Comprehensive Approach to Open Access Publishing: Platforms and Tools

CAse-BAsed REview sTandards (CABARET): Considerations for Authors, Reviewers, and Editors

The publication landscape for case reports has undergone a significant shift, with many high-impact journals deprioritizing or ceasing their publication altogether. This trend has led to the emergence of case-based reviews as an alternative to traditional case reports. Several factors drive this shift. Case-based reviews offer a more comprehensive synthesis of the literature compared to single case reports. They employ systematic search methodologies, reducing the risk of excluding relevant data, and providing robust evidence. From a publisher's perspective, case-based reviews have a greater potential for citation. While recommendations exist for writing traditional case reports, such as the CAse REports (CARE) guidelines, there is a lack of published recommendations for composing case-based reviews. This review aims to address this gap by providing guidance on drafting high-quality case-based reviews.

Publishing on Topical Subjects in Total Joint Arthroplasty Is Associated With Increased Social Media Attention

BACKGROUND

Social media platforms are often used for research dissemination and collaboration. Given the increased prevalence of online-only publications, understanding what drives research dissemination is important. Here, we analyzed factors associated with increased social media attention among peer-reviewed publications in total knee arthroplasty, total hip arthroplasty, and unicompartmental knee arthroplasty.

METHODS

We analyzed publications about total knee arthroplasty, total hip arthroplasty, or unicompartmental knee arthroplasty from 2010 to 2022 using a national database. We analyzed a weighted count of social media mentions, using negative binomial regressions adjusting for days since publication. Publications on "hot topics" in arthroplasty were examined including navigation/robotics, COVID-19, race/ethnicity, body mass index, and reimbursement. There were 9,542 publications included, 4,216 (44%) were open access (OA), 338 (3.5%) included navigation, 32 (0.34%) discussed race/ethnicity, 20 (0.2%) discussed COVID-19, 3,840 (40%) were randomized studies, 30 (0.3%) discussed reimbursement, and 2,867 (30%) were in top-10 orthopaedic journals.

RESULTS

Factors associated with higher weighted score included studies about COVID-19 (50 versus 6.0, P < .001), race/ethnicity (15.8 versus 6.0, P < .001), OA status (6.3 versus 5.8, P = .001), and randomized studies (6.5 versus 5.7, P < .001). Studies from top-10 journals had a lower score (5.8 versus 6.2, P = .025), as did studies about body mass index (3.4 versus 6.1, P = .001). Studies about navigation and reimbursement did not have significantly different scores.

CONCLUSIONS

Studies on COVID-19, race/ethnicity, randomized studies, and OA publication were associated with increased social media while those in top-10 orthopaedic journals had lower scores.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE

Level IV, Prognostic Study.

Research Integrity: Where We Are and Where We Are Heading

The concept of research integrity (RI) refers to a set of moral and ethical standards that serve as the foundation for the execution of research activities. Integrity in research is the incorporation of principles of honesty, transparency, and respect for ethical standards and norms throughout all stages of the research endeavor, encompassing study design, data collecting, analysis, reporting, and publishing. The preservation of RI is of utmost importance to uphold the credibility and amplify the influence of scientific research while also preventing and dealing with instances of scientific misconduct. Researchers, institutions, journals, and readers share responsibilities for preserving RI. Researchers must adhere to the highest ethical standards. Institutions have a role in establishing an atmosphere that supports integrity ideals while also providing useful guidance, instruction, and assistance to researchers. Editors and reviewers act as protectors, upholding quality and ethical standards in the dissemination of research results through publishing. Readers play a key role in the detection and reporting of fraudulent activity by critically evaluating content. The struggle against scientific misconduct has multiple dimensions and is continuous. It requires a collaborative effort and adherence to the principles of honesty, transparency, and rigorous science. By supporting a culture of RI, the scientific community may preserve its core principles and continue to contribute appropriately to society's well-being. It not only aids present research but also lays the foundation for future scientific advancements.

