tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/journals-502/articles
Journals – The Conversation
2023-11-14T17:06:59Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213693
2023-11-14T17:06:59Z
2023-11-14T17:06:59Z
Should the media tell you when they use AI to report the news? What consumers should know
<p>Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the media landscape, both for news organisations and consumers. Applications such as ChatGPT, Bard, and Bing AI are creating new possibilities to assist in writing and researching the news, but these also raise ethical concerns.</p>
<p>One of the most pressing questions for news organisations is whether consumers should be told when they are reading a story created, or aided by, use of AI. Some, such as the technology magazine <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/guide-artificial-intelligence/">Wired</a> and the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/articles/2023/generative-ai-at-the-bbc/">BBC</a> are already doing this, but other media outlets are not.</p>
<p>There are several arguments for and against disclosing this kind of information. </p>
<p>First, it would help to ensure transparency and accountability. Consumers should know how the news they are consuming is being produced, and they should be able to make informed choices about whether or not to trust it.</p>
<p>Second, disclosure could help mitigate the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/video/why-do-ai-image-generators-show-bias/">risks of bias</a>. AI systems are trained using data, and that data can reflect the biases of the people who created it. As a result, AI-generated content can sometimes be biased. By requiring disclosure, consumers would be able to be aware of this potential bias and take it into account when evaluating the information.</p>
<p>Third, disclosure could help to protect <a href="https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/misinformation-reloaded-fears-about-the-impact-of-generative-ai-on-misinformation-are-overblown/">consumers from misinformation </a>. AI systems can be used to generate fake news, making it difficult for consumers to distinguish between real and fake news. By requiring disclosure, consumers would be able to be more sceptical of AI-generated content and be more likely to verify it before sharing it.</p>
<h2>Against disclosure</h2>
<p>One concern is that it could <a href="https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/regulating-artificial-intelligence-the-need-challenges-and-possible-solutions/">stifle innovation</a>. If news organisations are required to disclose every time they use AI, they may be less likely to experiment with the technology.</p>
<p>Another is that disclosure could be <a href="https://martech.org/two-new-reports-many-consumers-fear-ai-dont-know-theyre-using//">confusing for consumers</a>. Not everyone understands how AI works. Some people may be suspicious of AI-generated content. Requiring disclosure could make it more difficult for consumers to get the information they need.</p>
<h2>How things could play out</h2>
<p>Here are a couple of examples to illustrate these concerns:</p>
<p>Imagine a news organisation is using AI to perform real-time fact-checking and verification of statements made by public figures during live events, such as political debates or press conferences. An AI system could rapidly identify inaccuracies and provide viewers with accurate information in real-time.</p>
<p>However, if the news organisation were required to disclose the use of AI each time, it might lead to a reluctance to deploy such a tool. The fear of public perception and potential backlash could deter news outlets from leveraging AI to enhance the accuracy of their reporting, ultimately depriving the audience of a valuable service.</p>
<p>Another scenario involves AI-driven personalised news curation. Many news platforms use AI algorithms to tailor news content to individual readers’ preferences, ensuring they receive information that aligns with their interests.</p>
<p>If news organisations were compelled to disclose the use of AI in this context, readers might become wary of perceived manipulation. This apprehension could deter news outlets from investing in AI-driven personalisation, limiting their ability to engage and retain audiences in an increasingly competitive media landscape.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/deepfakes-in-warfare-new-concerns-emerge-from-their-use-around-the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-216393">Deepfakes in warfare: new concerns emerge from their use around the Russian invasion of Ukraine</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>To mitigate these risks, publications such as the New York Times are offering “enhanced bylines” that include more details about the journalists behind the stories and details about <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/new-york-times-bios">how the story was produced</a>.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the decision of whether or not to require disclosure is a complex one. </p>
<p>However, it is essential to have a public conversation about this issue so that we can develop policies that protect consumers and promote responsible journalism, and retain and improve trust in journalism, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/394283/confidence-institutions-down-average-new-low.aspx">which is falling in some countries</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to disclosure, there are other things that news organisations can do to ensure that AI is used ethically and responsibly. They should develop clear guidelines for the use of AI. These guidelines should address issues such as bias, transparency and accountability. They should invest in training and education for their staff. Journalists need to understand how AI works and how to use it responsibly.</p>
<p>Finally, news organisations should work with highly informed groups such as Harvard’s <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/ngo/">Neiman Lab</a>, <a href="https://www.aisafetysummit.gov.uk/">those working on policy</a>, technology companies and academics, to develop ethical standards for using AI and tackle emerging issues critical to the <a href="https://mediainnovationstudio.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/exec-summary-2-v12.pdf">future of public-interest news</a>. </p>
<p>The use of AI tools in news is a <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64d60527c01ae7106f2646e9/t/6509b9a39a5ca70df9148eac/1695136164679/Generating+Change+_+The+Journalism+AI+report+_+English.pdf">significant development </a>. It is vital to have a thoughtful and informed conversation about this technology’s potential benefits and risks. By working together, we can ensure that AI is used in a way that serves the public interest and upholds the values of responsible journalism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213693/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>François Nel is an editor of the World Press Trends, the flagship report of WAN-IFRA, the World Association of News Publishers, and he receives funding from the Google News Initiative for the News Futures 2035 project, which is a multi-stakeholder foresight study into the sustainable supply of trustworthy public interest news in the UK.</span></em></p>
Media companies should set up guidelines for how they are using AI.
François Nel, Reader in Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship, University of Central Lancashire
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207799
2023-10-06T16:38:14Z
2023-10-06T16:38:14Z
The history of the Yellow Book – the 19th century journal that celebrated women writers
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532049/original/file-20230614-19-uzv7a4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C3%2C704%2C596&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Decadent Young Woman After the Dance by Ramón Casas (1899). </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/ramon-casas/68bc12880c76d4e30657d96ffecbbeba-1899">Musee de Montserrat</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the middle of the final decade of the 19th century, Britain was the most powerful and richest nation on earth, with the <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/20342/peak-land-area-of-the-largest-empires/#:%7E:text=In%201913%2C%20412%20million%20people,of%20the%20world%27s%20land%20area.">largest empire ever known</a>. The nation might be thought to have had nothing of which to be frightened, yet frightened it was.</p>
<p>Many Britons of the time were steeped in an education in Latin and Greek in the classical tradition, so they knew what happened to great empires: they decline and fall. This was the atmosphere addressed by the Yellow Book, the most innovative journal of art and literature of the period, published between 1894 and 1897. It’s a topic I explore in my new book, <a href="https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/decadent-women">Decadent Women: Yellow Book Lives</a>.</p>
<p>With its iconic <em>fin de siècle</em> designs (characteristic of the end of the 19th-century lethargy) and its showcasing of women writers, the Yellow Book gave its name to the decade. The period is now sometimes referred to as “<a href="https://1890s.ca/yellow-book-volumes/">the yellow nineties</a>” in <a href="https://0-go-gale-com.catalogue.libraries.london.ac.uk/ps/navigateToIssue?u=ull_ttda&p=TTDA&mCode=0FFO&issueDate=119110810&issueNumber=39660&volume=&loadFormat=page">tribute</a>.</p>
<p>The Yellow Book was created by the brilliant young artist <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/aubrey-beardsley-716/story-aubrey-beardsley-five-artworks">Aubrey Beardsley</a> and energetic American writer <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095921402;jsessionid=AADD8DC289766EC7FC13ED9F50436F32">Henry Harland</a>. It considered the Victorian artistic ideal of morality as the highest quality in art to be prudish and lacking in a future.</p>
<p>The “Beardsley women” – perfectly stylised black illustrations featured both on the cover and throughout – received the most attention. One of <a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_the-national-observer-and-british-review-of-politics_1894-04-21_11_283/page/588/mode/2up?view=theater">Beardsley’s detractors claimed</a> that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They resemble nothing on the earth, nor in the firmament that is above the earth, nor in the waters under the earth; with their lips of a more than Hottentot thickness, their bodies of a lath-like flatness, their impossibly pointed toes and fingers, and their small eyes that have the form and comeliness of an unshelled snail.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532052/original/file-20230614-20687-x2c2bd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The yellow Cover of The Yellow Book showing a woman in a cloak looking towards a lamp." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532052/original/file-20230614-20687-x2c2bd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532052/original/file-20230614-20687-x2c2bd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532052/original/file-20230614-20687-x2c2bd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532052/original/file-20230614-20687-x2c2bd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532052/original/file-20230614-20687-x2c2bd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532052/original/file-20230614-20687-x2c2bd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532052/original/file-20230614-20687-x2c2bd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The third edition of The Yellow Book, from 1894.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-yellow-book">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Yellow Book featured a significant number of women writers. One-third of its writers were women (47 out of 137 writers). An analysis of the poetry in the Yellow Book shows even more women’s work. Of the 116 poems across its 13 volumes, 44 were by women.</p>
<p>They were early modernists like <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp77738/george-egerton-mary-chavelita-dunne">Chavelita Bright</a> (who wrote sexually explicit stories under the pen name of George Egerton) and realist writer <a href="http://users.clas.ufl.edu/snod/D%27ArcyIntroductionNB.072315.pdf">Ella D’Arcy</a>. D’Arcy presented a sour view of women which was rather more complex than that proposed by feminists such as <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp78447/sarah-grand-frances-elizabeth-bellenden-mcfall-nee-clarke">Sarah Grand</a> and <a href="https://heritage.humanists.uk/mona-caird/">Mona Caird</a>, who were battling against male domination in marriage.</p>
