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B – Should authors suggest peer reviewers?15 June 2017Teixeira da Silva JA, Al-Khatib A. Should authors be requested to suggest peer reviewers? Science and Engineering Ethics 2017 Feb. 2 (doi: 10.1007/s11948-016-9842-6) The authors of this paper query the ethics, fairness and validity of the request, by editors, of authors to suggest peer reviewers during the submission process. An author-suggested peer reviewer choice might tempt […]
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B – Sharing of copyrighted papers15 June 2017Schiermeier Q. Science publishers try new tack on copyright breaches. Nature 2017;545(7653):145-146(doi: 10.1038/545145a) Rise in copyright breaches prompts industry to discuss ways to allow ‘fair sharing’ of articles. Science publishers seem to be changing tack in their approach to researchers who breach copyright. Instead of demanding that scientists or network operators take their papers down, […]
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B – Bioethics over the past 40 years14 June 2017Jin P, Hakkarinen M. Highlights in bioethics through 40 years: a quantitative analysis of top-cited journal articles. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 2017;43(5):339-345. (doi: 10.1136/medethics-2016-103658)To investigate trends in the field of bioethics, that is constantly evolving, the authors conducted a quantitative analysis of 800 top-cited articles in bioethical journals over the past 40 years. Findings […]
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B – Non-English papers in scholarly communication14 June 2017Liu W. The changing role of non-English papers in scholarly communication: evidence from Web of Science’s three journal citation indexes. Learned Publishing 2017;30(2):115-123(doi: 10.1002/leap.1089) Non-English languages are widely used, but their roles in scholarly communication are relatively under-explored. This study shows that English is increasingly being used as the dominating language from natural sciences and […]
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B – Funder interference in addiction research14 June 2017Miller P, Martino F, Gross S, et al. Funder interference in addiction research: an international survey of authors. Addictive Behaviors 2017;72:100-105(doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2017.03.026) This study investigates funder (e.g. industry, government or charity) interference in addiction science. Interference appears to be common by governments and internationally, and similar proportions of reported interference from commercial and government funders were found. […]
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B – A review of data sharing policies13 June 2017Vasilevsky NA, Minnier J, Haendel MA, et al. Reproducible and reusable research: are journal data sharing policies meeting the mark? PeerJ 2017 Apr 25;5:e3208(doi: 10.7717/peerj.3208.eCollection2017) Publishers could play an important role in facilitating and enforcing data sharing; however, many journals have not yet implemented data sharing policies and the requirements vary widely across journals. This […]
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B – Data authorship13 June 2017Bierer BE, Crosas M, Pierce HH. Data authorship as an incentive to data sharing. New England Journal of Medicine 2017;376:1684-1687(doi: 10.1056/NEJMsb1616595) The use of research data by persons other than those who originally gathered the data is termed “data sharing”. Data sharing creates an obligation for the original investigators who obtain funding, design studies, collect and […]
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B – Potential predatory and legitimate biomedical journals: a comparison13 June 2017Shamseer L, Moher D, Maduekwe O, et al. Potential predatory and legitimate biomedical journals: can you tell the difference? A cross-sectional comparison. BMC Medicine 2017;15:28(doi: 10.1186/s12916-017-0785-9) The authors carried out a cross-sectional comparison of characteristics of three types of biomedical journals: potential predatory, presumed legitimate open access, and presumed legitimate subscription-based journals. Thirteen evidence-based characteristics by […]
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B – Statement on good science publishing13 June 2017Wakeford R. Academies outline principles of good science publishing. Journal of Radiological Protection 2017;37(1):312-315(doi: 10.1088/1361-6498/aa58f9) A join statement was published on 13 December 2016 by the UK Royal Society and the National Academies of France and Germany that outlines the best practice for high quality science publishing.A set of principles define a number of minimum […]
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B – Single IRBs in multisite trials13 June 2017Klitzman R, Pivovarova E, Lidz CW. Single IRBs in multisite trials. Question posed by the new NIH policy. JAMA 2017;317(20):2061-2062(doi: 10.1001/jama.2017.4624)The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a new policy (effective September 25, 2017) to mandate that nonexempt multisite research with humans funded by the NIH be reviewed by a single institutional review boards (IRBs). Underlying […]
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B – Fake editors23 May 2017Sorokowski P, Kulczycki E, Sorokowska A, et al. Predatory journals recruit fake editor. Nature 2017;543:481-483 (doi:10.1038/543481a) Predatory journals exhibit questionable marketing schemes, follow lax or non-existent peer review procedures and fail to provide scientific rigour or transparency. Crucial to a journal’s quality is its editors. Such roles have usually been assigned to established experts in the […]
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B – Potential COI23 May 2017McCoy MS, Emanuel EJ. Why there are no “potential” conflicts of interest. JAMA 2017;317(17):1721-1722doi: 10.1001/jama.2017.2308 The notion of a potential conflict of interest (COI) reflects the mistaken view that a COI exists only when bias or harm actually occurs. Distinctions between potential and actual COI are rooted in a basic misunderstanding of the concept of […]