Trans-O-MIM-An International Research Project on Open Access Transformation: Outcomes and Lessons Learned

BACKGROUND

During the last decades, the Open Access paradigm has become an important approach for publishing new scientific knowledge. From 2015 to 2020, the Trans-O-MIM research project was undertaken with the intention to identify and to explore solutions in transforming subscription-based journals into Open Access journals. Trans-O-MIM stands for strategies, models, and evaluation metrics for the goal-oriented, stepwise, sustainable, and fair transformation of established subscription-based scientific journals into Open-Access-based journals with Methods of Information in Medicine as an example.

OBJECTIVES

To present an overview of the outcomes of the Trans-O-MIM research project as a whole and to share our major lessons learned.

METHODS

As an approach for transforming journals, a Tandem Model has been proposed and implemented for Methods of Information in Medicine. For developing a metric to observe and assess journal transformations, scenario analysis has been used. A qualitative and a two-tier quantitative study on drivers and obstacles of Open Access publishing for medical informatics researchers was designed and conducted. A project setup with a research team, a steering committee, and an international advisory board was established. Major international medical informatics events have been used for reporting and for receiving feedback.

RESULTS

Based on the Tandem Model, the journal Methods of Information in Medicine has been transformed into a journal where, in addition to its subscription-based track, from 2017 onwards a Gold Open Access track has been successfully added. An evaluation metric, composed of 5 scenarios and 65 parameters, has been developed, which can assist respective decision makers in assessing such transformations. The studies on drivers and obstacles of Open Access publishing showed that, while most researchers support the idea of making scientific knowledge freely accessible to everyone, they are hesitant about actually living this practice by choosing Open Access journals to publish their own work. Article-processing charges and quality issues are perceived as the main obstacles in this respect, revealing a two-sided evaluation of Open Access models, reflecting the different viewpoints of researchers as authors or readers. Especially researchers from low-income countries benefit from a barrier-free communication mainly in their role as readers and much less in their role as authors of scientific information. This became also evident at the institutional level, as Open Access policies or financial support through funding bodies are most prevalent in Europe and North America.

CONCLUSION

With Trans-O-MIM, an international research project was performed. An existing journal has been transformed. In addition, with the support of the International Medical Informatics Association, as well as of the European Federation for Medical Informatics and of the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology as European and German medical informatics organizations, we did run an international experiment on Open Access incentives. Both together are, as far as the authors know, unique. We therefore expect that this research could add new knowledge on Open Access transformation.

SOCIAL MEDIA IN SCIENCE

Day by day, social media are entering our lives changing our every-day life and habits. This could not leave science unaffected. Over the last years, a lot of scientists have started using social media, exchanging ideas and sharing knowledge. Scientific journals have also followed being active participators in the social media world. In this opinion article we provide some arguments about the positive role of social media in the life of a scientist, highlighting at the same time the caveats that are encountered.  

OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING — “SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR”

Scientific knowledge needs to be widely disseminated across the globe, for it to be critically analyzed or to be built upon for future studies. The conventional publication model has been less accessible due to prohibitive subscription costs and hence the need arose for the open access model where the readers would have free access. The Open Science movement is not only about open-access journals but also includes open source, open data and methodology, open peer review, open-access indexing, and archiving. The prototype open access model is the gold model where researchers (themselves or supported by grants or funding agencies) pay certain article processing charges and the readers have free access to the content without any restrictions. Additionally, there is a need for free-to-use open-access platforms or repositories like PubMed Central to archive the open-access content. Institutional repository is another way for collecting, archiving, and distributing the scholarly contents of an academic institution. Preprint servers allow archiving manuscripts before they are submitted to or undergo review for publication, and they offer an important platform for freely sharing knowledge. While open-access model looks attractive, it has its challenges. Currently, the change to open-access model has meant the transfer of the financial burden, earlier borne by the readers, to the authors in the form of APCs. Irrespective of the model, there is a need to reconsider the high subscription costs and the article processing charges which are often prohibitive for many. Science must be accessible to the researchers and the public at a reasonable cost without delay.

Factors influencing researchers to publish in open-access: Is it a self-decision or a self-reinforcing cycle?

Purpose

The current study examined Israeli researchers from various disciplines concerning their perceptions, attitudes and awareness of scientific publications in open access (OA) journals and repositories.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey instrument was developed and distributed to 202 Israeli researchers from universities, colleges and research institutions. The study used the united theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model as a tool for mapping the factors known to influence researchers to publish in OA journals and repositories.