<p>In D’Arcy’s world, the greater discourse between men and women which was permitted in the 1890s led only to deeper bewilderment and more disappointment on both sides, when compared to earlier decades.</p>
<h2>The Yellow Book’s ‘at homes’</h2>
<p>Central to women’s involvement in the Yellow Book were the “at homes” given by Harland and his wife Aline at their apartment in London. Women could attend these, unlike meetings held in pubs or men’s clubs.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.eltpress.org/PDFs/37.1.pdf">D’Arcy described it</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I see him [Harland] standing on the hearthrug or sitting on the floor, waving his eye glasses on the end of their cord, or refixing them on his short-sighted eyes, while assuring some ‘dear beautiful Lady!’ or other, how much he admired her writing, or her paintings, or her frock, or the colour of her hair. He would rechristen a golden red-haired woman ‘Helen of Troy’; he would tell another that her eyes reminded him of the ‘moon rising over the jungle;’ and thus put each on delightfully cordial terms with herself.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532050/original/file-20230614-21-k7vsby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Aubrey Beardsley in a grey suit with button hole flower." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532050/original/file-20230614-21-k7vsby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532050/original/file-20230614-21-k7vsby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532050/original/file-20230614-21-k7vsby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532050/original/file-20230614-21-k7vsby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532050/original/file-20230614-21-k7vsby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532050/original/file-20230614-21-k7vsby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532050/original/file-20230614-21-k7vsby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aubrey Beardsley by Jacques-Émile Blanche, (1895).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_Beardsley#/media/File:Blanche_Beardsley.jpg">National Portrait Gallery</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Yellow Book suffered a blow in 1895 when the writer Oscar Wilde was arrested and imprisoned for homosexual offences. A tide moved against everything which was associated with decadence, which included the Yellow Book – even though Wilde had never written for it. </p>
<p>Some of the more puritanical writers for the Yellow Book’s publisher John Lane, insisted on the removal of Aubrey Beardsley as art editor and he was sacked.</p>
<p>Beardley’s departure certainly denied the journal his genius, but it was a gift for women illustrators who were now able to fill the space left by him and his almost all-male commissioning process of art. This included <a href="https://www.londonremembers.com/subjects/mabel-dearmer">Mabel Dearmer</a> who designed the first post-Beardsley cover and <a href="https://1890s.ca/wp-content/uploads/syrett_M_bio.pdf">Nell and Mabel Syrett</a>, sisters who both drew covers.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532053/original/file-20230614-23042-ritl1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white illustration of a woman at a sink in an elaborate shawl." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532053/original/file-20230614-23042-ritl1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532053/original/file-20230614-23042-ritl1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532053/original/file-20230614-23042-ritl1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532053/original/file-20230614-23042-ritl1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=749&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532053/original/file-20230614-23042-ritl1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532053/original/file-20230614-23042-ritl1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532053/original/file-20230614-23042-ritl1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A ‘Beardsley’ woman illustration from The Yellow Book.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-yellow-book">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nevertheless, the Yellow Book went into a decline. There was now less to distinguish it, and though it had been innovative, now there were imitators. Soon it was no longer ahead of the field – it was just one publication among others. It was also costing too much to run as sales declined. The last issue was published in April 1897.</p>
<p>There was, however, a lingering sense that something important had happened with the publication of the Yellow Book and it was frequently reprinted in subsequent decades. </p>
<p>It had united young and old, women and men in defiance of an ossified literary and artistic establishment and in doing so, lit a beacon for future generations.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight,
on Fridays. Launches 4 August. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207799/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jad Adams has received funding for Decadent Women research from British Academy, Scouludi Foundation, Authors' Society</span></em></p>
With its iconic designs and its showcasing of women writers, the Yellow Book gave its name to the decade.
Jad Adams, Research Fellow, School of Advanced Study, University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/187034
2022-07-25T00:51:42Z
2022-07-25T00:51:42Z
The peer review system is broken. We asked academics how to fix it
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475316/original/file-20220721-22-13bqsb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5814%2C3861&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/mature-tired-businesswoman-working-on-computer-1297116610">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The peer review process is a cornerstone of modern scholarship. Before new work is published in an academic journal, experts scrutinise the evidence, research and arguments to make sure they stack up.</p>
<p>However, many authors, reviewers and editors have <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/connect/editors-update/what-researchers-think-about-the-peer-review-process">problems</a> with the way the modern peer review system works. It can be slow, opaque and cliquey, and it runs on volunteer labour from already overworked academics. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-peer-review-27797">Explainer: what is peer review?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Last month, one of us (Kelly-Ann Allen) expressed her frustration at the difficulties of finding peer reviewers on Twitter. Hundreds of replies later, we had a huge crowd-sourced collection of criticisms of peer review and suggestions for how to make it better. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1533614630638981120"}"></div></p>
<p>The suggestions for journals, publishers and universities show there is plenty to be done to make peer review more accountable, fair and inclusive. We have summarised our <a href="https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol19/iss3/02/">full findings</a> below. </p>
<h2>Three challenges of peer review</h2>
<p>We see three main challenges facing the peer review system. </p>
<p>First, peer review can be exploitative.</p>
<p>Many of the companies that publish academic journals make a profit from subscriptions and sales. However, the authors, editors and peer reviewers generally give their time and effort on a voluntary basis, effectively performing free labour.</p>
<p>And while peer review is often seen as a collective enterprise of the academic community, in practice a small fraction of researchers do most of the work. One study of biomedical journals found that, in 2015, just 20% of researchers performed <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0166387">up to 94% of the peer reviewing</a>.</p>
<h2>Peer review can be a ‘black box’</h2>
<p>The second challenge is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150547">lack of transparency</a> in the peer review process. </p>
<p>Peer review is generally carried out anonymously: researchers don’t know who is reviewing their work, and reviewers don’t know whose work they are reviewing. This provides space for honesty, but can also make the process <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.13541">less open and accountable</a>. </p>
<p>The opacity may also suppress discussion, protect biases, and decrease the quality of the reviews.</p>
<h2>Peer review can be slow</h2>
<p>The final challenge is the speed of peer review. </p>
<p>When a researcher submits a paper to a journal, if they make it past initial <a href="https://theconversation.com/journal-papers-grants-jobs-as-rejections-pile-up-its-not-enough-to-tell-academics-to-suck-it-up-153886">rejection</a>, they may face a long wait for review and eventual publication. It is not uncommon for research to be published a year or more after submission.</p>
<p>This delay is bad for everyone. For policymakers, leaders and the public, it means they may be making decisions based on outdated scientific evidence. For scholars, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2013.09.001">delays can stall their careers</a> as they wait for the publications they need to get promotions or tenure.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/journal-papers-grants-jobs-as-rejections-pile-up-its-not-enough-to-tell-academics-to-suck-it-up-153886">Journal papers, grants, jobs ... as rejections pile up, it's not enough to tell academics to 'suck it up'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Scholars suggest the delays are typically caused by a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0166387">shortage of reviewers</a>. Many academics report <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01587919.2015.1055056">challenging workloads</a> can discourage them from participating in peer review, and this has become worse since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>It has also been found that many journals <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/connect/editors-update/what-researchers-think-about-the-peer-review-process">rely heavily on US and European reviewers</a>, limiting the size and diversity of the pool of reviewers.</p>
<h2>Can we fix peer review?</h2>
<p>So, what can be done? Most of the constructive suggestions from the large Twitter conversation mentioned earlier fell into three categories.</p>
<p>First, many suggested there should be better incentives for conducting peer reviews.</p>
<p>This might include publishers paying reviewers (the <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/journals">journals of the American Economic Association</a> already do this) or giving some profits to research departments. Journals could also offer reviewers free subscriptions, publication fee vouchers, or fast-track reviews. </p>
<p>However, we should recognise that journals offering incentives might create new problems.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-ins-and-outs-of-peer-review-48496">Explainer: the ins and outs of peer review</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Another suggestion is that universities could do better in acknowledging peer review as part of the academic workload, and perhaps reward outstanding contributors to peer review. </p>
<p>Some Twitter commentators argued tenured scholars should review a certain number of articles each year. Others thought more should be done to support non-profit journals, given <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/leap.1448">a recent study</a> found some 140 journals in Australia alone ceased publishing between 2011 and 2021.</p>
<p>Most respondents agreed that conflicts of interest should be avoided. Some suggested databases of experts would make it easier to find relevant reviewers. </p>
<h2>Use more inclusive peer review recruitment strategies</h2>
