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This work presents the most important elements that affect the writing of scientific articles, but also those that determine the success for their acceptance and publication in impact journals. It also deals with aspects such as how to respond to peer review evaluations and how to disseminate the article once it has been published. The intended audience is trainee researchers and especially doctoral students who have chosen to carry out a thesis by compendium of publications. However, any researcher, junior or senior, will surely find several elements of interest in this work. It is also appropriate to add that the main academic background is that of social sciences in general and communication studies. This work is part of the development of methodologies within the project "Parameters and strategies to increase the relevance of media and digital communication in society: curation, visualization and visibility (CUVICOM)". PID2021-123579OB-I00 (MICINN), Ministry of Science and Innovation (Spain). Activity financed by the European Union- NextGenerationEU , Ministry of Universities and Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, through a call from Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona).

The peer-reviewed Australian Zoologist, first published in 1914, is Australia’s longest-lived zoological journal. Its publication history shows changes in the zoological topics covered over the last 100 years, including the animals studied, characteristics of the authors and readership, and the influence of the databases used to study the journal on information retrieval. Searches in different databases retrieved different numbers of papers; Scopus (including secondary documents not in the database but cited by documents that are in the database) was the most comprehensive. Although authors from 22 countries contributed papers over the history of the Australian Zoologist, over 90% of authors were Australian. Most international authors came from the USA, the UK, Canada and New Zealand. Approximately two-thirds of authors citing Australian Zoologist were Australian-based, but there were still 10 or more authors from each of thirty-four other countries citing Australian Zoologist: while regional, the journal has an international profile. Highly cited papers in Australian Zoologist had high mean Scopus percentile ranks (20th century 83.9, 21st century 73.7), indicating that in comparison to their fields globally, these papers are used well above average. Considering all papers published in Australian Zoologist, over time the proportion of papers in the categories ‘Biodiversity & Conservation’ and ‘Environmental Sciences & Ecology’ rose significantly, reflecting the increased research in these areas. Between 2013 and 2019, when relevant metrics are available in Scopus, Australian Zoologist declined in no metric measured while improving significantly in CiteScore, Highest Percentile, and % Cited, indicating increasing references to Australian Zoologist papers by other peer-reviewed publications. Between 2010 and 2019, 2.1% of Australian Zoologist papers were ranked within the top 10% in their fields globally, based on citation impact. Authors considering publishing in Australian Zoologist should note that longer papers are acceptable, colour imagery (including photographs) is encouraged, the journal is visible in major databases, it is cited internationally and there are no page charges.

The use of respondent quotes to headline qualitative research papers is a popular literary device found in many academic journals. This practice has increased over the last four decades and now appears normalised within qualitative research writing. This article provides a critical analysis of this trend in academic writing and concomitant publishing. Content and framework analyses of 40 papers employing this literary device to summarise the respective studies identified (i) a lack of methodological rigor, (ii) incomplete analysis, (iii) an overall mis-representation of the wider qualitative dataset, and (iv) possible investigator bias associated with using respondent quotes as titles of qualitative research papers. This article questions the credibility of purposely selecting a single experience that reduces the wider collective experience into one deterministic statement. This article contends that such practice is antithetical to the principles of qualitative research. Recommendations are provided to better monitor this practice throughout the academy.

Background Data papers have emerged as a powerful instrument for open data publishing, obtaining credit, and establishing priority for datasets generated in scientific experiments. Academic publishing improves data and metadata quality through peer review and increases the impact of datasets by enhancing their visibility, accessibility, and reusability. Objective We aimed to establish a new type of article structure and template for omics studies: the omics data paper. To improve data interoperability and further incentivize researchers to publish well-described datasets, we created a prototype workflow for streamlined import of genomics metadata from the European Nucleotide Archive directly into a data paper manuscript. Methods An omics data paper template was designed by defining key article sections that encourage the description of omics datasets and methodologies. A metadata import workflow, based on REpresentational State Transfer services and Xpath, was prototyped to extract information from the European Nucleotide Archive, ArrayExpress, and BioSamples databases. Findings The template and workflow for automatic import of standard-compliant metadata into an omics data paper manuscript provide a mechanism for enhancing existing metadata through publishing. Conclusion The omics data paper structure and workflow for import of genomics metadata will help to bring genomic and other omics datasets into the spotlight. Promoting enhanced metadata descriptions and enforcing manuscript peer review and data auditing of the underlying datasets brings additional quality to datasets. We hope that streamlined metadata reuse for scholarly publishing encourages authors to create enhanced metadata descriptions in the form of data papers to improve both the quality of their metadata and its findability and accessibility.

Many papers in economics that are published in peer reviewed journals are initially released in widely circulated working paper series. This raises the question about the benefit of publishing in a peer-reviewed journal in terms of citations. Specifically, we address the question: To what extent does the stamp of approval obtained by publishing in a peer-reviewed journal lead to more subsequent citations for papers that are already available in working paper series? Our data set comprises about 28.000 working papers from four major working paper series in economics. Using panel data methods, we show that the publication in a peer reviewed journal results in around twice the number of yearly citations relative to working papers that never get published in a journal. Our results hold in several robustness checks.

