In broader neuroimaging research, multisite collaborative projects, data sharing, and open-source code have increasingly become the norm, fostering big data, consensus standards, and rapid knowledge transfer and development. Given the aforementioned benefits, along with recent initiatives from funding agencies to support multisite and multimodal FIT neuroimaging studies, the FIT field now has the opportunity to establish sustainable, collaborative, and open science practices. By combining data and resources, we can tackle the most pressing issues of the FIT field, including small effect sizes, replicability problems, generalizability issues, and the lack of field standards for data collection, processing, and analysis—together. Thus, the goals of this commentary are to highlight some of the potential barriers that have waylaid these efforts and to discuss the emerging solutions that have the potential to revolutionize how we work together to study the developing brain early in life.

Investigating the measurement properties of livability: a scoping review

Connecting evidence-based public health recommendations to livability, a popular and relatable construct, can increase the policy relevance of research to improve community design. However, there are many different definitions and conceptualizations of livability and little consensus about its measurement. Improved measurement, including standardization, is needed to increase understanding of livability's influence on health and to facilitate comparisons across contexts. This study sought to review existing livability measures, how they were created, and evidence regarding their reliability and validity. A scoping review of three databases (PubMed, Google Scholar, and Web of Science) identified 744 eligible studies. After screening, 24 studies, 15 from the original search and 9 through backward citation searches, were included in the review. Most studies were carried out in an urban context. There was minimal consensus across studies on the conceptualization of livability. However, measure domains and indicators overlapped significantly. While the process used to validate the measures varied, most studies reported high levels of reliability and found that livability was correlated with similar measures (e.g. place satisfaction, neighborhood safety, and sense of place) and self-reported health and wellbeing. Further research is needed to develop parsimonious, standardized measures of livability in order to create and sustain livable communities worldwide.

Citation advantage of COVID-19-related publications

With the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists from various disciplines responded quickly to this historical public health emergency. The sudden boom of COVID-19-related papers in a short period of time may bring unexpected influence to some commonly used bibliometric indicators. By a large-scale investigation using Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, this brief communication confirms the citation advantage of COVID-19-related papers empirically through the lens of Essential Science Indicators’ highly cited paper. More than 8% of COVID-19-related papers published during 2020 and 2021 were selected as Essential Science Indicators highly cited papers, which was much higher than the set global benchmark value of 1%. The citation advantage of COVID-19-related papers for different Web of Science categories/countries/journal impact factor quartiles was also demonstrated. The distortions of COVID-19-related papers’ citation advantage to some bibliometric indicators such as journal impact factor were discussed at the end of this brief communication.

Differences Due to Sex and Sweetener on the Bioavailability of (Poly)phenols in Urine Samples: A Machine Learning Approach

Metabolic diseases have been related to the overdrinking of high-sugar content beverages. As a result, the demand for alternative formulations based on plant-based ingredients with health-promoting properties has increased during the last few years. Nonetheless, the design and production of effective formulations requires understanding the bioavailability of these compounds. For this purpose, a two-month longitudinal trial with 140 volunteers was conducted to measure the beneficial effects of a maqui-citrus beverage, rich in (poly)phenols. From data obtained by quantifying metabolites present in urine samples, biostatistical and machine learning (data imputation, feature selection, and clustering) methods were applied to assess whether a volunteer's sex and the sweetener added to the beverage (sucrose, sucralose, or stevia) affected the bioavailability of (poly)phenol metabolites. Several metabolites have been described as being differentially influenced: 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid and naringenin with its derivatives were positively influenced by stevia and men, while eriodictyol sulfate and homoeridictyol glucunoride concentrations were enhanced with stevia and women. By examining groups of volunteers created by clustering analysis, patterns in metabolites' bioavailability distribution as a function of sex and/or sweeteners (or even due to an uncontrolled factor) were also discovered. These results underline the potential of stevia as a (poly)phenol bioavailability enhancer. Furthermore, they also evidence sex affects the bioavailability of (poly)phenols, pointing at a sex-dependent metabolic pathway regulation.

Social Media for Chemistry Scholars

Used by nearly 60 % of the world's population, social media are highly interactive websites ("platforms") today widely used also by researchers. This perspective aims at identifying the main benefits of social media utilization by chemistry scholars with respect to the three main dimensions (research, education and societal service) of scholarly activity. The main risks arising from the use of social media, as we suggest in the conclusions, must be managed and new education on their purposeful utilization should be planned and delivered.