<p>Many respondents also suggested journals can improve how they recruit reviewers, and what work they distribute. Expert reviewers could be selected on the <a href="https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol19/iss3/01/">basis of method or content</a> expertise, and asked to focus on that element rather than both. </p>
<p>Respondents also argued journals should do more to tailor their invitations to target the most relevant experts, with a simpler process to accept or reject the offer. </p>
<p>Others felt that more non-tenured scholars, PhD researchers, people working in related industries, and retired experts should be recruited. More peer review training for graduate students and increased representation for women and underrepresented minorities would be a good start. </p>
<h2>Rethink double-blind peer review</h2>
<p>Some repondents pointed to a growing movement towards more open peer review processes, which may create a more human and transparent approach to reviewing. For example, <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/for-authors#question10">Royal Society Open Science</a> publishes all decisions, review letters, and voluntary identification of peer reviewers.</p>
<p>Another suggestion to speed up the publishing process was to give higher priority to time-sensitive research. </p>
<h2>What can be done?</h2>
<p>The overall message from the enormous response to a single tweet is that there is a need for systemic changes within the peer review process.</p>
<p>There is no shortage of ideas for how to improve the process for the benefit of scholars and the broader public. However, it will be up to journals, publishers and universities to put them into practice and create a more <a href="https://theconversation.com/journal-papers-grants-jobs-as-rejections-pile-up-its-not-enough-to-tell-academics-to-suck-it-up-153886">accountable, fair and inclusive system</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The authors would like to thank Emily Rainsford, David V. Smith and Yumin Lu for their contribution to the original article <a href="https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol19/iss3/02/">Towards improving peer review: Crowd-sourced insights from Twitter</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187034/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelly-Ann Allen is the Editor-in-Chief of the Educational and Developmental Psychologist and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Belonging and Human Connection. She is an Editorial Board member of Educational Psychology Review, Journal of Happiness and Health (JOHAH), and Journal of School and Educational Psychology (JOSEP).
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Crawford is Editor in Chief of the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Reardon and Lucas Walsh do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Peer review is an essential part of academic publishing, but it can be exploitative, opaque and slow. There’s plenty journals, publishers and universities can do to make the system work better.
Kelly-Ann Allen, Associate Professor, School of Educational Psychology and Counselling, Faculty of Education, Monash University
Jonathan Reardon, Durham University
Joseph Crawford, Senior Lecturer, Educational Innovation, University of Tasmania
Lucas Walsh, Professor and Director of the Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/182142
2022-06-20T17:41:45Z
2022-06-20T17:41:45Z
Peer review: Can this critical step in the publication of science research be kinder?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469531/original/file-20220617-14-piidla.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C107%2C6201%2C4691&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It can be painful for researchers to read harshly worded criticism of their work from peer reviewers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Democracy has been called the least worst system of government. Peer review is the least worst system for assessing the merit of scientific work. </p>
<p>Peer review is the written evaluation of a paper by other experts in the field. Though this sounds like assessment by equals, the power imbalance created by the roles of reviewer and reviewed distorts the relationship and affects the tone of the review. Reviews can be patronizing, demanding and unkind. </p>
<p>It is painful to read harshly worded criticism of work that has taken a team hundreds or thousands of hours and been submitted hopefully and in good faith. From our experience, we know that reviews can be accurate, robust and make every scientific point while using language and tone that is helpful and supportive.</p>
<h2>Supportive review</h2>
<p>We are a team of editors of an open-access Canadian kidney journal, the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/home/cjk"><em>Canadian Journal of Kidney Health and Disease</em></a>. When we founded our journal in 2014, supportive review was the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186%2F2054-3581-1-1">first of our guiding principles</a>. Since then, we have written supportively as editors, selected reviewers who write supportively and participated in training <a href="https://kidney.ca/Krescent/Home">the next generation of Canadian kidney scientists</a> to conduct reviews that are complete, rigorous and kind. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1536639120843362304"}"></div></p>
<p>Supported by a larger group of like-minded people from multiple disciplines, we recently published <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F20543581221080327">an editorial</a> outlining these principles. A dozen other kidney journals expressed their support for the idea, with <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41581-022-00569-w"><em>Nature Reviews Nephrology</em></a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ndt/gfac183"><em>NDT</em></a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00467-022-05535-z"><em>Pediatric Nephrology</em></a> publishing co-ordinated editorials recommitting to principles of constructive criticism.</p>
<h2>The long process of research</h2>
<p>Scientific papers condense a large amount of work into a structured format, usually no longer than four to eight times the length of this article. The work of a paper starts with an idea that may be developed by the team for a year or more before it crystallizes into an application for funding, which may go through rounds of revisions. </p>
<p>Once funded, people and budgets are assigned to the project and the work proceeds. The work can involve the time of multiple team members for months and even years.</p>
<p>When the work is complete, they write a paper, detailing what they did, how and why, what they found and what they think it means. This paper itself is often the product of hundreds of hours of work, with multiple authors contributing their specific expertise and working on the messaging of the whole.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1171575490760630276"}"></div></p>
<p>The journal receives the manuscript and assigns an editor, who assigns peer reviewers. Peer reviewers are other scientists working on similar topics. They must be totally unconnected with the people writing the paper. With notable exceptions, most journals employ single-masked peer review: the reviewer sees the authorship of the paper but the authors of the paper will not see who wrote the review.</p>
<p>Peer reviewers are not paid or rewarded for their review of the manuscript — they take it on as part of the work of academic life. Essentially, it is an unrewarded activity performed by people who are themselves authors. It varies by discipline, but in biomedicine, they may spend three to six hours on a review.</p>
<h2>Harsh reviews</h2>
<p>How does this altruistic activity, undertaken by a reviewer who is very familiar with the author role, lead to such pain and frustration for other authors? </p>
<p>We think that scientists sometimes confuse harshness with intellectual rigour and that a reviewer’s experience of harshness in reviews of their own work, amplified by the power imbalance between reviewer and reviewed, leads to perpetuation of harsh and unhelpful review. Other reviewers and editors avoid these pitfalls entirely.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1506915328705630214"}"></div></p>
<p>“It looks to me like one of your first attempts at scientific publishing, and I can understand that you are also writing in a non-native language” <a href="https://twitter.com/IngridAnell/status/1506915328705630214?s=20&t=2SF4MYOmeNiFo2XW6kNREg">wrote one anonymous reviewer</a> to a mid-career woman scientist with 13 first-author peer-reviewed publications. “I just want to give up today,” she wrote. </p>
<p>But she won’t. Scientists are prepared to receive this kind of feedback and be hurt over and over in the name of science. As editors, we believe there is a better way — that feedback should be rigorous, but will be more readily incorporated if kindly given, to the advancement of science.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1498156968778866693"}"></div></p>
<p>These are not new ideas. In 2006, Prof. Mohan Dutta suggested <a href="https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327027hc2002_11">10 commandments for reviewers</a>, all of which focus on the collaborative nature of relationship between reviewer and reviewed. Advice for reviewers often includes a recommendation to write constructively, though sometimes this is phrased as something like “write constructively, and then turn to criticism,” as if those are mutually exclusive. </p>
<p>We can take this principal further and — thanks to our community of reviewers in kidney medicine — we and other kidney journals make a commitment to kindness in review. Dutta’s 10th commandment is “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Every branch of science would be improved by implementing this idea.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Clase has received consultation, advisory board membership or research funding from the Ontario Ministry of Health, Sanofi, Pfizer, Leo Pharma, Astellas, Janssen, Amgen, Boehringer-Ingelheim and Baxter. In 2018 she co-chaired a KDIGO potassium controversies conference sponsored at arm's length by Fresenius Medical Care, AstraZeneca, Vifor Fresenius Medical Care, Relypsa, Bayer HealthCare and Boehringer Ingelheim. Catherine is a member of the Cloth Mask Knowledge Exchange, a research and knowledge translation group that includes industry stakeholders. Industry stakeholders contribute to the Cloth Mask Knowledge Exchange by contributing to grant funding, and through in-kind contributions of time and expertise. Industry stakeholders make masks and distribute polypropylene and other fabrics. She is a member of McMaster's Centre of Excellence in Protective Equipment and Materials, and editor-in-chief of clothmasks.org. Catherine Clase receives funding from CIHR, and is a member of the Green Party, the American Society of Nephrology, the Canadian Society of Nephrology, the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists and ASTM International.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Josee Bouchard receives funding from CIHR, Kidney Foundation of Canada and CDTRP. She is affiliated with the Hopital Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, Université de Montréal. She is a member of the Canadian Society of Nephrology and American Society of Nephrology.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Manish M Sood receives funding from CIHR, the Kidney Foundation of Canada, the Canadian Medical Association and the Heart and stroke foundation. He is supported by the Jindal Research Chair. He has received speaker fees from Astrazeneca. He is affiliated with the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, uOttawa and the Ottawa Hospital.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Holden receives research funding from CIHR, the South Eastern Ontario Medical Organization, and the Translational Institute of Medicine at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. She has received investigator initiated research funding from OPKO Renal. She has received consultation or advisory board funding from Sanofi, Bayer and Oksuka. She is a member of the Canadian Society of Nephrology.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sunny Hartwig does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Peer review of research sounds like it should be a conversation between equals. Instead, it can be patronizing, demanding and simply unkind. A group of journal editors thinks this should change.