Objectives We assessed the proportion of primary health care (PHC) randomized controlled trial (RCT) protocols published in peer-reviewed journals that published results in subsequent papers in peer-reviewed journals; and whether this proportion changed over time. Study Design and Setting We searched (last update June 2019) for RCTs published in peer-reviewed journals reporting primary outcome results for 620 protocols that were published up to 2014 and were retrieved in PubMed. We recorded the absolute number and the proportion of protocols with published results per year; and estimated whether the proportion changed over time. Results Of the 620 published protocols, 525 (85%) disseminated their results through a published RCT by June 2019. The number of published protocols was increasing over time especially after 2001. However, the proportion of protocols per year with published results in subsequent papers was decreasing over time after 2002. Specifically, the proportion ranged from 86% to 96% for protocols published until 2010 while for those published from 2011 onward ranged from 76% to 86%. Mean time from protocol to results publication was 39 months (95% CI 37, 41). Conclusion Almost one-sixth of PHC trial protocols published in peer-reviewed journals did not publish their results in subsequent papers.

A concern that has been raised with the transition from pen and paper examinations to electronic examinations is whether this will make cheating easier. This article investigates how teachers and students perceive the differences in ease of cheating during three types of written examination: paper exams, bring your own device e-exams and e-exams using university-owned devices. It also investigates perceptions about the effectiveness of some typical countermeasures towards cheating across these examination types. A mixed-method approach was used, combining questionnaires and interviews with students and teachers in the authors’ own university. A total of 212 students and 162 teachers participated in the questionnaire survey, and then, a more limited number were interviewed to get a deeper understanding of the results. Six-different cheating practices were considered – impersonation, forbidden aids, peeking, peer collaboration, outside assistance and student–staff collusion and seven different countermeasures were considered – proctors, biometry, mingling, shuffling, random drawing, sequencing and broadcasting. Both students and teachers perceived cheating as easier with e-exams, and especially with bring your own device. They also thought some countermeasures would be easier to implement with e-exams.

Consider for a moment the rate of advancement in the scientific understanding of DNA. It is formidable; from Fredrich Miescher’s nuclein extraction in the 1860s to Rosalind Franklin’s double helix X-ray in the 1950s to revolutionary next-generation sequencing in the late 2000s. Now consider the scientific paper, the medium used to describe and publish these advances. How is the scientific paper advancing to meet the needs of those who generate and use scientific information? We review four essential qualities for the scientific paper of the future: ( i) a robust source of trustworthy information that remains peer reviewed and is ( ii) communicated to diverse users in diverse ways, ( iii) open access, and ( iv) has a measurable impact beyond Impact Factor. Since its inception, scientific literature has proliferated. We discuss the continuation and expansion of practices already in place including: freely accessible data and analytical code, living research and reviews, changes to peer review to improve representation of under-represented groups, plain language summaries, preprint servers, evidence-informed decision-making, and altmetrics.

The peer-reviewing process has long been regarded as an indispensable tool in ensuring the quality of a scientific publication. While previous studies have tried to understand the process as a whole, not much effort has been devoted to investigating the determinants and impacts of the content of the peer review itself. This study leverages open data from nearly 5,000 PeerJ publications that were eventually accepted. Using sentiment analysis, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling, mixed linear regression models, and logit regression models, we examine how the peer-reviewing process influences the acceptance timeline and contribution potential of manuscripts, and what modifications were typically made to manuscripts prior to publication. In an open review paradigm, our findings indicate that peer reviewers’ choice to reveal their names in lieu of remaining anonymous may be associated with more positive sentiment in their review, implying possible social pressure from name association. We also conduct a taxonomy of the manuscript modifications during a revision, studying the words added in response to peer reviewer feedback. This study provides insights into the content of peer reviews and the subsequent modifications authors make to their manuscripts.

Until recently, some fields of social sciences and humanities have developed without peer-review (PR) systems. Since the introduction of the PR system, non-peer-reviewed studies have been widely published and different publication patterns have emerged between peer-reviewed (PRd) and non-peer-reviewed (NPRd) articles. This study examines the patterns of PRd and NPRd papers in political science journals in Japan. According to this study’s analysis, PRd papers are mainly published by young researchers in their thirties. As researchers age, the proportion of PRd papers they publish decreases. The life cycle pattern of a researcher is structured regardless of the journals or the research methods. If the generalized norms and patterns of behavior related to PR are referred to as the PR culture, then there is the PR culture in this field that determines, “PR is a young person’s game.” Here, the PR system is expected not only to evaluate research content but also to assess newcomers in the field.

A research paper that was promoted by anti-vaccination activists has been retracted by the journal Vaccines after several members of its editorial board resigned. The peer reviewed article, “The Safety of Covid-19 Vaccinations—We Should Rethink the Policy,” misinterpreted data to conclude that “for three deaths prevented by vaccination we have to accept two inflicted by vaccination.”1 Katie Ewer, an immunologist at the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, who resigned from Vaccines ’ editorial board after publication of the article, wrote on Twitter, “It is grossly negligent and I can’t believe it passed peer review.” None of the article’s three authors has a background in vaccinology, virology, or epidemiology. They are Harald Walach, a clinical psychologist and health researcher at Poznan University of Medical Sciences in Poland, who studies homeopathy and complementary medicine; Rainer Klement, a medical physicist who studies ketogenic diets in …

This paper provides a comparative study about seasonal influence on editorial decisions for papers submitted to two peer review journals. We distinguish a specialized one, the Journal of the Serbian Chemical Society (JSCS) and an interdisciplinary one, Entropy. Dates of electronic submission for about 600 papers to JSCS and 2500 to Entropy have been recorded over 3 recent years. Time series of either accepted or rejected papers are subsequently analyzed. We take either editors or authors view points into account, thereby considering magnitudes and probabilities. In this sample, it is found that there are distinguishable peaks and dips in the time series, demonstrating preferred months for the submission of papers. It is also found that papers are more likely accepted if they are submitted during a few specific months, - these depending on the journal. The probability of having a rejected paper also appears to be seasonally biased. In view of clarifying reports with contradictory findings, we discuss previously proposed conjectures for such effects, like holiday effects and the desk rejection by editors. We conclude that, in this sample, the type of journal, specialized or multidisciplinary, seems to be the drastic criterion for distinguishing the outcomes rates., 30 pages, 16 references, 11 Tables, 6 figures;version before edited galley proofs

