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B – Disclosure of competing interests17 December 2010Drazen JM, Van Der Weyden M, Sahni P. et al. Uniform format for disclosure of competing interests in ICMJE journals. JAMA 2010;303(1):75-6(doi:10.1001/jama.209.1542) Disclosure of conflict of interests by authors of articles published in biomedical journals has become common practice. The information included in these disclosures helps the reader to understand the relationships between the authors […]
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B – How to review journal manuscripts17 December 2010Rosenfeld RM. How to review journal manuscripts. Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery 2010;142(4):472-86(doi: 10.1016/j.otohns.2010.02.010) Reviewing manuscripts is central to editorial peer review. A common complaint by nearly all journal editors is the difficulty in finding competent reviewers to assess an increasing volume of submitted manuscripts. Topics covered in this article include: responding to a […]
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B – Research integrity and publication ethics17 December 2010Beisiegel U. Research integrity and publication ethics. Atherosclerosis 2010; 212(2):383-5(doi: 10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2010.01.050) This commentary describes the international problem of research integrity and publication ethics from the view of a German ombudsperson who has been actively involved in the topic since 1997, with experience from several cases of authorship conflicts. Possible explanations for the observed misconduct are […]
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B – Croatia moves away from fostering research integrity17 December 2010Marusic M. Craotia moves away from fostering research integrity. The Lancet 2010;376(9753):1627-8 (doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61999-X) Croatia seems to be moving away from a leadership position in research integrity regulation. A new law abolishes the National Committee on Ethics in Science and Higher Education, the highest national body on research ethics. The law leaves the regulation of […]
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B – Who’s a peer?13 December 2010Shashok K. Who’s a peer? Improving peer review by including additional sources of expertise. Journal of Participatory Medicine 2010 Dec 8;2:e15 To strengthen the review process, the Journal of Participatory Medicine proposes to enlarge peer expertise to include experts outside the academic and professional communities (such as health care users and other lay experts), who […]
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B – Metrics: a profusion of measures9 December 2010Van Noorden R. Metrics: a profusion of measures. Nature 2010; 465:864-866(doi:10.1038/465864a) Within the past decade, the development of scientific performance indicators has accelerated rapidly, accompanied by the the ready availability of online databases such as the Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar. The author offers a survey of this evolving situation: from the impact […]
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B – Open access availability of LIS research9 December 2010Way D. The open access availability of Library and Information Science literature. College & Research Libraries 2010; 71(4);302-309 To examine the open access availability of Library and Information Science (LIS) research, a study was conducted using Google Scholar to search for articles from 20 top LIS journals published in 2007. The results showed a lack […]
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B – Improving access to research9 December 2010Courant PN, O’Donnell JJ, Okerson A et al. Improving access to research. Science 2010; 327(5964):393(doi: 10.1126/science.1186933) A recent report, issued by the US House Science and Technology Committee’s Roundtable on Scholarly Publishing, recommends that journal articles derived from federal research funding should be made publicly available as quickly as practicable (generally, in a year or […]
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B – Principles of ethical publishing7 December 2010Shewan LG, Coats AJS. Ethics in the authorship and publishing of scientific articles. International Journal of Cardiology 2010;144(1):1-2(doi: 10.1016/j.ijcard.2010.07.030) The detection and interest in scientific fraud in publishing increased from 55 articles on this issue in 1983 to 167 in 2009. Since January 2009 the International Journal of Cardiology has required all papers published in […]
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B – Writing book reviews7 December 2010Hartley J. The anatomy of a book review. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 2010;40(4):473-487 This article provides a full account of the procedures used to write one specific book review. Essentially, the process involves three main stages: reading, scanning and making notes about the text; writing an initial rough draft of the review; editing […]
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B – Positive-outcome bias in peer review23 November 2010Emerson GB, Warme WJ, Wolf FM, et al. Testing for the presence of positive-outcome bias in peer review: a randomized controlled trial. Archives of Internal Medicine 2010;170(21):1934-1939. (doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2010.406) Two versions of a randomized controlled trial that differed only in the way the main finding was described (positive finding or no difference) were peer reviewed by […]
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B – A CV of failures22 November 2010Stefan M. A CV of failures. Nature 2010;468(467)(doi: 10.1038/nj7322-467a) The CV of a scientist does not mention his failed exams, unsuccessful fellowship applications, rejected projects or papers never accepted for publication. The author suggests to compile an “alternative” CV of failures, that could include every rejected application, project proposal and paper. Keeping it visible has […]