Catherine Clase, Professor of Medicine, Epidemiologist, Physician, McMaster University
Josee Bouchard, Nephrologist, Professor of Medicine, Université de Montréal
Manish M Sood, Physician, Professor of Medicine, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
Rachel Holden, Professor of Medicine, Queen's University, Ontario
Sunny Hartwig, Associate Professor, University of Prince Edward Island
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183142
2022-05-25T13:23:25Z
2022-05-25T13:23:25Z
Rwandan researchers are finally being centred in scholarship about their own country
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463570/original/file-20220517-12-v215pz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aegis Trust/Flickr/All rights reserved©</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is widely known that African researchers are <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-it-is-crucial-to-locate-the-african-in-african-studies-60807">dramatically underrepresented</a> in academic journals. But it’s still astonishing to see this reality starkly represented in numbers.</p>
<p>For the past eight years we have run the <a href="https://www.aegistrust.org/aegis-launches-research-policy-higher-education-programme-in-kigali/">Research, Policy and Higher Education</a> (RPHE) programme, a research and peer-support scheme with Rwandan scholars, through the Aegis Trust. As part of our work, we’ve analysed 12 leading journals in disciplines relevant to our researcher cohort. We found that from 1994 until 2019, of the 398 articles focusing on Rwanda that appeared in these journals, only 13 were authored or co-authored by Rwandan scholars. That’s just 3.3%. This amounts to 25 years of post-genocide literature almost entirely devoid of Rwandan voices.</p>
<p>In 2019, the flagship area studies journal <em>African Affairs</em> published its <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Ideology-and-interests-in-the-Rwandan-patriotic-front-singing-the-struggle-in-pre-genocide-Rwanda.pdf">first-ever article</a> by a Rwandan. The author, Assumpta Mugiraneza (writing with Benjamin Chemouni) is supported by the RPHE programme. Four of the journals we examined – <em>Journal of Modern African Studies, Journal of Conflict and Security Law, Journal of Peace Research, and Conflict, Security and Development</em> – regularly publish articles on Rwanda. But they are yet to publish a single Rwandan writing on their country.</p>
<p>What explains this level of exclusion? One factor is prejudice on the part of journal editors and peer reviewers, which Rwandan colleagues have encountered for years. It was the need to overcome systemic biases and to amplify the voices of Rwandan scholars in global academic and policy debates that led us to establish the RPHE programme in 2014. </p>
<p>Since we launched, experienced Rwandan and non-Rwandan researchers have worked closely with 44 Rwandan authors selected through four competitive calls that generated more than 400 research proposals. The programme has also organised regular theory, methods, writing and publishing workshops for hundreds of participants in Kigali, supporting the wider Rwandan research community.</p>
<p>It is starting to bear fruit.</p>
<h2>A body of scholarly work</h2>
<p>Our website, the Genocide Research Hub, has just posted the <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/published_journal/">21 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters</a> that have so far emerged from the programme. It is a rigorous process to reach this point. The authors first produced <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/research/aegis-working-papers/?fwp_document_categories=aegis-working-papers">working papers</a> and <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/research/aegis-policy-briefs/?fwp_document_categories=aegis-policy-briefs">policy briefs</a>. These were honed through discussions with their programme colleagues and at <a href="https://www.soas.ac.uk/news/newsitem132711.html">public events in Kigali and London</a>. Only then were they submitted to peer-reviewed journals. Over the next year, these working papers will generate a further tranche of academic publications.</p>
<p>Collectively, these pieces represent an important body of scholarly work on various themes. These include ethnicity, indigeneity, migration, citizenship, gender relations and language politics. Authors also delve into debates over younger generations’ inherited responsibility for the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. </p>
<p>The publications highlight the impressive research being conducted by Rwandan authors, who for too long have been sidelined in debates about Rwanda and other conflict-affected societies.</p>
<h2>Numerous barriers</h2>
<p>Rwandan authors face numerous barriers. Some are domestic and widely acknowledged. The country aims to become a regional high-tech hub. So, the Rwandan government <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/featured-govt-invests-heavily-stem-education-rwandan-schools">emphasises</a> science, technology, engineering and maths subjects. This has led to the chronic <a href="https://www.chronicles.rw/2019/07/25/would-be-a-mistake-for-govt-to-stop-funding-social-science-university-courses/">under-funding</a> of the social sciences. </p>
<p>Like their colleagues across East Africa, Rwandan academics’ <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/industry/poor-quality-of-varsity-education-slows-eac-growth-1972372">enormous teaching and administrative loads</a> leave little space for research and writing. </p>
<p>Less recognised, however, are the power dynamics in global academic and policy circles. International journal editors, peer reviewers and research funders routinely exclude Rwandan voices. This is driven by a pervasive view that Rwandan authors based in Rwanda cannot produce independent and rigorous research in such a repressive political environment. </p>
<p>These structural biases need to be systematically addressed if institutions and publications based in the global north are serious about the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/9/6/africas-next-decolonisation-battle-should-be-about-knowledge">“decolonising knowledge” agenda</a>.</p>
<p>The significance of the academic publications produced through the RPHE programme, though, is not simply that they were written by Rwandans. Crucially, these authors have begun to reorient the substance of scholarly debates about Rwanda and broader peace and conflict issues. </p>
<p>Our calls for proposals asked Rwandan researchers to independently determine the themes and methods of their research, reflecting their deep knowledge of the political, social, cultural, historical and linguistic context. By doing so, they’ve introduced new themes, angles and insights that greatly enrich the academic literature.</p>
<h2>New insights</h2>
<p>To take one example, two <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Becoming-Historically-Marginalized-Peoples-examining-Twa-perceptions-of-boundary-shifting-and-re-categorization-in-post-genocide-Rwanda.pdf">journal</a> <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/One-Rwanda-For-All-Rwandans-Uncovering-the-Twa-in-Post-Genocide-Rwanda.pdf">articles</a> by Richard Ntakirutimana – a member of the Rwandan Batwa community – highlight the challenges the Batwa have faced since the Rwandan government placed them under its “Historically Marginalised Peoples” banner in 2007. This category includes guaranteed parliamentary representation for women, people with disabilities, Muslims and the Batwa. But it conflates Batwa concerns with those of other marginalised communities in Rwanda. </p>
<p>Many Batwa are highly wary of researchers. But Ntakirutimana was able to conduct extensive interviews with members of the community near the forests bordering Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. His respondents roundly criticised the “Historically Marginalised Peoples” framework. They demanded government policies tailored more specifically to the plight of the Batwa.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463900/original/file-20220518-23-bsnllc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers explore perspectives beyond the capital city, Kigali, giving voice to various Rwandan communities’ experiences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Phil Clark</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Ntakirutimana presented his research <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/202165">at an RPHE conference in Kigali</a>, his findings generated vociferous push-back from Rwandan policymakers. His work, and that of other authors from the programme who have presented at public events, challenges a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ssqu.12346">widespread perception of Rwanda</a> as a closed political system in which independent research and public debate on politically sensitive topics are almost impossible.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463568/original/file-20220517-24-erl4qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The RPHE’s conferences bring together scholars, journalists and policymakers to discuss research and scholarship about Rwanda.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Aegis Trust/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Meanwhile, across a wide range of topics and disciplines, <a href="http://www.genocideresearchhub.org.rw/published_journal/">the articles published by other RPHE researchers</a> explore an overarching theme largely ignored by non-Rwandan authors: the prevalence of intra-family and inter-generational conflicts since 1994. </p>
<p>These researchers focus on genocidal legacies and the impact of post-genocide social transformation in intimate family spaces, which are difficult for non-Rwandan researchers to access. Their work thus provides vital perspectives on less visible features of Rwandan society.</p>
<h2>A gradual shift</h2>
<p>The highly talented Rwandan social science research community is beginning to gain the global platform it deserves. This shift is vital for Rwandan researchers. It benefits others, too, by producing fresh insights and challenging the structures that for years stymied these critical voices. More initiatives of this kind are essential if calls to decolonise knowledge are to become more than comforting blandishments.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicola Palmer receives funding from the British Academy and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felix Mukwiza Ndahinda, Jason Mosley, Phil Clark, and Sandra Shenge do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Rwandan authors have long been sidelined in debates about Rwanda and other conflict-affected societies.