Peer review is the widely accepted method of research validation. However, with the deluge of research paper submissions accompanied with the rising number venues, the paper vetting system has come under a lot of stress. Problems like dearth of adequate reviewers, finding appropriate expert reviewers, maintaining the quality of the reviews are steadily and strongly surfacing up. To ease the peer review workload to some extent, here we investigate how an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered review system would look like. We leverage on the paper-review interaction to predict the decision in the reviewing process. We do not envisage an AI reviewing papers in the near-future, but seek to explore a human-AI collaboration in the decision-making process where the AI would leverage on the human-written reviews and paper full-text to predict the fate of the paper. The idea is to have an assistive decision-making tool for the chairs/editors to help them with an additional layer of confidence, especially with borderline and contrastive reviews. We use cross-attention between the review text and paper full-text to learn the interactions and henceforth generate the decision. We also make use of sentiment information encoded within peer-review texts to guide the outcome. Our initial results show encouraging performance on a dataset of paper+peer reviews curated from the ICLR openreviews. We make our codes and dataset (https://github.com/PrabhatkrBharti/PEERAssist) public for further explorations. We re-iterate that we are in an early stage of investigation and showcase our initial exciting results to justify our proposition.

Aim To synthesize suicide prevention strategies for older adults. The review question was Which suicide prevention strategies are useful for older adults? Design Integrative review. Data sources Academic Search Premier, CINAHL, Ovid PsycINFO and PubMed were searched for articles published between January 2009 and December 2019. Review methods An integrative review of quantitative, qualitative and theoretical papers with a qualitative thematic analysis. Results Key aspects of the included studies contributed to the formulation of four themes: (1) Recognizing older adults’ physical and/or mental health problems and referring them for help and treatment, (2) Designing an educational programme, (3) Communication and dialogue about warning signs and (4) Social support and awareness of causing significant others emotional pain. The findings indicate an urgent need to identify effective suicide prevention strategies for older adults.

Abstract This review explains in simple terms, accessible to the non-statistician, general principles regarding the correct research methods to develop and then evaluate imaging biomarkers in a clinical setting, including radiomic biomarkers. The distinction between diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers is made and emphasis placed on the need to assess clinical utility within the context of a multivariable model. Such models should not be restricted to imaging biomarkers and must include relevant disease and patient characteristics likely to be clinically useful. Biomarker utility is based on whether its addition to the basic clinical model improves diagnosis or prediction. Approaches to both model development and evaluation are explained and the need for adequate amounts of representative data stressed so as to avoid underpowering and overfitting. Advice is provided regarding how to report the research correctly. Key Points • Imaging biomarker research is common but methodological errors are encountered frequently that may mean the research is not clinically useful. • The clinical utility of imaging biomarkers is best assessed by their additive effect on multivariable models based on clinical factors known to be important. • The data used to develop such models should be sufficient for the number of variables investigated and the model should be evaluated, preferably using data unrelated to development.

ObjectivesRecently, the results of two economic evaluations were published both of which seemingly demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of sofosbuvir-based regimens for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C genotype 1 infection in Germany. Both analyses were sponsored by the manufacturer of sofosbuvir and use a different methodology: Whereas one evaluation is based on a conventional cost-utility analysis, the other rests upon the efficiency-frontier method used by the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG). The purpose of this study is to reanalysis the results of both economic evaluations in combination.DesignReanalysis of published decision modelling results.SettingPrimary care in Germany.ParticipantsPatients with chronic hepatitis C genotype 1 infection (treatment-naïve and -experienced, cirrhotic and non-cirrhotic).InterventionsSofosbuvir, other anti-hepatitis C virus drugs, and no treatment.Primary and secondary outcome measuresCost per unit of health benefit and cost per quality-adjusted life year.ResultsReanalysis of the results of both economic evaluations in combination reveals an unclear rationale for choosing the selected cost-effectiveness methods as well as a potential publication bias, favoring the product of the manufacturer. Based on the reanalysis, sofosbuvir is not cost-effective in treatment-experienced non-cirrhotic patients, potentially lacks cost-effectiveness in treatment-experienced cirrhotic patients, and is only partially cost-effective in treatment-naïve non-cirrhotic patients. Taken together, these results indicate a lack of cost-effectiveness in three quarters of the German patient population.ConclusionsTwo economic evaluations on sofosbuvir suggest, in combination, that sofosbuvir cannot be considered a cost-effective treatment in three quarters of the German patient population.