Assessing the publishing priorities and preferences among STEM researchers at a large R1 institution

The cost of academic publishing has increased substantially despite the ease with which information can be shared on the web. Open Access publishing is a key mechanism for amplifying research access, inclusivity, and impact. Despite this, shifting to a free-to-read publishing environment requires navigating complex barriers that vary by career status and publishing expectations. In this article, we investigate the motivations and preferences of researchers situated within our large research institution as a case study for publishing attitudes at similar institutions. We surveyed the publishing priorities and preferences of researchers at various career stages in STEM fields as they relate to openness, data practices, and assessment of research impact. Our results indicate that publishing preferences, data management experience and research impact assessment vary by career status and departmental approaches to promotion. We find that open access publishing is widely appreciated regardless of career status, but financial limitations and publishing expectations were common barriers to publishing in Open Access journals. Our findings shed light on publishing attitudes and preferences among researchers at a major R1 research institution, and offer insight into advocacy strategies that incentivize open access publishing.

FAIR principles to improve the impact on health research management outcomes

Background

The FAIR principles, under the open science paradigm, aim to improve the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability of digital data. In this sense, the FAIR4Health project aimed to apply the FAIR principles in the health research field. For this purpose, a workflow and a set of tools were developed to apply FAIR principles in health research datasets, and validated through the demonstration of the potential impact that this strategy has on health research management outcomes.

Objective

This paper aims to describe the analysis of the impact on health research management outcomes of the FAIR4Health solution.

Methods

To analyse the impact on health research management outcomes in terms of time and economic savings, a survey was designed and sent to experts on data management with expertise in the use of the FAIR4Health solution. Then, differences between the time and costs needed to perform the techniques with (i) standalone research, and (ii) using the proposed solution, were analyzed.

Results

In the context of the health research management outcomes, the survey analysis concluded that 56.57% of the time and 16800 EUR per month could be saved if the FAIR4Health solution is used.

Conclusions

Adopting principles in health research through the FAIR4Health solution saves time and, consequently, costs in the execution of research involving data management techniques.

Managing the "Three Cs" of Academic Literature Authorship: Contributions, Credit, and Conflict

Dissemination of information through publications is central to academic research, as well as professional advancement. Although seemingly a straightforward endeavor, publication authorship may present challenges. Although the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors defines authorship based on 4 required criteria, contemporary interdisciplinary collaborations can complicate authorship determinations. However, communication that occurs early and frequently in the research and writing process can help to prevent or mitigate potential conflicts, while a process for defining authorship contributions can aid in awarding proper credit. The Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) defines 14 essential roles of manuscript authors that can be utilized to characterize individual author contributions toward any given publication. This information is useful for academic administrators when evaluating contributors of faculty during promotion and tenure decisions. In the era of collaborative scientific, clinical, and pedagogical scholarship, providing faculty development, including statements of credit in the published work, and developing institutional systems to capture and assess contributions are key.

Internationalization of the Moroccan Journal of Chemistry: A bibliometric study

In this research paper, we analyzed the bibliographic data of the research publications issued by the Moroccan Journal of Chemistry between 2013 and 2021. As an open-access country-based research journal with a narrow area of interest and international online exposure, it will be interesting to see how it affects the local chemical research community through the comparison of the characteristics of the research outputs of the journal as retrieved from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) with the features of Moroccan chemical research from 2014 to 2021 in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoS). In this context, we generated scientometric networks using Gephi, a tool for large-scale data visualization, to reveal the patterns of the publications in the Moroccan Journal of Chemistry. When performing our analysis, we found a significant alignment between the research topics featured in the Moroccan Journal of Chemistry and the main research areas of the Moroccan chemical scholarly outputs, particularly Multidisciplinary Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, and Analytical Chemistry. We also identified that the Moroccan Journal of Chemistry functions as an incubator for establishing new traditions of research collaboration between Moroccan institutions and target nations such as Asian and African countries. As well, it is clear that the Moroccan Journal of Chemistry is an interesting venue for the most productive chemical researchers in Morocco for sharing preliminary research findings and discussing trendy topics.