Felix Mukwiza Ndahinda, Honorary Associate Professor, College of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Rwanda
Jason Mosley, Research Associate, African Studies Centre, University of Oxford
Nicola Palmer, Reader in Law, King's College London
Phil Clark, Professor of International Politics, SOAS, University of London
Sandra Shenge, Director of Programs, Aegis Trust
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/177807
2022-03-07T01:55:38Z
2022-03-07T01:55:38Z
Australia has lost 140 journals in a decade. That’s damaging for local research and education
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449951/original/file-20220304-8225-4q0crx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3172%2C2094&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At least 140 Australian journals <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1448">ceased publication</a> in the past decade. While there are still more than <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1446">650 Australian journals</a>, 75% of the discontinued ones served the arts, social sciences and humanities disciplines. The loss of journals has significant implications for local scholarship.</p>
<p>Journal discontinuation damages research. Scholarly communities and the discourse that develops around a journal might be lost or damaged. The content of journals that are the result of the hard work of researchers – publicly funded work in most cases – is jeopardised.</p>
<p>Our recently published <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1448">research</a> shows establishing and maintaining journals has become increasingly challenging. Australian journals need more support from the higher education and publishing sectors and better strategies for sustainable editorial and publishing practices.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/book-publishing-sidelined-in-the-game-of-university-measurement-and-rankings-157885">Book publishing sidelined in the game of university measurement and rankings</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Why do local journals matter?</h2>
<p>Academics need suitable journals to publish in, especially as journal articles are the key output assessed in research evaluation exercises such as <a href="https://www.arc.gov.au/excellence-research-australia">Excellence in Research for Australia</a>. While large international commercial publishers publish plenty of journals in many fields, national or local journals are important. </p>
<p>Domestic journals better accommodate articles on local issues. This is not limited to social and cultural issues such as Indigenous matters. Australia is unique in many aspects, including ecology, economy, geology and so on. </p>
<p>Research communities and discourses form around these journals. Editors direct research in their field through their editorial practices. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1470547436254814215"}"></div></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-plugging-into-well-connected-colleagues-can-help-research-fly-71223">How plugging into well-connected colleagues can help research fly</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Local journals also support the national education system. They inform practices, especially in fields such as medicine where practices differ from country to country. </p>
<h2>Why do journals discontinue?</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1448">study of discontinued journals</a> and a survey of their editors showed several key factors were at work. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li>a lack of funding and support</li>
<li>unsustainable reliance on voluntary work for editorial processes</li>
<li>increasing workload pressures on academics who have less time to review and edit submitted articles </li>
<li>a metric-driven culture that puts pressure on authors to publish in highly ranked journals, at the expense of local journals.</li>
</ul>
<p>As one editor of a discontinued journal said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Potential replacement editors were unwilling to take on the workload of editorship and management given the pressure to focus on Q1 publication [in journals ranked in the top 25%].”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1446">Australian journal publishing</a> is characterised by journals belonging to non-profit organisations (364, 55.9%) and universities (168, 25.8%). As these journals are mostly self-published by their owners, the issues we identified are very likely to adversely impact more journals as economic conditions worsen. </p>
<p>Of the discontinued journals, 54% belonged to educational institutions and 34% to non-profit organisations. They had been operating for an average of 19 years.</p>
<p>Moreover, while humanities and social sciences are well represented in the disciplinary focus of Australian journals, a large proportion of the discontinued journals were from these fields. Yet local journals might be more needed in many of these fields where research issues are more likely to be of local significance.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1402753377654788098"}"></div></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-scholars-struggle-to-be-heard-in-the-mainstream-heres-how-journal-editors-and-reviewers-can-help-157860">Indigenous scholars struggle to be heard in the mainstream. Here's how journal editors and reviewers can help</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>It’s getting harder for journals to survive</h2>
<p>Journal publishing has become a challenging task. It’s complicated by many different business models and a competitive market. Small publishers are disappearing as large international publishers acquire them. </p>
<p>Sometimes institutions fund the cost of publishing. Without such funding, journals have to charge either their readers (a subscription fee), or their authors (an author processing charge, APC), or both (hybrid). </p>
<p>A subscription-based journal published by a small publisher might struggle to find subscribers; libraries are less likely to subscribe to individual journals due to their reliance on vendor and publisher-curated packages, or “big deals”. </p>
<p>To publish open access with an APC, a journal has to compete with many other such journals. Some of these competitors (such as those published by Frontiers or MDPI) are well-resourced. They benefit from state-of-the-art technology for managing editorial and publishing processes. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/making-australian-research-free-for-everyone-to-read-sounds-ideal-but-the-chief-scientists-open-access-plan-isnt-risk-free-171389">Making Australian research free for everyone to read sounds ideal. But the Chief Scientist's open-access plan isn't risk-free</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Journals can, of course, outsource their publishing side to a commercial publisher, as 162 Australian journals have already done. These journals are mostly published as hybrid journals. </p>
<p>But such a decision might come at a cost as the direction of the journal might not be aligned with that of the new publisher. For instance, the editor in chief of the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h2392">sacked over his opposition to outsourcing</a> the journal’s sub-editing and production functions to Elsevier. All 19 members of the journal’s editorial advisory committee subsequently resigned. </p>
<p>Some local journals operate in niche areas that cater to a very small reader audience. These journals are simply not attractive for commercial publishers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Masked woman looking through journals on a shelf" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449953/original/file-20220304-8225-zqq0wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449953/original/file-20220304-8225-zqq0wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449953/original/file-20220304-8225-zqq0wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449953/original/file-20220304-8225-zqq0wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449953/original/file-20220304-8225-zqq0wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449953/original/file-20220304-8225-zqq0wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449953/original/file-20220304-8225-zqq0wh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some local journals haven’t survived the pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What can be done?</h2>
<p>It is natural and inevitable that some journals will cease publication as fields evolve. And about 100 journals were established in Australia over the past decade. However, the overall decline in journal numbers is concerning – especially as the global trend is one of growth. </p>
<p>The already precarious financial condition of the higher education sector has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-2-years-of-covid-how-bad-has-it-really-been-for-university-finances-and-staff-172405">made worse by the pandemic</a>. <a href="https://andrewnorton.net.au/2022/02/10/university-job-losses-in-the-first-year-of-covid-19/">Many academic jobs</a> have been lost. Some journals – <a href="https://www.flinders.edu.au/college-business-government-law/who-we-are/law-research">Flinders Law Journal</a>, for example – have discontinued because of COVID. </p>
<p>Enthusiasm alone is not enough to sustain journal publishing. Every journal needs to have a robust business strategy and have undertaken proper contingency planning. </p>
<p>Research is needed to develop strategies for sustainable editorial and publishing operations. Research policymakers must be mindful of the impact of their policies on local journals.</p>
<p>Finally, higher education as a whole needs to be more supportive of journal publishing and the activities associated with it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177807/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Three-quarters of the academic journals that folded served the arts, social sciences and humanities. The losses weaken the academic communities and activities that formed around these journals.