Background The prevalence and impact of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) is significant. While hand hygiene is well documented as the single most effective method to prevent HAIs, research and prevention has focused on the healthcare provider's hand hygiene. Studies validate the importance of the healthcare consumer's hand hygiene, finding consumers’ hands become a reservoir and means of transmission if not adequately cleansed. Although consumer hand hygiene is an obvious safety concern across healthcare settings, it is frequently overlooked and not routinely measured. Barriers to consumer hand hygiene include inaccessible supplies, irritating agents, lack of knowledge, forgetfulness, or lack of administrative leadership/support. Our evidence-based protocol for healthcare consumer hand hygiene addresses the roles and responsibilities of all within the healthcare community. Methods We appraised the scientific literature using Dang and Dearholt's (2018) five levels of evidence with Level 1 being the most stringent. We included fifty-four studies spanning 17 years (2002-2019); thirty-one studies published during the last 5 years in professional peer reviewed journals and twenty-three seminal studies more than 5 years old. There were 3 Level I studies, 26 Level 2 studies, 9 Level 3 studies, 15 Level 4 studies, and 1 Level 5 study. Studies differed in focus, design, methods, and included several countries, healthcare systems, and settings (hospitals, long-term care facilities, and the community), with hospitals being the most frequent setting. Results The evidence demonstrates a multi-modal approach to healthcare consumer hand hygiene is most effective. Key elements include leadership to implement and maintain high levels of adherence, education, consumer preference, and verbal and nonverbal reminders. Following implementation of a healthcare consumer hand hygiene protocol, increased rates of healthcare provider hand hygiene adherence and decreased rates of HAI were noted in the literature. Conclusions A healthcare consumer hand hygiene protocol may decrease HAIs, improve outcomes, and promote healthcare consumer engagement and satisfaction.

Highlights • Segmented peer review is a new process for multidisciplinary research submissions • It explicitly allocates segments of a manuscript to appropriate expert reviewers • Reviewers focus on segments of the manuscript within their specialty • Editors integrate segmented reviews for final decision (publish, revise, or reject) • Reduces barriers to publication inherent in multidisciplinary research, We propose a new process for peer review of multidisciplinary journal submissions called ‘segmented peer review’. The current translational research environment increasingly requires complex and multidisciplinary studies that span multiple distinct specialties within a single paper. Such papers present logistic and practical barriers to effective peer review. To address these barriers, papers undergoing segmented peer review require authors to explicitly i) identify each of the areas of expertise required to review the paper, ii) direct each reviewer to the relevant portions of the manuscript, and iii) suggest in-field reviewers. This segmentation of the paper is then followed by a ‘segmented peer review request’ tailored to the expertise of each potential reviewer, with a request to confine his / her review to those ‘in-scope’ aspects of the paper, while de-emphasizing any optional ‘out-of-scope’ comments. Each reviewer indicates the fitness for publication, or suitability for revision, of their particular segment of the manuscript. The segmented peer review process is completed when the editors integrate the segmented peer reviews. We propose segmented peer review as a fit-for-purpose process with tangible advantages for authors, reviewers, and journal editors. It should reduce the specific barriers to publication inherent in the evaluation of multidisciplinary research efforts., Graphical abstract Image, graphical abstract

According to the Canadian Science Publishing, there are approximately 2.5 million scientific papers published each year. The huge volume of publications can be contributed to a substantial increase in the total number of academic journals, including the increasing number of predatory or fake scientific journals, which yield high volumes of poor-quality research work. The effect of this scenario is that there is an obsolete jungle of journals to flip through in searching for high-quality and relevant references for researchers, ranging from the ones who simply look for citations to cite or latest development and knowledge in a specific scientific area of study. In solving this problem, we propose a unique, elegant research paper recommender. Besides considering the topics and contents of related publications, our recommender also examines the peer reviews, authority, and popularity of each publication to ensure its quality. Conducted empirical study shows that our recommender outperforms existing research paper recommenders and contributes to the design of searching relevant publications.

See RECORDING (starts at 00:30:30). In an attempt to increase the reproducibility of contributions to a long-running and established geospatial conference series, the 23rd AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science 2020 (https://agile-online.org/conference-2020) for the first time provided guidelines on preparing reproducible papers (Nüst etal., 2020) and appointed a reproducibility committee to evaluate computational workflows of accepted papers ( https://www.agile-giscience-series.net/review_process.html). Here, the committee’s members report on the lessons learned from reviewing 23 accepted full papers and outline future plans for the conference series. In summary, six submissions were partially reproduced by reproducibility reviewers, whose reports are published openly on OSF ( https://osf.io/6k5fh/). These papers are promoted with badges on the proceedings’ website (https://agile-giss.copernicus.org/articles/1/index.html). Compared to previous years’ submissions (cf. Nüst etal. 2018), the guidelines and increased community awareness markedly improved reproducibility. However, the reproduction attempts also revealed problems, most importantly insufficient documentation. This was partly mitigated by the non-blind reproducibility review, conducted after paper acceptance, where interaction between reviewers and authors can provide the input and attention needed to increase reproducibility. However, the reviews also showed that anonymisation and public repositories, when properly documented, can enable a successful reproduction without interaction, as was the case with one manuscript. Individual and organisational challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the conference’s eventual cancellation increased the teething problems. Nevertheless, also under normal circumstances, future iterations will have to reduce the reviewer’s efforts to be sustainable, ideally by more readily executable workflows and a larger reproducibility committee. Furthermore, we discuss changes to the reproducibility review process and their challenges. Reproducibility reports could be made available to “regular” reviewers, or the reports could be considered equally for acceptance/rejection decisions. Insufficient information or invalid arguments for not disclosing material could then lead to a submission being rejected or not being sent out to peer review. Further organisational improvements are a publication of reviewers’ activities in public databases, making the guidelines mandatory, and collecting data on used tools/repositories, spent efforts, and communications. Finally, we summarise the revision of the guidelines, including their new section for reproducibility reviewers, and the status of the initiative “Reproducible Publications at AGILE Conferences” (https://reproducible-agile.github.io/initiative/), which we connect to related undertakings such as CODECHECK (Eglen etal., 2019). The AGILE Conference’s experiences may help other communities to transition towards more open and reproducible research publications.