Findings

The empirical model confirmed the mediating effect of the association between researchers’ perceptions and the actual publishing in OA, through their behavioral intentions (BI). Furthermore, the BI are mediated by researchers’ self-decision to publish in OA. More specifically, a researcher's publication level in OA depended not only on the positive attitudes (Atti), performance expectancy (PE) and social influence (SI) mediated by BI, but also on conditions that support researchers who publish in OA, and disciplinary affiliation to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) which lead the researcher to voluntarily publish in both green and gold OA.

Research limitations/implications

This study contributed to the cumulative understanding of OA publishing by formulating and validating an empirical research model of acceptance and use.

Practical implications

The implications of the findings for scientific publication theory and practices are discussed.

Originality/value

The study suggests an effective framework to understand the researcher's final decision to publish in OA. This study's results are an essential step towards the cumulative understanding of OA publicity adoption and use by researchers as a global issue in general and in Israeli academic institutions in particular.

How can we get more open access to medical studies? Simple, let's take the green road

Open Access (OA) to research publications is a fundamental resource for the advancement of scientific research. To facilitate the transition to OA, publishers and institutions have begun negotiating the so-called transformative agreements, contracts combining access to subscription journals with the ability to publish OA. While the debate on transformative agreements is very much alive, little attention is being paid to the "green road," the practice of openly self-archiving manuscripts that have been accepted by journals but not yet typeset. Here we focus on medical literature, showing how the green road could outperform transformative agreements as a means of increasing the full and free availability of peer-reviewed scientific papers.

Harnessing the True Power of Altmetrics to Track Engagement

Altmetrics has recently been at the forefront of tracking medical literature propagation on social media in the modern era. With the rapidly evolving landscape of social media for academia, there's room to revise the approach. The authors discuss current limitations and suggest changes to make online attention trackers more robust and wholesome. Medical literature propagated on currently popular social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok are not accounted for by altmetrics. For altmetrics to become a more robust tool it is vital that it keeps up with the times and accounts for representation of data from these platforms as well. Greater inclusivity, dynamic weightage of different social media platforms based on location dependant availability and usage, and period re-evaluation based on prevailing trends may help metrics reflect the true attention garnered by published research. Besides, development of hybrid scores with separate components to reflect online attention and traditional citations may provide readers a more fair and balanced perception of the actual importance of an article. With the changes proposed, altmetrics has the potential to become a much more inclusive and reflective tool in times to come.

Literature search strategies in dental education and research

A well-organized literature search is a fundamental requirement for research-based dental education. The execution of a literature search is not beneficial unless researchers possess basic knowledge about it. In this article, all basic strategies and research tools essentially required for a literature search, including Boolean operators, correct use of keywords, database selection, and the evaluation of filtered data and limitations, are discussed. The present article offers vital information and literature search guidelines for early career dental researchers and dental students. In addition, it contains a collection of all the essential information related to the generally used electronic databases in dentistry research. This will be helpful for dental students, residents, consultants, and allied science researchers.

Patients with rheumatic diseases are ready to use social media in clinical practice; what about rheumatologists? A cross-sectional survey

Social media can be an innovative communication method between patients and physicians that help to overcome time limitation in outpatient clinics. In this study, we investigated how patients with rheumatic diseases (RD) and physicians use and are willing to use social media platforms to communicate with each other. We used a face-to-face survey that provides information on current social media habits and communication methods of rheumatology patients and physicians. We studied 399 (135 M/262 F) patients with RD with a median age of 45 (IQR: 34) years. We also studied 55 (30 M/25F) rheumatologists with a median age of 37 (IQR:34–44) years. Among patients with RD, 288 (72%) used at least one social media site within the previous month. Facebook was the most preferred social media platform, whereas Twitter and Instagram were favored by males and higher educated patients. While 17% of the patients with RD could communicate with their physicians outside of the hospital, 94% expressed that they would like to. Most patients (74%) defined social media as a reliable source for health-related information, yet 90% declared that they would like to obtain information about their disease using face-to-face communication. Forty-two (83%) rheumatologists were using social media and reported that they already communicate or would like to communicate with their patients outside of the hospital. Internet-based mobile applications and social media platforms are promising communication and educational tools for rheumatology patients.