Hamid R. Jamali, Associate Professor and Associate Head, School of Information and Communication Studies, Charles Sturt University
Alireza Abbasi, Senior Lecturer and Director of Postgraduate Studies, School of Engineering and IT, UNSW Sydney
Simon Wakeling, Lecturer, School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/150401
2020-11-24T18:12:59Z
2020-11-24T18:12:59Z
Confused about COVID? Here’s how to read a research paper
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371028/original/file-20201124-23-1p606gs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=889%2C342%2C5181%2C3689&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/senior-stylish-woman-taking-notes-notebook-1533669275">Rido/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scientific evidence can be difficult to understand. Normally we can rely on experts to interpret it for us, or the media to accurately report any interesting new discoveries, but the pandemic has challenged this. </p>
<p>Almost daily we are faced with contradictory views claiming to be “based on the scientific evidence”. But if you’re not an academic, how can you go about checking the evidence for yourself?</p>
<p>Scientific research is communicated in the form of “research papers” published in professional journals. To ensure accuracy, each paper is carefully checked by both editors and outside academic experts in a process called “peer review”. Although peer review is <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/">not perfect</a>, it does tend to ensure articles are more reliable compared with those produced in <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-to-trust-and-not-to-trust-peer-reviewed-science-99365">other types of publishing</a>.</p>
<p>Therefore, to judge the scientific evidence for yourself, you need to read and understand peer-reviewed papers. This can be daunting, but if you approach research papers with the right strategy they can be easier to digest.</p>
<h2>1. Find the research paper</h2>
<p>Following the publication of new research, the results are often summarised by the media. Frustratingly, these summaries seldom provide a link to the original <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/">peer-reviewed</a> paper itself.</p>
<p>To find the original paper, one good strategy is to track down the original press release from the university or company releasing the research. You can also use an academic search engine like <a href="https://scholar.google.com/">Google scholar</a> or <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/">PubMed</a> to search for recent papers published by the authors, who are normally (although not always) named by journalists.</p>
<p>Historically readers have had to pay to read academic papers, but increasingly research papers are free to readers through “<a href="https://re.ukri.org/research/open-access-research/">open access</a>” arrangements. Unfortunately, if a paper is not open access, there is not much you can do to read it without paying a fee to the publisher.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Shelves of journals in a library." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371031/original/file-20201124-23-14v30lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371031/original/file-20201124-23-14v30lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371031/original/file-20201124-23-14v30lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371031/original/file-20201124-23-14v30lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371031/original/file-20201124-23-14v30lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371031/original/file-20201124-23-14v30lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371031/original/file-20201124-23-14v30lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many journals still publish physical copies, but often only quarterly. To read papers as they become available, look online.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-books-journals-library-165513596">Protasov AN/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Read the abstract and look at the pictures</h2>
<p>Research papers are long and dense with a very different structure compared with articles in the normal media. Media articles start with the most important information in the first few lines and then add background or contextual information as the article progresses. </p>
<p>Research papers start off with an introduction describing the background, then sections describing the methods and results, a discussion (highlighting strengths and weaknesses of the research), and finally the conclusion – often only in the very last few sentences. However, to help speed up reading, a summary or “abstract” is always provided at the beginning.</p>
<p>The abstract is the best place to start (and is almost always available for free). If you are not an expert in the subject area, make sure you look up any words you do not understand, because everything mentioned in the abstract will be key to understanding the paper as a whole. </p>
<p>After reading the abstract you may find you have gathered all the information you need about the research, but if after reading it you still would like to find out more, have a quick look at the pictures, figures and diagrams (if available) to get a better idea of the experiments being reported.</p>
<h2>3. Determine how good the journal is and who wrote the paper</h2>
<p>After reading the abstract I normally look at who the authors are, what university or company they work for, and how good the journal publishing the paper is.</p>
<p>Academics with a track record of producing high-quality research are a good sign. The first and last authors listed in research papers <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2010/04/conventions-scientific-authorship">are often the most important</a>, so look them up to see what else they have produced.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Scientists working in a laboratory" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371040/original/file-20201124-17-1svz560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371040/original/file-20201124-17-1svz560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371040/original/file-20201124-17-1svz560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371040/original/file-20201124-17-1svz560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371040/original/file-20201124-17-1svz560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371040/original/file-20201124-17-1svz560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371040/original/file-20201124-17-1svz560.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Authors listed first and last on a paper will usually have played a key role in developing and supervising the research.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/health-care-researchers-working-life-science-639884194">Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Having the research published in a good journal is also important, because the better journals are able to access more experienced peer reviewers and editors. Here the <a href="https://researchguides.uic.edu/if/impact">“impact factor”</a> of a journal is often quoted, which relates to how many other researchers refer to the papers published in it.</p>
<p>However, in recent years impact factors have been <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/07/hate-journal-impact-factors-new-study-gives-you-one-more-reason">strongly criticised</a> as a way of judging journals, even though it’s still true that the best research is published in a fairly small number of journals. One alternative to relying on the impact factor is to simply look up the journal title online to see what researchers say about it. As researchers spend a lot of time discussing which journals are best, this should allow you to find out fairly quickly whether the journal you’re looking at is a reputable one.</p>
<h2>4. Read the discussion</h2>
<p>If you have got this far you are probably convinced that the research paper is interesting and worth a bit more effort to read. So next, find the part of the paper that discusses the results (often called the discussion) and read through this carefully, flicking back to the methods or results sections if you need to understand in more detail how the experiments were done. Again, look up any terms you do not understand.</p>
<h2>5. Read the introduction and check out some of the references</h2>
<p>Once you have a good idea of what the paper is reporting, finish off by reading the introduction – this normally provides an overview of why the experiments were conducted in the first place. You should now have a very good idea of what the paper is reporting and some of the wider context. </p>
<p>If you are particularly interested in the topic, look too at some of the key references that the paper quotes. If the paper isn’t brand new, go back to an academic search engine to see whether others have since referenced (or cited) it, and what they are saying about the research.</p>
<h2>6. When a paper is not a paper</h2>
<p>A word of warning: not every article published in a journal reports new research. Journals also contain news articles, opinion pieces and reviews. These are seldom peer reviewed, and although still written for a professional audience, are not considered primary research.</p>
<p>Another thing to watch out for are versions of research papers that are made available online in advance of being checked by peer reviewers, in a form called “preprints”. Preprints can be very useful for finding out about new results quickly because the peer review and journal publication process can take up to a year. This has been necessary during the pandemic, for example. These preprints are normally clearly labelled, just as a warning that the information in them should not be relied upon in the same way as a full, peer-reviewed research paper.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Kolstoe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Reading a scientific paper isn’t such a daunting task when you break it down into manageable steps.