Background Biomedical research from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is poorly represented in Western European and North American psychiatric journals. Aims To test the feasibility of trialling a capacity-building intervention to improve LMIC papers' representation in biomedical journals. Method We designed an enhanced peer-review intervention delivered to LMIC corresponding/first authors of papers rejected by the British Journal of Psychiatry. We conducted a feasibility study, inviting consenting authors to be randomised to intervention versus none, measuring recruitment and retention rates, outcome completion and author/reviewer-rated acceptability. Results Of the 26/121 consenting to participate, 12 were randomised to the intervention and 14 to the control arms. Outcome completion was 100% but qualitative feedback from authors/reviewers was mixed, with attrition from 5/12 (42%) of intervention reviewers. Conclusions Low interest among eligible authors and variable participation of expert reviewers suggested low feasibility of a full trial and a need for intervention redesign. Declaration of interest A.P., P.T. and M.Y. are British Journal of Psychiatry editorial board members. During this study P.T. was British Journal of Psychiatry Editor, A.P. was a trainee editor and A.H. was an editorial assistant.

Time to acceptance from submission and time to publication (publication lag) determines how quickly novel information is made available to other scientists and experts. In the medical field, the review process and revisions usually takes 3&ndash, 4 months, the total time from submission to publication is 8&ndash, 9 months. During the COVID-19 pandemic, information should be available much faster. The analysis of 833 documents published on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 prior to 19 March 2020 shows that these times shrunk by a factor of ten. The median time to acceptance was three days for all publications, six days for research papers and reviews, four days for case studies and two days for other publication types. The median publication lag was nine days for all publications together, 11 days for research papers, nine days for case studies, 13 days for reviews and seven days for other publications. This demonstrates that the publication process&mdash, if necessary&mdash, can be sped up. For the sake of scientific accuracy, review times should not be pushed down, but the time from acceptance to actual publication could be shorter.

Objective Examination of de-classified Monsanto documents from litigation in order to expose the impact of the company's efforts to influence the reporting of scientific studies related to the safety of the herbicide, glyphosate. Methods A set of 141 recently de-classified documents, made public during the course of pending toxic tort litigation, In Re Roundup Products Liability Litigation were examined. Results The documents reveal Monsanto-sponsored ghostwriting of articles published in toxicology journals and the lay media, interference in the peer review process, behind-the-scenes influence on retraction and the creation of a so-called academic website as a front for the defense of Monsanto products. Conclusion The use of third-party academics in the corporate defense of glyhphosate reveals that this practice extends beyond the corruption of medicine and persists in spite of efforts to enforce transparency in industry manipulation.

Academics have a duty towards peers and scholars alike to engage in research work and to publish their findings. This also assists in establishing personal academic success as well as the attainment of research grants. In the past, authors used to publish their research articles for free but access to these articles was restricted to subscription users only. Recently, open access publishing has gained momentum, whereby such articles are made freely accessible online. However open access publishing comes with a price tag for the author through article processing charges. Open access may also question a journal's credibility within the academic world if improperly implemented. This is particularly so following the unsolicited bombardment of researchers' email accounts with invitations for submissions to predatory open access journals. For these reasons, authors needs to rigorously weigh the pros and cons of whether to choose a subscription based or an open access journal for publication.

In our planned study, we shall empirically study the assessment of cited papers within the framework of the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic. We are interested in the question whether citation decisions are (mainly) driven by the quality of cited references. The design of our study is oriented towards the study by Teplitskiy, Duede [10]. We shall undertake a survey of corresponding authors with an available email address in the Web of Science database. The authors are asked to assess the quality of papers that they cited in previous papers. Some authors will be assigned to three treatment groups that receive further information alongside the cited paper: citation information, information on the publishing journal (journal impact factor), or a numerical access code to enter the survey. The control group will not receive any further numerical information. In the statistical analyses, we estimate how (strongly) the quality assessments of the cited papers are adjusted by the respondents to the anchor value (citation, journal, or access code). Thus, we are interested in whether possible adjustments in the assessments can not only be produced by quality-related information (citation or journal), but also by numbers that are not related to quality, i.e. the access code. The results of the study may have important implications for quality assessments of papers by researchers and the role of numbers, citations, and journal metrics in assessment processes.

The scientific publication landscape is changing quickly, with an enormous increase in options and models. Articles can be published in a complex variety of journals that differ in their presentation format (online-only or in-print), editorial organizations that maintain them (commercial and/or society-based), editorial handling (academic or professional editors), editorial board composition (academic or professional), payment options to cover editorial costs (open access or pay-to-read), indexation, visibility, branding, and other aspects. Additionally, online submissions of non-revised versions of manuscripts prior to seeking publication in a peer-reviewed journal (a practice known as pre-printing) are a growing trend in biological sciences. In this changing landscape, researchers in biochemistry and molecular biology must re-think their priorities in terms of scientific output dissemination. The evaluation processes and institutional funding for scientific publications should also be revised accordingly. This article presents the results of discussions within the Department of Biochemistry, University of Sao Paulo, on this subject.

Background Many dental professionals are now completing higher degrees that involve a research project. However, many of those research projects, although worthwhile, are not written up for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.Aim To encourage and assist novice authors in transferring their project report into a paper to submit for publication.Discussion The relationship between the authors and contributors is considered, and advice is given on how to focus on the specific research question and produce a succinct paper within the target journal's word limit. Emphasis is placed on choosing the right journal for submission and the need to follow the 'instructions to authors', as well as what happens post-submission, post-acceptance and post-publication. Furthermore, some of the difficulties that the authors have encountered on their own publication journeys are highlighted.Conclusion Great satisfaction will be derived if the novice researcher makes the most of their opportunity of undertaking a research project and subsequently getting it published in a peer-reviewed journal. Publishing gives the author recognition within their professional community, a feeling of personal achievement, can create better career perspectives and allows others to build on the work.