What is known about personal reputation? A systematic literature review

This systematic literature review encompassed the results of previous research on personal reputation and found opportunities in state of the literature to guide future research in communication, management, and other disciplines in the social sciences. A content analysis was conducted of 91 manuscripts from 1984 to November 2022, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The findings suggest that the amount of literature on personal reputation has increased since 2006; however, it is still in a developing stage. Due to its scarcity, it is advisable to conduct more qualitative and probability studies. For this review, several of the most cited articles are probably pioneering manuscripts that contributed to building the personal reputation construct. This review establishes a total of six categories for guiding future research opportunities on personal reputation. To facilitate the classification of the different future research opportunities, some types of areas suggested by Gomez-Trujillo et al. were considered. The discussion of future research opportunities includes categories like Causes and Effects, Inventories and Scales, Online and Digital Context, Organizational and Group Environments, Leaders and Top Management Executives, and Theory-building. On the other hand, this study could be considered the first step towards future research on how personal reputation influences audiences' opinions and perceptions in different research fields. It also opens the possibility of conducting more specific systematic literature reviews on this topic. Finally, this manuscript offers an overview of the present and the future of construct of personal reputation in the social sciences.

Inclusive collaboration across plant physiology and genomics: Now is the time!

Within the broad field of plant sciences, what are the most pressing challenges and opportunities to advance? Answers to this question usually include food and nutritional security, climate change mitigation, adaptation of plants to changing climates, preservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services, production of plant-based proteins and products, and growth of the bioeconomy. Genes and the processes their products carry out create differences in how plants grow, develop, and behave, and thus, the key solutions to these challenges lie squarely in the space where plant genomics and physiology intersect. Advancements in genomics, phenomics, and analysis tools have generated massive datasets, but these data are complex and have not always generated scientific insights at the anticipated pace. Further, new tools may need to be created or adapted, and field-relevant applications tested, to advance scientific discovery derived from such datasets. Meaningful, relevant conclusions and connections from genomics and plant physiological and biochemical data require both subject matter expertise and the collaborative skills needed to work together outside of specific disciplines. Bringing the best expertise to bear on complex problems in plant sciences requires enhanced, inclusive, and sustained collaboration across disciplines. However, despite significant efforts to enable and sustain collaborative research, a variety of challenges persist. Here, we present the outcomes and conclusions of two workshops convened to address the need for collaboration between scientists engaged in plant physiology, genetics, and genomics and to discuss the approaches that will create the necessary environments to support successful collaboration. We conclude with approaches to share and reward collaboration and the need to train inclusive scientists that will have the skills to thrive in interdisciplinary contexts.

Scientific sinkhole: estimating the cost of peer review based on survey data with snowball sampling

BACKGROUND

There are a variety of costs associated with publication of scientific findings. The purpose of this work was to estimate the cost of peer review in scientific publishing per reviewer, per year and for the entire scientific community.

METHODS

Internet-based self-report, cross-sectional survey, live between June 28, 2021 and August 2, 2021 was used. Participants were recruited via snowball sampling. No restrictions were placed on geographic location or field of study. Respondents who were asked to act as a peer-reviewer for at least one manuscript submitted to a scientific journal in 2020 were eligible. The primary outcome measure was the cost of peer review per person, per year (calculated as wage-cost x number of initial reviews and number of re-reviews per year). The secondary outcome was the cost of peer review globally (calculated as the number of peer-reviewed papers in Scopus x median wage-cost of initial review and re-review).

RESULTS

A total of 354 participants completed at least one question of the survey, and information necessary to calculate the cost of peer-review was available for 308 participants from 33 countries (44% from Canada). The cost of peer review was estimated at $US1,272 per person, per year ($US1,015 for initial review and $US256 for re-review), or US$1.1-1.7 billion for the scientific community per year. The global cost of peer-review was estimated at US$6 billion in 2020 when relying on the Dimensions database and taking into account reviewed-but-rejected manuscripts.

CONCLUSIONS

Peer review represents an important financial piece of scientific publishing. Our results may not represent all countries or fields of study, but are consistent with previous estimates and provide additional context from peer reviewers themselves. Researchers and scientists have long provided peer review as a contribution to the scientific community. Recognizing the importance of peer-review, institutions should acknowledge these costs in job descriptions, performance measurement, promotion packages, and funding applications. Journals should develop methods to compensate reviewers for their time and improve transparency while maintaining the integrity of the peer-review process.