Simon Kolstoe, Senior Lecturer in Evidence-Based Healthcare and University Ethics Advisor, University of Portsmouth
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/144063
2020-08-30T20:00:50Z
2020-08-30T20:00:50Z
Note to self: a pandemic is a great time to keep a diary, plus 4 tips for success
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354023/original/file-20200821-18-1czt6ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=60%2C1256%2C3555%2C3877&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1579017308347-e53e0d2fc5e9?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=1268&q=80">Marcos Paulo Prado/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A search for “Coronavirus Diary” on Google yields 910,000 results. News outlets like the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/14/we-are-witnessing-a-critical-time-in-history-you-should-keep-a-diary">Guardian</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/08/why-are-people-keeping-coronavirus-diaries/614977/">The Atlantic</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/style/coronavirus-diaries-social-history.html">The New York Times</a> have chronicled an increase in personal record-keeping.</p>
<p>Whether for future <a href="https://time.com/5824341/wwii-diaries-coronavirus/">historians</a>, <a href="https://commons.emich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1217&context=honors">self-care</a> or to <a href="https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/online-forums/staying-well/dear-diary-a-day-to-day-look-at-self-isolation-">relieve feelings of isolation</a>, we are in the middle of a diarological moment.</p>
<p>And today’s diaries aren’t just handwritten reflections in bound notebooks. They might be social media posts, video entries or visual collages – so long as they are regularly updated over an extended period and personal in nature, they fit the bill. The secret is in the repetition, and the pledge that drives it.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pOQlE221pmY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Dear diary, what a day it’s been.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/museums-are-losing-millions-every-week-but-they-are-already-working-hard-to-preserve-coronavirus-artefacts-137597">Museums are losing millions every week but they are already working hard to preserve coronavirus artefacts</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>On the look out</h2>
<p>The word diary <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/diary">entered the English language</a> in the late 16th century, via the Latin word, <em>diarium</em>, which comes from <em>dies</em>, meaning day. The diary asks us to attend to <em>this</em> day. </p>
<p>Diary-keeping sharpens observational skills, so it is no wonder then that cultural institutions have begun projects to crowd-source details of what otherwise might be quite banal aspects of our lives. </p>
<p>The State Library of Victoria has a Facebook group, <a href="https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/memorybank">Memory Bank</a>, where posts of shopping lists and sourdough recipes have given way to more melancholy images of closed shops and empty streets in the CBD – a collective chronicle both hyperlocal and universal. </p>
<p>The State Library of New South Wales subtitles its <a href="https://dxlab.sl.nsw.gov.au/diary-files">Diary Files</a> an “online community diary”, and currently contains nearly a thousand entries, searchable by keywords. School, time, home and COVID are among the most commonly written words, and the greatest number of contributions come from Sydneysiders between 10 and 15 years of age. </p>
<p>Video “lockdown” diaries can also be viewed online, via <a href="https://www.bbc.com/reel/playlist/world-in-lockdown">BBC Reel</a>, or listened to through <a href="https://coronadiaries.io/">Corona Diaries</a>, the interactive open source project which collects audio stories from around the world.</p>
<p>Social researchers have identified the diary as a tool to capture the impact of the pandemic on daily life. UK sociologist Michael Ward began his research through <a href="https://theconversation.com/lockdown-diaries-the-everyday-voices-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-138631">CoronaDiaries</a>, where 164 participants ranging in age from 11 to 87 submit entries in a variety of forms. Ward suggests: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>These entries are able to highlight the multiple different lives behind the dreaded numbers we hear announced each day.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rvnBsWSaiYw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Vic Lee self-published a Corona Diary. He sold 2,500 copies and donated some proceeds to charity.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lockdown-diaries-the-everyday-voices-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-138631">Lockdown diaries: the everyday voices of the coronavirus pandemic</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Famous diary keepers</h2>
<p>Most of us can name some famous literary diarists of history – <a href="https://www.pepysdiary.com/">Samuel Pepys</a>, Virginia Woolf, Adrian Mole. When we stray far beyond this list, it is often the times, rather than the writer, that make the diary notable. </p>
<p>There is Lena Mukhina’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24897358-the-diary-of-lena-mukhina">perspective</a> on the Siege of Leningrad, 13-year-old Anne Frank’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48855.The_Diary_of_a_Young_Girl?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=v2KHbVYoMG&rank=1">account</a> of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and the poignant scratchings of <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/captain-scotts--diary">Sir Robert Scott</a>’s on the day he perished: “For god’s sake, look after our people”. </p>
<p>Nelson Mandela’s <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/uploads/files/Nelson_Mandelas_Personal_Archives.pdf">desk-calendar notes</a>, kept in prison, speak to extraordinary experiences under extreme conditions. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354021/original/file-20200821-14-1ib2jc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354021/original/file-20200821-14-1ib2jc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354021/original/file-20200821-14-1ib2jc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354021/original/file-20200821-14-1ib2jc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354021/original/file-20200821-14-1ib2jc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354021/original/file-20200821-14-1ib2jc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354021/original/file-20200821-14-1ib2jc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354021/original/file-20200821-14-1ib2jc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1170&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://cdn2.penguin.com.au/covers/original/9780140437850.jpg">Penguin</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Diaries from the <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-we-can-learn-1918-influenza-diaries-180974614/">1918 influenza pandemic</a> came into their own as more than ephemera for both historians and scientists in 2020. </p>
<p>For a book length account, we can look to Daniel Defoe’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46730.A_Journal_of_the_Plague_Year">A Journal of the Plague Year</a>, about life in London in 1665 – bearing in mind the author was only five years old at the height of the epidemic, so it is likely a factual-meets-fictional rendering.</p>
<p>Diary-writing serves broader society, and can help individuals make sense of difficult times. </p>
<p>Interviewed for this story, psychologist <a href="https://www.rmit.edu.au/contact/staff-contacts/academic-staff/m/moffitt-dr-robyn">Robyn Moffitt</a> told us: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>From a psychological perspective, keeping a diary is a really useful (and evidence-based) way to engage in healthy self-monitoring of thoughts, feelings, and behaviour … writing things down as they happen can provide some objective evidence and perspective on the frequency and severity of different events, and we can use this to correct distorted thinking. </p>
<p>The process of writing itself can also be quite therapeutic. It can allow us to process and reconstruct past events, problem-solve, and create new meanings, and in some ways this makes it similar to psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is often referred to as the “talking cure”, and writing can provide similar therapeutic benefits (the “writing cure” perhaps)? </p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/diary-of-samuel-pepys-shows-how-life-under-the-bubonic-plague-mirrored-todays-pandemic-136222">Diary of Samuel Pepys shows how life under the bubonic plague mirrored today's pandemic</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What makes it a diary?</h2>
<p>The turn of the 21st century <a href="http://www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue57/Taylor&Munro&Murray.pdf">saw a resurgence</a> of the diary in public reading events such as <a href="https://getmortified.com/">Mortified</a>, <a href="https://salonofshame.com/">Salon of Shame</a> and our own experiments with <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/m17columnist-20170525-gwddvd.html">The Symphony of Awkward</a>. </p>
<p>It might be argued that social media has since overtaken the diary as a means to chronicle one’s life. Indeed, there is crossover in the ways lives are shared and curated across different media, from the handwritten diary to <a href="https://wordpress.com/view/mmmmycorona.wordpress.com">blogs</a>. </p>
<p>The ritualistic structure offered by the personal diary can be repurposed in digital spaces. The notion of publicly committing to post something – an image, a video, a song – every day offers another way of marking out time when every day is <a href="https://lithub.com/days-without-name-on-time-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/">Blursday the fortyteenth of Aprilay</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-groundhog-day-and-my-time-in-a-monastery-taught-me-about-lockdown-143452">What Groundhog Day (and my time in a monastery) taught me about lockdown</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We have experimented with each recording <a href="https://sonicfield.org/2020/07/sonic-dystonic-kim-munro-peta-murray-and-stayci-taylor/">a sound a day</a>, collected from the few spaces we were still able to inhabit. </p>
<p>A diaristic practice, whether written or not, supports us to stay in the moment, as psychotherapists and life coaches exhort us to do. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354026/original/file-20200821-16-4gjxvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Fountain pen on notebook" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354026/original/file-20200821-16-4gjxvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354026/original/file-20200821-16-4gjxvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354026/original/file-20200821-16-4gjxvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354026/original/file-20200821-16-4gjxvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354026/original/file-20200821-16-4gjxvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354026/original/file-20200821-16-4gjxvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/354026/original/file-20200821-16-4gjxvq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A favourite pen or notebook can heighten the journal experience.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1462642109801-4ac2971a3a51?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=2166&q=80">Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And it’s never too late to start diarising. Here are some tips: </p>
<h2>1. Decide on your platform</h2>
<p>Digital or analogue? Decide on your medium. The written or spoken word? A photo? A sound? A song? Choose something that pleases you (a special pen, a fancy notebook) to heighten the experience.</p>
<h2>2. Make a vow</h2>
<p>Make an entry every day, or on a set number of days for four weeks. 28 days is said to be a good target if aiming to break or start a habit – though it <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/how-long-it-takes-to-break-a-habit-according-to-science">may take longer</a>.</p>
<h2>3. Make time</h2>
<p>Set aside time at the same hour each day to capture your experience.</p>
<h2>4. Rinse and repeat</h2>
<p><em>Carpe diem</em>. Seize the day!</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The Symphony of Awkward is hosting a <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/what-can-the-diary-offer-in-troubled-times-tickets-117480823305?utm-medium=discovery&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&aff=escb&utm-source=cp&utm-term=listing">free online forum</a> on September 24, 2020 to discuss diary practices.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144063/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peta Murray receives funding from the ARC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Munro and Stayci Taylor do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Dear Diary, keeping a daily journal of these pandemic times can help us process them and follow in some great literary footsteps.