Retractions of scientific papers published by some Iran-affiliated scientists in the preceding decade have attracted much attention and publicity; however, the reasons for these retractions have not been documented. We searched the Retraction Watch Database to enumerate the retracted Iran-affiliated papers from December 2001 to December 2019 and aimed to outline the predominant reasons for retractions. The reasons included fake peer-review, authorship dispute, fabricated data, plagiarism, conflict of interest, erroneous data, and duplication. The Fisher’s exact test was used to investigate the associations between retractions and their underlying reasons. We selected P

Peer review is a key activity intended to preserve the quality and integrity of scientific publications. However, in practice it is far from perfect. We aim at understanding how reviewers, including those who have won awards for reviewing, perform their reviews of software engineering papers to identify both what makes a good reviewing approach and what makes a good paper. We first conducted a series of in-person interviews with well-respected reviewers in the software engineering field. Then, we used the results of those interviews to develop a questionnaire used in an online survey and sent out to reviewers from well-respected venues covering a number of software engineering disciplines, some of whom had won awards for their reviewing efforts. We analyzed the responses from the interviews and from 175 reviewers who completed the online survey (including both reviewers who had won awards and those who had not). We report on several descriptive results, including: 45% of award-winners are reviewing 20+ conference papers a year, while 28% of non-award winners conduct that many. 88% of reviewers are taking more than two hours on journal reviews. We also report on qualitative results. To write a good review, the important criteria were it should be factual and helpful, ranked above others such as being detailed or kind. The most important features of papers that result in positive reviews are clear and supported validation, an interesting problem, and novelty. Conversely, negative reviews tend to result from papers that have a mismatch between the method and the claims and from those with overly grandiose claims. The main recommendation for authors is to make the contribution of the work very clear in their paper. In addition, reviewers viewed data availability and its consistency as being important., Comment: published in Empirical Software Engineering Journal. Replication package at http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4568517

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has spread exponentially throughout the world in a short period, aided by our hyperconnected world including global trade and travel. Unlike previous pandemics, the pace of the spread of the virus has been matched by the pace of publications, not just in traditional journals, but also in preprint servers. Not all publication findings are true, and sifting through the firehose of data has been challenging to peer reviewers, editors, as well as to consumers of the literature, that is, scientists, healthcare workers, and the general public. There has been an equally exponential rise in the public discussion on social media. Rather than decry the pace of change, we suggest the nephrology community should embrace it, making deposition of research into preprint servers the default, encouraging prepublication peer review more widely of such preprint studies, and harnessing social media tools to make these actions easier and seamless.

Introduction: Peer review, a cornerstone of academia, promotes rigor and relevance in scientificpublishing. As educators are encouraged to adopt a more scholarly approach to medical education,peer review is becoming increasingly important. Junior educators both receive the reviews of theirpeers, and are also asked to participate as reviewers themselves. As such, it is imperative for juniorclinician educators to be well-versed in the art of peer reviewing their colleagues’ work. In thisarticle, our goal was to identify and summarize key papers that may be helpful for faculty membersinterested in learning more about the peer-review process and how to improve their reviewing skills. Methods: The online discussions of the 2016-17 Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM)Faculty Incubator program included a robust discussion about peer review, which highlighted anumber of papers on that topic. We sought to augment this list with further suggestions by guestexperts and by an open call on Twitter for other important papers. Via this process, we created a listof 24 total papers on the topic of peer review. After gathering these papers, our authorship groupengaged in a consensus-building process incorporating Delphi methods to identify the papers thatbest described peer review, and also highlighted important tips for new reviewers. Results: We found and reviewed 24 papers. In our results section, we present our authorshipgroup’s top five most highly rated papers on the topic of peer review. We also summarize thesepapers with respect to their relevance to junior faculty members and to faculty developers. Conclusion: We present five key papers on peer review that can be used for faculty development fornovice writers and reviewers. These papers represent a mix of foundational and explanatory papersthat may provide some basis from which junior faculty members might build upon as they both undergothe peer-review process and act as reviewers in turn.

This data descriptor summarizes the process applied to identify, screen, select and gather data from the content of 142 peer-reviewed papers/sources that report on the sources and impacts of recreational disturbance on coastal avifauna. While populations of resident and migratory coastal avifauna are under threat and diminishing rapidly across the planet, and particularly in association with Asian flyways, many governments are leveraging booming global demand for coastal recreation and tourism in order to deliver economic development to regional communities. The summary data shared via this data description was extracted from papers collected in a systematic literature review that was designed to explore the global literature on the recreational disturbance of coastal avifauna in order to elucidate the state of the global knowledge regarding this issue and to identify management strategies that could be applied at tropical Asian destinations to minimize the impacts of recreational disturbance and thus enhance the ecological sustainability of coastal recreation and tourism across the region. The data shared via the Excel worksheet associated with this data descriptor was extracted from peer-reviewed articles published in English between 1 January 2000 and the 31 December 2018 with the full text of the article available online. These articles were found by searching several online indexing several databases including Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest and Google Scholar.