Modern Health Journalism and the Impact of Social Media

Scholarly journals are hubs of hypotheses, evidence-based data, and practice recommendations that shape health research and practice worldwide. The advancement of science and information technologies has made online accessibility a basic requirement, paving the way for the advent of open access publishing, and more recently, to web-based health journalism. Especially in the time of the current pandemic, health professionals have turned to the internet, and primarily to social media, as a source of rapid information transfer and international communication. Hence, the current pandemic has ushered an era of digital transformation of science, and we attempt to understand and assess the impact of this digitization on modern health journalism.

Top Central Asian Educational Institutions on Publons: Analysis of Researchers and Reviewers

BACKGROUND

The Publons platform provides integrated information on researchers, peer reviewers, publications and certain author metrics. Central Asia is a potentially growing region in terms of young researchers.

METHODS

Using the inbuilt Publons search, the top institutes of nine countries of Central Asia and neighbours were identified and data on their reviewers, number of publications, number of peer reviews completed were extracted. These were compared with demographics of the countries such as population, gross domestic product, number of physicians and proportion of population enrolled for higher education.

RESULTS

Amongst the top 15 institutes in Central Asia, China has claim to 12 while Kazakhstan has two and Iran has one. The number of top peer reviewers, number of verified reviews and Web of Science indexed publications from these top institutes varied directly with the number of researchers each had. Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are not performing well on most of these while China seems to be an outlier on the upper edge of the graphs. There is good correlation between the number of researchers in the top institutes per country and both number of publications and number of completed reviews. The number of total publications per top ten institutes of each country has high correlation with various demographic parameters like total population (Spearman rho, ρ = 0.85), gross domestic product (ρ = 0.82), total number of physicians (ρ = 0.72), and number enrolled for higher education (ρ = 0.93).

CONCLUSION

There appears to be much disparity among the rankings, number of researchers, reviewers and published manuscripts across various countries in Central Asia. The gross heterogeneity of Central Asia needs to be minimized by nurturing and mentoring potentially upcoming researchers in publication, peer reviewing as well as in ethics involved.

Article-Level Metrics

In the era of digitization and Open Access, article-level metrics are increasingly employed to distinguish influential research works and adjust research management strategies. Tagging individual articles with digital object identifiers allows exposing them to numerous channels of scholarly communication and quantifying related activities. The aim of this article was to overview currently available article-level metrics and highlight their advantages and limitations. Article views and downloads, citations, and social media metrics are increasingly employed by publishers to move away from the dominance and inappropriate use of journal metrics. Quantitative article metrics are complementary to one another and often require qualitative expert evaluations. Expert evaluations may help to avoid manipulations with indiscriminate social media activities that artificially boost altmetrics. Values of article metrics should be interpreted in view of confounders such as patterns of citation and social media activities across countries and academic disciplines.

An Integrated Guide for Designing Video Abstracts Using Freeware and Their Emerging Role in Academic Research Advancement

Video abstracts (VAs) are a motion picture equivalent of written abstracts. With greater use of social media platforms for post publication promotions of research articles, VAs have gained increasing popularity among researchers in recent years. Widespread lockdowns and social distancing protocols in the pandemic period furthered the use of VAs as a tool for efficient learning. Moreover, these may be the preferred medium for communicating certain types of information, such as diagnostic or therapeutic procedures, qualitative research, perspectives, and techniques. In this article, the authors discuss the role of VAs in the advancement of academic research, plausible designs, freeware for making videos, and specific considerations for crafting good VAs.

EMERGING ONLINE TOOLS AND PLATFORMS FOR SCHOLARLY ACTIVITIES

Scholarly activities are increasingly dependent on a wide variety of online tools and platforms. Processing health information on such platforms may enrich research studies and solve some healthcare issues. Health information analyses and online surveys are frequently conducted to test old hypothesis and generate new ones. These studies require thorough understanding of the subject and skilful use of online platforms, including social media. Social media platforms are increasingly employed for retrieving and disseminating research data. Scholarly activities on Twitter and other globally popular social media are now recommended for research, education, and clinical practice. Aggregated social media information and related altmetric data have emerged as reflections of the immediacy effects of online sharing and commenting and as tools to complement citation analyses. Researchers and research managers may use altmetrics to plan their studies and introduce changes to the education process. Securing uninterrupted access to Internet and available online tools may facilitate quality research and other scholarly activities.