Phase 1 of collaborative action around the implementation of virtual hearing aid care: Development of a clinical practice guideline

RATIONALE

There is a growing demand for comprehensive, evidence-based, and accessible clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) to address virtual service delivery. This demand was particularly evident within the field of hearing healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic, when providers were faced with an immediate need to offer services at a distance. Considering the recent advancement in information and communication technologies, the slow uptake of virtual care, and the lack of knowledge tools to support clinical integration in hearing healthcare, a Knowledge-to-Action Framework was used to address the virtual care delivery research-to-practice gap.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

This paper outlines the development of a CPG specific to provider-directed virtual hearing aid care. Clinical integration of the guideline took place during the COVID-19 pandemic and in alignment with an umbrella project aimed at implementing and evaluating virtual hearing aid care incorporating many different stakeholders.

METHOD

Evidence from two systematic literature reviews guided the CPG development. Collaborative actions around knowledge creation resulted in the development of a draft CPG (v1.9) and the mobilisation of the guideline into participating clinical sites.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

Literature review findings are discussed along with the co-creation process that included 13 team members, from various research and clinical backgrounds, who participated in the writing, revising, and finalising of the draft version of the guideline.

International multi-stakeholder consensus statement on clinical trial integrity

OBJECTIVE

To prepare a set of statements for randomised clinical trials (RCT) integrity through an international multi-stakeholder consensus.

METHODS

The consensus was developed via: multi-country multidisciplinary stakeholder group composition and engagement; evidence synthesis of 55 systematic reviews concerning RCT integrity; anonymised two-round modified Delphi survey with consensus threshold based on the average percentage of majority opinions; and, a final consensus development meeting. Prospective registrations: (https://osf.io/bhncy, https://osf.io/3ursn).

RESULTS

There were 30 stakeholders representing 15 countries from five continents including triallists, ethicists, methodologists, statisticians, consumer representatives, industry representatives, systematic reviewers, funding body panel members, regulatory experts, authors, journal editors, peer-reviewers and advisors for resolving integrity concerns. Delphi survey response rate was 86.7% (26/30 stakeholders). There were 111 statements (73 stakeholder-provided, 46 systematic review-generated, 8 supported by both) in the initial long list, with eight additional statements provided during the consensus rounds. Through consensus the final set consolidated 81 statements (49 stakeholder-provided, 41 systematic review-generated, 9 supported by both). The entire RCT life cycle was covered by the set of statements including general aspects (n = 6), design and approval (n = 11), conduct and monitoring (n = 19), reporting of protocols and findings (n = 20), post-publication concerns (n = 12), and future research and development (n = 13).

CONCLUSION

Implementation of this multi-stakeholder consensus statement is expected to enhance RCT integrity.

Creating and validating a scholarly knowledge graph using natural language processing and microtask crowdsourcing

Due to the growing number of scholarly publications, finding relevant articles becomes increasingly difficult. Scholarly knowledge graphs can be used to organize the scholarly knowledge presented within those publications and represent them in machine-readable formats. Natural language processing (NLP) provides scalable methods to automatically extract knowledge from articles and populate scholarly knowledge graphs. However, NLP extraction is generally not sufficiently accurate and, thus, fails to generate high granularity quality data. In this work, we present TinyGenius, a methodology to validate NLP-extracted scholarly knowledge statements using microtasks performed with crowdsourcing. TinyGenius is employed to populate a paper-centric knowledge graph, using five distinct NLP methods. We extend our previous work of the TinyGenius methodology in various ways. Specifically, we discuss the NLP tasks in more detail and include an explanation of the data model. Moreover, we present a user evaluation where participants validate the generated NLP statements. The results indicate that employing microtasks for statement validation is a promising approach despite the varying participant agreement for different microtasks.

Citation pattern of open access and toll-based research articles in the field of biological and physical sciences: a comparative study

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between the access mode of research articles [Open Access (OA) and Toll-Access (TA)] and their subsequent citation counts in Biological and Physical Sciences in three Impact factor zones (High, Medium and Low).