This paper presents a novel method for finding features in the analysis of variable distributions stemming from time series. We apply the methodology to the case of submitted and accepted papers in peer-reviewed journals. We provide a comparative study of editorial decisions for papers submitted to two peer-reviewed journals: the Journal of the Serbian Chemical Society (JSCS) and this MDPI Entropy journal. We cover three recent years for which the fate of submitted papers&mdash, about 600 papers to JSCS and 2500 to Entropy&mdash, is completely determined. Instead of comparing the number distributions of these papers as a function of time with respect to a uniform distribution, we analyze the relevant probabilities, from which we derive the information entropy. It is argued that such probabilities are indeed more relevant for authors than the actual number of submissions. We tie this entropy analysis to the so called diversity of the variable distributions. Furthermore, we emphasize the correspondence between the entropy and the diversity with inequality measures, like the Herfindahl-Hirschman index and the Theil index, itself being in the class of entropy measures, the Gini coefficient which also measures the diversity in ranking is calculated for further discussion. In this sample, the seasonal aspects of the peer review process are outlined. It is found that the use of such indices, non linear transformations of the data distributions, allow us to distinguish features and evolutions of the peer review process as a function of time as well as comparing the non-uniformity of distributions. Furthermore, t- and z-statistical tests are applied in order to measure the significance (p-level) of the findings, that is, whether papers are more likely to be accepted if they are submitted during a few specific months or during a particular &ldquo, season&rdquo, the predictability strength depends on the journal.

The editors of this journal meet many researchers at conferences and workshops who have tried and failed to publish the results of their studies. Having experienced these ourselves as authors, we do understand the frustration that potential authors often express. For those new to the publishing world, the disappointment of rejection runs deep, and often, despite very helpful reviews, that paper might never be resurrected again. The reality is that when a paper is rejected the reviewers or editors have detected significant problems with that paper that preclude its potential usefulness to our audience. In this editorial, we provide an overview of the primary reasons for rejection from the European Journal of Oncology Nursing (EJON), in the hope that authors will understand our reasoning and to help them avoid rejection in the future.

This presentation offers a side-by-side comparison of the publication processes for traditional monographs versus complex interactive digital projects. Prepared by Stanford University Press whose 6-year Mellon-funded digital publishing initiative is coming to a close in December 2023, the presentation reflects on the highly collaborative processes digital publications require.

Retracted publications are a crucial, yet overlooked, issue in the scientific community. The purpose of this study was to analyze the prevalence, characteristics and reasons of Malaysian retracted papers. The Web of Science and Scopus databases were queried to identify Malaysian retracted publications. Available versions of original articles and publication notices were accessed from journal websites. The publications were assessed for various characteristics, including reason for retraction, based on the Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines, and the authority calling for the retractions. From 2009 to June 2017, 125 Malaysian publications comprising (33 journal articles and 92 conference papers) were retracted. There was a spike in the prevalence of retracted articles in 2010 and 2012 with 42 articles (33.6%) and 41 articles (32.8%) respectively from the 125 retracted articles. The mean time from electronic publication to retraction was 1 year. There is no significant relationship between a journal quartile and the mean number of months to retraction (P = 0.842). The reason for retraction for conference papers was specified as “violation of publication principle”. Journal articles were retracted mainly for duplicate publication, plagiarism, compromised peer review process, and self-plagiarism. Most retracted articles do not contain flawed data; and only 2 retracted articles have been accused of scientific mistakes. The study concludes that retractions were mostly due to the authors misconduct. Despite the increases, the proportion of published scholarly literature affected by retraction remains very small, indicating that retraction represents an uncommon, yet potentially increasing and incipient, issue within Malaysian papers, which publishers as well as editors may have consistently and sufficiently addressed.

Data collection for the purposes of analysis, after the planning and execution of a research study, commences with data input and validation. The process of data entry and analysis may appear daunting to the uninitiated, but as pointed out in the 1970s in a series of papers by British Medical Journal Deputy Editor TDV Swinscow, modern hardware and software (he was then referring to the availability of hand calculators) permits the performance of statistical testing outside a computer laboratory. In this day and age, modern software, such as the ubiquitous and almost universally familiar Microsoft Excel™ greatly facilitates this process. This first paper comprises the first of a collection of papers which will emulate Swinscow's series, in his own words, “addressed to readers who want to start at the beginning, not to those who are already skilled statisticians.” These papers will have less focus on the actual arithmetic, and more emphasis on how to actually implement simple statistics, step by step, using Excel, thereby constituting the equivalent of Swinscow's papers in the personal computer age. Data entry can be facilitated by several underutilised features in Excel. This paper will explain Excel's little-known form function, data validation implementation at input stage, simple coding tips and data cleaning tools.

The current peer review system is under stress from ever increasing numbers of publications, the proliferation of open-access journals and an apparent difficulty in obtaining high-quality reviews in due time. At its core, this issue may be caused by scientists insufficiently prioritising reviewing. Perhaps this low prioritisation is due to a lack of understanding on how many reviews need to be conducted by researchers to balance the peer review process. I obtained verified peer review data from 142 journals across 12 research fields, for a total of over 300,000 reviews and over 100,000 publications, to determine an estimate of the numbers of reviews required per publication per field. I then used this value in relation to the mean numbers of authors per publication per field to highlight a &lsquo, review ratio&rsquo, the expected minimum number of publications an author in their field should review to balance their input (publications) into the peer review process. On average, 3.49 &plusmn, 1.45 (SD) reviews were required for each scientific publication, and the estimated review ratio across all fields was 0.74 &plusmn, 0.46 (SD) reviews per paper published per author. Since these are conservative estimates, I recommend scientists aim to conduct at least one review per publication they produce. This should ensure that the peer review system continues to function as intended.

How does the structure of the peer review process, which can vary among journals, influence the quality of papers published in a journal? This article studies multiple systems of peer review using computational simulation. I find that, under any of the systems I study, a majority of accepted papers are evaluated by an average reader as not meeting the standards of the journal. Moreover, all systems allow random chance to play a strong role in the acceptance decision. Heterogeneous reviewer and reader standards for scientific quality drive both results. A peer review system with an active editor—that is, one who uses desk rejection before review and does not rely strictly on reviewer votes to make decisions—can mitigate some of these effects.