Social Media for Scholarly Communication in Central Asia and Its Neighbouring Countries

The current digital era has led to a surge in the use of Social Media in academia. Worldwide connectivity has brought to the fore a scarce participation of Central Asia and adjoining regions in scientific discussions. Global perspectives in science may not be recorded due to such communication disparities. An equal representation of all ethnic groups is essential to have a rounded picture of the topic at hand. The extent of use of social media platforms in various regions is determined by social, economic, religious, political, cultural and ethnic factors, which may limit participation. The paper aims to examine the use of social media by academicians in the Central Asian countries, China and Mongolia. It also focusses on the linguistic skills of the Central Asian, Chinese and Mongolian population and their eagerness to be involved in global discussions. Understanding the factors limiting participation from specific regions is the first step in this direction.

Social media platforms: a primer for researchers

Social media platforms play an increasingly important role in research, education, and clinical practice. As an inseparable part of open science, these platforms may increase the visibility of research outputs and facilitate scholarly networking. The editors who ethically moderate Twitter, Facebook, and other popular social media accounts for their journals may engage influential authors in the post-publication communication and expand societal implications of their publications. Several social media aggregators track and generate alternative metrics which can be used by researchers for visualizing trending articles in their fields. More and more publishers showcase their achievements by displaying such metrics along with traditional citations. The Scopus database also tracks both metrics to offer a comprehensive coverage of the indexed articles' impact. Understanding the advantages and limitations of various social media channels is essential for actively contributing to the post-publication communication, particularly in research-intensive fields such as rheumatology.

Scholarly publishing and journal targeting in the time of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic: a cross-sectional survey of rheumatologists and other specialists

The evolving research landscape in the time of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic calls for greater understanding of the perceptions of scholars regarding the current state and future of publishing. An anonymised and validated e-survey featuring 30 questions was circulated among rheumatologists and other specialists over social media to understand preferences while choosing target journals, publishing standards, commercial editing services, preprint archiving, social media and alternative publication activities. Of 108 respondents, a significant proportion were clinicians (68%), researchers (60%) and educators (47%), with median 23 publications and 15 peer-review accomplishments. The respondents were mainly rheumatologists from India, Ukraine and Turkey. While choosing target journals, relevance to their field (69%), PubMed Central archiving (61%) and free publishing (59%) were the major factors. Thirty-nine surveyees (36%) claimed that they often targeted local journals for publishing their research. However, only 18 (17%) perceived their local society journals as trustworthy. Occasional publication in the so-called predatory journals (5, 5%) was reported and obtaining support from commercial editing agencies to improve English and data presentation was not uncommon (23, 21%). The opinion on preprint archiving was disputed; only one-third believed preprints were useful. High-quality peer review (56%), full and immediate open access (46%) and post-publication social media promotion (32%) were identified as key anticipated features of scholarly publishing in the foreseeable future. These perceptions of surveyed scholars call for greater access to free publishing, attention to proper usage of English and editing skills, and a larger role for engagement over social media.

Tear down the walls: Disseminating open access research for a global impact

OBJECTIVE

Publications are the cornerstone of the dissemination of scientific innovation and scholarly work, but published works are mostly behind paywalls. Therefore, many researchers and institutions are searching for alternative models for disseminating scholarly work that bypasses the current structure of paywalls. This study aimed to determine whether a self-published open access (OA) journal, the International Journal of Health Sciences (IJHS), has been able to reach a global audience in terms of authorship, readership, and impact using the OA model.

METHODS

All IJHS articles were retrieved and analyzed using scientometric methods. Using the keywords from abstracts and titles, unsupervised clustering was performed to map research trends. Network analysis was used to chart the network of collaboration. The analysis of articles' metadata and the visualizations was performed using R programming language.

RESULTS

Using Google Scholar as a source, the general statistics of IJHS from inception to 2019 showed that the average citation per article was 11.29, and the impact factor of the journal was 2.28. The results demonstrate the obvious local and global impact of a locally published journal that allows unrestricted OA and uses an open source publishing platform. The journal's success at attracting diverse topics, authors, and readers is a testament to the power of the OA model.