Design/methodology/approach

Three subjects each from Biological Sciences (Biochemistry, Cell Biology and Genetics) and Physical Sciences (Astronomy, Oceanography and Optics) were selected for the study. A comprehensive list of journals (TA and OA) in select subjects of Biological and Physical Sciences was prepared by consulting Journal Citation Report’s Master Journal List (for the compilation of both Open Access and Toll Access journal list) and Directory of Open Access Journals (for the compilation of Open Access journal list). For each journal, essential details like content language, format, year of publication, access mode (Open Access or Toll Access), etc. were obtained from Ulrich’s Periodical Directory. Web of Science (WoS) was used as citations indexing tool in this study. The data set was run on the WoS to collect the citation data.

Findings

The results of the study indicate that open mode of access is not a prerequisite for higher citation boost as in the majority of the cases in this study, TA articles have garnered a greater number of citations as compared to open access articles in different Impact factor zones in Biological and Physical Sciences.

Originality/value

A novel approach has been adopted to understand and compare the research impact of open access (OA) and toll access (TA) journal articles in the field of Biological and Physical Sciences at three Impact factor zone levels to reveal the citation metrics encompassing three parameters, i.e. citedness, average citation count and year wise distribution of citations in select subjects of Biological and Physical Sciences.

Peer review

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/[DOI]/10.1108/OIR-01-2021-0029

Ethically Driven and Methodologically Tailored: Setting the Agenda for Systematic Reviews in Domestic Violence and Abuse

Purpose

Systematic reviews have an important, and growing, role to play in the global evidence eco-system of domestic violence and abuse. Alongside substantive contributions to knowledge, such reviews stimulate debates about ethical reviewing practices and the importance of tailoring methods to the nuances of the field. This paper aims to pinpoint a set of ethical and methodological priorities to guide and enhance review practices specifically in the field of domestic abuse.

Method

The five Pillars of the Research Integrity Framework (ethical guidelines for domestic abuse research) are used to interrogate the systematic review process. To do so, the Framework is retrospectively applied to a recently completed systematic review in domestic abuse. The review included a rapid systematic map and in-depth analysis of interventions aimed at creating or enhancing informal support and social networks for victim-survivors of abuse.

Results

Ethical and methodological priorities for systematic reviews in domestic abuse include (1) Safety and wellbeing: maintaining the wellbeing of researchers and stakeholders, and appraising the ethics of included studies, (2) Transparency/ accountability: transparent reporting of research funding, aims and methods together with explicit consideration of authorship of outputs, (3) Equality, human rights and social justice: developing diverse review teams/ Advisory groups, and review methods that aim to search for, and report, diverse perspectives. Considering researcher positionality/ reflexivity in the review, (4) Engagement: collaboration with non-academic stakeholders and individuals with lived experience throughout the review process, (5) Research Ethics: independent ethical scrutiny of systematic review proposals with input from researchers with expertise in systematic reviews and domestic abuse.

Conclusion

Additional research is required to comprehensively examine the ethics of each stage of the review process. In the meantime, attention should be given to the underpinning ethical framework for our systematic review practices and the wider research infrastructure that governs reviews.

COVID-19 retracted publications on retraction watch: A systematic survey of their pre-prints and citations

Background

Studies related to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were frequently published as pre-prints prior to undergoing peer-review. However, several publications were later retracted due to ethical concerns or study misconduct. Although these studies have been retracted, the availability of their corresponding pre-prints has never been formally investigated, and may result in the spread of misinformation if they are being used to inform decision-making.

Methods

Our objective was to conduct a systematic survey of retracted COVID-19 publications listed on the Retraction Watch database as of August 15th, 2021. We assessed the availability of corresponding pre-prints for retracted publications, and documented the number of citations and online views.

Results

Our study included 140 retracted COVID-19 publications, and we could not retrieve corresponding pre-prints for 132 retracted publications in our study (94%). Although we were unable to find the majority of pre-prints, they had already been disseminated, with a maximal citation count of 593 and Altmetric score of 558,928.

Conclusion

While it is reassuring that most corresponding pre-prints could not be retrieved, our study highlights the need for online platforms and journals to employ quality assurance methods to prevent the spread of misinformation through citation of retracted papers.

Determinants of impact factor and Eigenfactor score in otolaryngology journals

Objective

This study aims to identify determinants of high impact, measured by Impact Factor (IF) and Eigenfactor score, among otolaryngology journals.

Methods

Bibliometric data of "otorhinolaryngology" journals were collected from the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database. For the years 2009-2020, we collected normalized Eigenfactor score, 5-year IF, immediacy index, fraction of IF from journal-self citation, proportion and magnitude of published citable articles, and total citation counts. High-IF and -Eigenfactor journals were considered those within the top-quartile of that metric each respective year.