ObjectiveThe ENT Scotland society (formerly known as the Scottish Otolaryngological Society) has two meetings a year and accepts oral presentations from trainees. This study aimed to identify publication rates from these meetings.MethodsAbstracts of the presentations are published in The Journal of Laryngology and Otology. A structured search on PubMed and Google Scholar was undertaken to identify which presentations from the 2005 to 2014 meetings have been published.ResultsOf the 145 abstracts found, 60.7 per cent were presenting clinical research and 44.1 per cent were related to the head and neck subspecialty. Seventy-three abstracts (50.3 per cent) were associated with publication as a peer-reviewed article; otology papers were more likely to be published than those focusing on other subspecialties (64.3 per cent, p = 0.036). No correlation was found between publication and other factors.ConclusionPresentations at the ENT Scotland meetings undergo unbiased peer review and are as likely to be published as those of other conferences.

In naturally occurring numbers the frequencies of digits 1–9 in the leading position are counterintuitively distributed because the frequencies of occurrence are unequal. Benford-Newcomb’s law describes the expected distribution of these frequencies. It was previously shown that known fraudulent articles consistently violated this law. To compare the features of 12 known fraudulent articles from a single Japanese author to the features of 13 articles in the same research field from other Japanese authors, published during the same time period and identified with a Medline database search. All 25 articles were assessed to determine whether the data violated the law. Formulas provided by the law were used to determine the frequencies of occurrence for the first two leading digits in manually extracted numbers. It was found that all the known fraudulent papers violated the law and 6 of the 13 articles used for comparison followed the law. Assuming that the articles in the comparison group were not falsified or fabricated, the sensitivity of assessing articles with Benford-Newcomb’s law was 100% (95% confidence interval CI: 73.54–100%) but the specificity was only 46.15% (95% CI: 19.22–74.87%) and the positive predictive value was 63.16% (95% CI: 38.36–83.71%). All 12 of the known falsified articles violated Benford-Newcomb’s law, which indicated that this analysis had a high sensitivity. The low specificity of the assessment may be explained by the assumptions made about the articles identified for comparison. Violations of Benford-Newcomb’s law about the frequencies of the leading digits cannot serve as proof of falsification but they may provide a basis for deeper discussions between the editor and author about a submitted work.

In their 2016 article, "Navigating a Managed Care Peer Review: Guidance for Clinicians Using Applied Behavior Analysis [ABA] in the Treatment of Children on the Autism Spectrum," Papatola and Lustig provide an overview of the managed care process, discuss the medical necessity of ABA, and offer guidance to clinicians on how to navigate the managed care peer review process. Given that the authors are employed by a large international health insurance carrier and conduct peer reviews on behalf of that organization, this response seeks to provide guidance from both the clinical and public policy perspectives that reflect best practices in the field of autism treatment. This response is not written with the intention of providing or replacing legal advice; rather, this paper offers health care providers of ABA an essential understanding of some of the laws that govern and support their efforts to secure medically necessary treatment and the mechanisms in place with which to challenge decisions by managed care organizations, health plans, and health insurance issuers that may be contrary to best practices. Finally, suggestions are offered on how to navigate a peer review to ensure optimal outcomes and, when necessary, to lay the groundwork to overturn a funding source decision that does not reflect best practices or the standard of care in ABA-based autism treatment.

Writing and publishing scientific papers have become requisites for all scientists (researchers and academics alike) to maintain their professional career. The prospects of writing a scientific paper are often regarded as somewhat daunting to the uninitiated. However a universal, well established structure format known as "IMRAD": i.e. Introduction, Methods, Results And Discussion has been established. This paper details this methodology.

In addition to an overview of the issue, this article is a reminder that we are fully open access, free of charge, double-blind peer reviewed, and offer well-above-average editorial support, especially for early-career researchers. All of the editorial team work in a voluntary capacity. We are committed to finding alternative models of publishing, to reclaim the project of Open Access and key it to a different register of shared creativity and responsibility and work towards a more accessible, ethical, transparent, and creative form of scholarly communication.

Despite general agreement within philosophy that peer review is indispensable, its fairness and reliability is often questioned. This article suggests that such worries can to a large extent be met by adopting the practice that reviews as well as earlier versions of papers are made publicly available when the final version of a paper is published. This suggestion combines the advantages of transparency with the merits of anonymity of reviewers. While there are obstacles to this suggestion, the article argues that it would be worthwhile to implement it because it can help map patterns of conduct and secure confidence in the fairness and reliability of review procedures and journal editing within philosophy.

This material is excerpted from a work that was published in Organometallics © American Chemical Society after peer review. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.organomet.8b00942. In 1987, the late German chemist Peter Hofmann of the University of Heidelberg wrote: “We still have a long way to go until a computation will be able to compete with or to substitute a lab experiment... one could then conclude that theoretical work in this field—not being quantitatively reliable anyhow—is rather useless, except for the purpose of keeping theorists busy.” However, Hofmann continued: “If applied properly and with their limitations in mind, methods of various levels of sophistication can all contribute their part to a basic understanding of organometallic systems.” Without doubt, the past 30 years have shown the usefulness of computational methods to provide information about the properties of molecules, including the activities and selectivities of organometallic systems. Since the late 1990s, the preferred method of computational chemists has been density functional theory (DFT). A search of papers containing DFT in Organometallics shows an increase from 113 papers in 2000 to 379 in 2012.