CONCLUSIONS

Open source is feasible and rewarding and enables a global reach for research from under-represented regions. Local journals can help the Global South disseminate their scholarly work, which is frequently ignored by commercial and established publications.

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR MEDICAL JOURNALS

Social networks are now an integrated part of life in most digitally connected societies. Bringing scientific papers of interest to a defined audience using the appropriate channel might substantially contribute to the impact of a scientific discovery. Various media and metrics have come to the fore in strategizing dissemination of scientific information. This opinion piece offers insights from the social-media experience of digital editors of peer-reviewed journals from non-Anglophone countries.

Information and Misinformation on COVID-19: a Cross-Sectional Survey Study

BACKGROUND

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to a large volume of publications, a barrage of non-reviewed preprints on various professional repositories and a slew of retractions in a short amount of time.

METHODS

We conducted an e-survey using a cloud-based website to gauge the potential sources of trustworthy information and misinformation and analyzed researchers', clinicians', and academics' attitude toward unpublished items, and pre- and post-publication quality checks in this challenging time.

RESULTS

Among 128 respondents (mean age, 43.2 years; M:F, 1.1:1), 60 (46.9%) were scholarly journal editors and editorial board members. Social media channels were distinguished as the most important sources of information as well as misinformation (81 [63.3%] and 86 [67.2%]). Nearly two in five (62, 48.4%) respondents blamed reviewers, editors, and misinterpretation by readers as additional contributors alongside authors for misinformation. A higher risk of plagiarism was perceived by the majority (70, 58.6%), especially plagiarism of ideas (64.1%) followed by inappropriate paraphrasing (54.7%). Opinion was divided on the utility of preprints for changing practice and changing retraction rates during the pandemic period, and higher rejections were not supported by most (76.6%) while the importance of peer review was agreed upon by a majority (80, 62.5%). More stringent screening by journal editors (61.7%), and facilitating open access plagiarism software (59.4%), including Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based algorithms (43.8%) were among the suggested solutions. Most (74.2%) supported the need to launch a specialist bibliographic database for COVID-19, with information indexed (62.3%), available as open-access (82.8%), after expanding search terms (52.3%) and following due verification by academics (66.4%), and journal editors (52.3%).

CONCLUSION

While identifying social media as a potential source of misinformation on COVID-19, and a perceived high risk of plagiarism, more stringent peer review and skilled post-publication promotion are advisable. Journal editors should play a more active role in streamlining publication and promotion of trustworthy information on COVID-19.

Social media for research, education and practice in rheumatology

Online social networking offers numerous opportunities for continuing medical education, professional development, and scholarly collaboration. Available social media channels proved useful for expanding education and research perspectives, particularly in rapidly developing academic disciplines such as rheumatology. Although there are numerous advantages of social media, busy clinicians should be aware of some drawbacks related to misinformation, unethical promotion, and unprofessional behavior in globally expanding platforms. Filtering credible and expert-proven information by skilled users is, therefore, increasingly important. Enforcing ethical norms and advancing professional etiquette in the field is strongly advisable. This article overviews the advantages and shortcomings of social media and reflects on available platforms for education and research in rheumatology.

Immunology and social networks: an approach towards impact assessment

Scientific journals have changed the mechanisms they use for distribution and dissemination of information. Different approaches towards determining impact have emerged and among these, metrics derived from activity on social media are an emerging trend. This article aims to assess whether a correlation exists between the traditional impact factor and activity on social media. We assessed journals categorized within the area of "immunology" on the SCImago Journal and Country Rank website. Variables reflecting traditional and alternative measures of impact were collected. Differences between journals with and without social networks were assessed using non-parametric Mann-Whitney U tests. Correlation was assessed through Spearman tests. 156 journals were analyzed, 17% had at least one social network. 48.2% of journals with social networks were classified within SJR's quartile 1. An almost perfect correlation was found between the SJR and the number of followers on Twitter, this correlation remained statistically significant after adjusting for time since creation of the account [Spearman's correlation (r_s) = 0.83]. We propose the use of Twitter as a mechanism for dissemination of information by immunology journals, as well as other social networks for their potential to increase their audience, as well as the dissemination and impact of their publications.