Results

High-IF and -Eigenfactor otolaryngology journals displayed higher 5-year IFs, immediacy indexes, and IF without self-citation (p < .05 for all years) including total citations counts and citable articles when ranked by Eigenfactor (p < .05 for all years). Otolaryngology IF correlated with 5-year IF and immediacy index within the same year (p < .05 for all years) and from previous years (p < .05 for all years; p < .05 for 2017-2018; p > .05 for 2009-2016). Eigenfactor correlated with 5-year IF, total citation counts, and citable articles within the same year (p < .05 for all years) and previous years (p < .05 for 2013-2018). Multilinear regression revealed that 5-year IF (p < .05 for 2009-2018) and immediacy index from the prior 2 years (p < .05 for 2017-2018; p > .05 for 2009-2016) predicted 2019 IF. Similarly, 5-year IF, total citation counts, and citable articles (p < .05 for 2013-2018) predicted 2019 Eigenfactor score.

Conclusion

Sustained publication of impactful articles is the dominant driver of high IF and Eigenfactor score. Eigenfactor score reflects a unique evaluation of otolaryngology journals; ranking otolaryngology journals by their Eigenfactor scores significantly alters journal ranking compared to ranking by IF.

Level of evidence

NA.

Peer review perpetuates barriers for historically excluded groups

Peer review is central to the scientific process and scientists' career advancement, but bias at various stages of the review process disadvantages some authors. Here we use peer review data from 312,740 biological sciences manuscripts across 31 studies to (1) examine evidence for differential peer review outcomes based on author demographics, (2) evaluate the efficacy of solutions to reduce bias and (3) describe the current landscape of peer review policies for 541 ecology and evolution journals. We found notably worse review outcomes (for example, lower overall acceptance rates) for authors whose institutional affiliations were in Asia, for authors whose country's primary language is not English and in countries with relatively low Human Development Indices. We found few data evaluating efficacy of interventions outside of reducing gender bias through double-blind review or diversifying reviewer/editorial boards. Despite evidence for review outcome gaps based on author demographics, few journals currently implement policies intended to mitigate bias (for example, 15.9% of journals practised double-blind review and 2.03% had reviewer guidelines that mentioned social justice issues). The lack of demographic equity signals an urgent need to better understand and implement evidence-based bias mitigation strategies.

Increasing Student Confidence in Writing: Integrating Authentic Manuscript Writing into an Online 8-Week Research Program

In various formats, students at the secondary and postsecondary levels participate in multiweek authentic science research projects. There have been many papers explaining the operations of such programs, but few have provided explicit instruction on how to incorporate authentic communication practices into the student research process. In this paper, we describe how we integrated primary literature into an 8-week online research program for 8th to 11th graders. Each week, students were introduced to a specific section of a primary research article reflecting different stages of their research project, and they were guided on how to write that specific section for their own research paper. By the end of the program, students had an outline or first draft of a primary research paper based on their research. Following completion of the program, student participants reported greater self-efficacy and confidence in scientific writing. Here, we describe our approach and provide an adaptable framework for integrating primary literature into research projects.

Did Ghana Do Enough? A Scientometric Analysis of COVID-19 Research Output from Ghana within the African Context

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated worldwide research efforts to provide knowledge about the disease. Yet little is known about how Ghana contributed to this critical knowledge production. This scientometric analysis was conducted to ascertain Ghana’s COVID-19 research output within the African context to gain understanding and identify potential future directions. The study retrieved relevant research, spanning 2019 to 2022, from the Scopus database in December 2022. The retrieved data were assessed using various established indices, including collaboration patterns, productive institutions, citation patterns, and major research sponsors, among others. Ghana came seventh in Africa with a total of 1112 publications. For international collaborations, the United States and the United Kingdom were the major partners, while South Africa was the main African collaborator with Ghana. Out of the top 21 most productive authors, 85.7% were males and 14.3% were females, demonstrating a great gender gap in research output in Ghana. Although Ghana has made some contributions to the global COVID-19 research output, there are few intra-continental research collaborations, which limits Africa’s overall research output. Our study demonstrates a critical need for the Ghanaian government to prioritize research and funding and address barriers to women’s research productivity.