Scholarly publishing is broken. Here’s how to fix it The world of scholarly communication is broken. Giant, corporate publishers with racketeering business practices and profit margins that exceed Apple’s treat life-saving research as a private commodity to be sold at exorbitant profits. Only around 25 per cent of the global corpus of research knowledge is ‘open access’, or accessible to the public for free and without subscription, which is a real impediment to resolving major problems, such as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Recently, Springer Nature, one of the largest academic publishers in the world, had to withdraw its European stock market floatation due to a lack of interest. The European Commission is currently letting publishers bid for the development of an EU-wide open-access scholarly publishing platform. A global community to coordinate and regain control – to develop a public open-access infrastructure – of research and scholarly communication for the public good is long overdue. Republish Jon Tennant
A self-experiment in fake science: the tricks of predatory journals | ZBW MediaTalk by Athanasios Mazarakis, Kaltrina Nuredini and Isabella Peters In the summer, a piece called „Fake Science – Die Lügenmacher“ (“The Lie Creators”) aired on ARD, and it left a lasting impression on the scientific community. Dr Athanasios Mazarakis had already received one of countless invitations for publications. Journal publication within one week? One week for a journal publication. This procedure, as we describe it here, has already been successfully replicated several times (Simpson et al., 2014 (PDF); Stribling et al., 2015 (PDF); Mazières et al., 2015 (PDF). Like winning the lottery: publication without revision The answer didn’t inspire much confidence, but we wanted to see where it would lead us. Normally, a journal publication without revisions is like winning the lottery. The con is already noticeable when skim reading Even when just skimming through, it is clear that the article has no content. Immediately after that, we received the bill. Next Post Open Science
Evaluate Your Info - Start Your Research - Library Guides at University of California, Santa Cruz Some things to consider in evaluating the quality of research sources: Currency: the timeliness of the information How recent is the information? Reliability: importance of the information What kind of information is included in the Web site? Authority: the source of the information Can you determine who the author/creator is? Accuracy: the reliability, truthfulness, and correctness of the information Is it accurate? Purpose: the reason the information exists What's the intent of the Web site (to persuade, to sell you something, etc.)? The CRAAP Test was developed by librarians at California State University, Chico.
BUCH WIEN For academics, what matters more: journal prestige or readership? With more than 30,000 academic journals now in circulation, academics can have a hard time figuring out where to submit their work for publication. The decision is made all the more difficult by the sky-high pressure of today’s academic environment—including working toward tenure and trying to secure funding, which can depend on a researcher’s publication record. So, what does a researcher prioritize? According to a new study posted on the bioRxiv preprint server, faculty members say they care most about whether the journal is read by the people they most want to reach—but they think their colleagues care most about journal prestige. “I think that it is about the security that comes with being later in your career,” says study co-author Juan Pablo Alperin, an assistant professor in the publishing program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.
Pseudoscience is taking over social media and putting us all at risk Sign up for a full digest of all the best opinions of the week in our Voices Dispatches email Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter Search for “climate change” on YouTube and before long you’ll likely find a video that denies it exists. In fact, when it comes to shaping the online conversation around climate change, a new study suggests that deniers and conspiracy theorists might hold an edge over those believing in science. Researchers found evidence that most YouTube videos relating to climate change oppose the scientific consensus that it’s primarily caused by human activities. The study highlights the key role of social media use in the spread of scientific misinformation. The recent study by Joachim Allgaier of RWTH Aachen University in Germany analysed the content of a randomised sample of 200 YouTube videos related to climate change. The videos peddling the conspiracy theories received the highest number of views. Health misinformation So how do we tackle this problem?
Pharmaceuticals / Health Products: Background The pharmaceutical and health products industry -- it includes not only drug manufacturers but also dealers of medical products and nutritional and dietary supplements -- is consistently near the top when it comes to federal campaign contributions. (Pharmaceutical manufacturers are a subset of this industry and are profiled in detail within this section). The industry's political generosity increased in the years leading up to Congress' passage in 2003 of a Medicare prescription drug benefit. Since then, industry spending levels have fluctuated, though they have usually hovered around the $30 million range, including during the 2014 cycle when that number was nearly $32 million. 2012 was the cycle when the industry contributed the most -- over $50.7 million. The top contributors during the 2014 cycle were Pfizer Inc. One piece of legislation the industry has lobbied heavily on recently is the 21st Century Cures Act. -- Alex Lazar Updated August 2015 Industries in this Sector:
MORAWA: Pressevertrieb, Buchvertrieb, Vertrieb, Pressegrosso, Zeitungen, Zeitschriften, Abonnement, Spedition, Lesezirkel, Bücher, Buch, Buchhandlung, Buchversand, Logistik Ancient Egypt Military Egypt’s defensive advantages were not enough to stop the conquering Hyskos, who invaded at the end of the Middle Kingdom. The Egyptians learned from their defeat and reinvented their army, ushering in a new age of military glory. The Egyptian lands of the Archaic Period, Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom were not devoid of armies or enemies, however. Nomads raided from the desert; Libyans attacked the Nile delta; and the Nubians threatened the southern border. The Pharaohs responded with force. Pre-Dynastic Egyptian Military and Warfare (prior to 3100 BC) Man’s history in the lands of the Nile extends back to the dawn of mankind and is one of the possible locations where man first crossed the line from violence to warfare. The first possible prehistoric battle in the archaeological record is on the Nile near the border of Egypt and Sudan. Archeologists have identified a string of Nile cultures spanning from the 14th millennium BC to the Dynastic period.
400,000 Scientists All Over the World Have Been Published in Fake Journals View of large amount of documents, newspapers, and books in classic library. A magnifying glass seen on top of books. No people are seen in frame. Shot with a medium format camera.selimaksan/Getty Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. The organization* that uncovered the world of offshore tax havens and rogue international finance in the Panama Papers and Luxembourg Leaks has shifted its attention to fake science. Predatory publishers target individual scientists by email, charge high fees in exchange for publication, and forego international peer-review standards to publish quickly and frequently. For example, the French newspaper LeMonde uncovered a study that seemingly originated from nowhere: The publisher in question, OMICS, is currently under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission for fraud, according to The India Express.