Peta Murray, Vice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University
Kim Munro, Lecturer, RMIT University
Stayci Taylor, Lecturer, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/132287
2020-05-24T07:44:22Z
2020-05-24T07:44:22Z
We think there’s a better way to assess the research of African academics: here’s how
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336457/original/file-20200520-152327-1ujpunf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many African researchers feel they should do research that would be acceptable for publication in Western outlets. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Oleksandr Rupeta/NurPhoto via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the past two decades, much has been made in academic circles about global <a href="https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20191017111952212">rankings</a> of educational institutions. Bodies such as <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings">Times Higher Education</a> and <a href="http://www.webometrics.info/en">Webometrics</a> regularly rank universities based on a set of criteria. These include internationalisation of faculty and students, cited research publications and awards won by scholars. </p>
<p>This ranking phenomenon has increased the pressure on academics and researchers in Africa to present their research output in publishing outlets that are perceived as highly rated. </p>
<p>Career progression – for instance, access to grants, appointments and promotions – is now tied to individual ranking. Student enrolment and funding from government and other bodies to institutions are equally being influenced by institutional ranking. </p>
<p>Since the Western world usually leads in setting the criteria, academic prestige comes from conforming to Western standards in the execution and reportage of research projects. But some African researchers are <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/547217">now asking questions</a> about the fairness, transparency and reliability of these processes of evaluation and scholarly rankings. They are also concerned about the effect of Western expectations on African societies and their needs.</p>
<p>What matters most in <a href="https://aoasg.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/measuring-what-matters-webinar3.pdf">scholarly evaluation</a> is itself a matter of enquiry. Hence the need to acknowledge and accommodate the inherent limitations of funding, access, collaboration, standardisation and other <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/097172180901500104">constraints</a> faced by developing countries.</p>
<p>The desire of scholars and institutions in Africa to fit into the Western-imposed model despite the deficit of local research support infrastructure may be counterproductive in the quest to achieve sustainable development in Africa. </p>
<p>I belong to a group of African researchers in Nigeria who are concerned about this situation. We reviewed the status quo and conducted a survey to get the perspectives of researchers and education administrators from developing countries. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/547217">survey results</a> indicate that the majority of African academics are concerned about the status quo. They would support a shift in publishing practices and the assessment of researchers. Such a shift should be supported by institutional administrators and policy makers. </p>
<h2>Consequences</h2>
<p>Western indexing houses track how often research is cited and publish the metrics of most publishing outlets. For this reason, many African researchers feel they should do research that would be acceptable for publication in such outlets. </p>
<p>This can have negative consequences. For example, there’s the issue of access and copyright. A study in Africa might be of national importance. But its publication may not readily be accessible to the researcher’s contemporaries or government since the copyright might rest with a commercial Western publishing outlet. </p>
<p>This impairs the development of rigorous science and limits the exploration and expansion of indigenous knowledge for regional advancement. </p>
<p>There are other consequences to focusing on meeting Western requirements for academic research. It undermines African potential to use the continent’s resources to tackle its own challenges. And encourages “brain drain” – when experts move from Africa to the developed world. </p>
<p>Those who make the rules control the market. This is also true in publishing and academia. The bodies that oversee acceptable publication outlets, universal patents, registration of internet domain names and hosting servers are all located in the West. It would come as little surprise that this has an influence on the access and ranking of all to the advantage of Western systems and institutions. </p>
<p>Furthermore, westernisation has largely been conflated with internationalisation or misconstrued for civilisation. The negative <a href="http://www.esthinktank.com/2018/12/29/westernization-in-africa-another-perspective/">impact of this on Africa</a> is well documented.</p>
<h2>What ought to be done</h2>
<p>Our survey offers <a href="https://content.sciendo.com/view/title/568519">suggestions</a> for governments and universities. </p>
<p>African governments should monitor and limit schemes that promote intercontinental collaboration and publications at the expense of intra-African and national publications. </p>
<p>Secondly, grant-giving foreign governments and agencies ought not to dictate what and how to research. Each nation must set its developmental priorities and align scientific research with them. </p>
<p>Thirdly, universities, grant-awarding bodies and educational ranking agencies need to revise their research evaluation methods. We came up with some new, relatively simple, but broadly useful metrics to assess research. For example: </p>
<p><strong>Total citation impact:</strong> a measure of how many times a research paper has been cited per year of existence. Rather than just a number of citations as presently used, our model states the citation rate over time. Stating that an article is cited three times per year on average is more informative than noting that it has been cited six times since its publication. </p>
<p><strong>Weighted author impact:</strong> a way of rating researchers, virtually independent of their respective disciplines. It evaluates the article’s impact rather than comparing the journal’s impact with other journals in its discipline. </p>
<p>We have also called for the establishment of an African indexing house. This would track publications and citation rates of scholarly works produced in Africa. The resultant confidence, fair play and opportunities for African and other researchers could stimulate greater productivity and national development.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132287/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olumuyiwa Sunday Asaolu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The desire of scholars and universities in Africa to fit into a model imposed from elsewhere may hinder development in Africa.
Olumuyiwa Sunday Asaolu, Associate Professor of Systems Engineering , University of Lagos
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/138355
2020-05-12T15:03:57Z
2020-05-12T15:03:57Z
Lockdowns and research: what we lost and what we stand to gain
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334049/original/file-20200511-49569-zzmlmf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GettyImages</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The COVID-19 pandemic – and the resulting lockdowns – have had a major impact on research at institutions across the world, and universities in particular.</p>
<p>Research is one of the pillars of academia. Important discoveries are made, careers are built and the opportunities to train students are virtually unlimited. Research is a way of life for many, their findings being fundamental to progress in all scientific fields which supports a vast range of industries and communities.</p>
<p>One of the consequences of lockdowns brought on by the pandemic is that much research activity has been halted. Researchers have been forced to abandon ongoing projects that, for example, require hands-on laboratory work. This could mean terminating or delaying projects, many of which may have been running for some time. The long term cell culture experiments in which bone formation is studied and the assessment of a particular diet in mice prone to obesity, are just two examples.</p>
<p>Particularly difficult is the termination of animal experiments and the maintenance of animal colonies until a return to work is authorised. Rodents are often used to assess the potential anti-tumour activity of a novel therapeutic agent and likewise, novel anti-retrovirals require extensive preclinical testing before they can be assessed in clinical trials. These and other experiments require time and continuous assessment to determine outcomes. </p>
<p>Experimental programmes like this highlight what may happen in the medical research field, in which solutions to urgent challenges around human health and disease are being sought.</p>
<p>Equally problematic are interruptions in research programmes where data can only be gathered at the time of a particular event. These include field programmes based on seasonal changes, where a year may be lost in having missed one season. </p>
<p>For example, some <a href="https://www.sanap.ac.za/">South African National Antarctic Programme</a> projects have lost this year’s research data as the Agulhas research vessel has been unable to transport researchers and support marine research. Some of that research would have generated key data points in long term (multi-year) projects, and decades-long projects on global climate change, conservation, and environmental impact. </p>
<p>The same is true of numerous agriculture and plant production projects, with substantial impact on food production industries and future food security.</p>
<p>Researchers who use computational techniques to analyse data that is already in existence, such as bioinformatic analysis of genomic data, are able to continue working. But that data had to be produced initially, in laboratories or research stations. And there is always a need to generate new data, as we seek to validate answers and generate new research questions.</p>
<p>To restart these experimental programmes and begin generating new data will take time, considerable expense, and a coordinated effort for researchers, students, suppliers and funders.</p>
<h2>Knock-on effects</h2>
<p>The stoppages and delays will also affect students whose degrees require research projects to be completed in short time periods. A delay of several months, or perhaps a year, could mean the loss of a year of study, or possibly not completing the degree at all, putting future careers in jeopardy.</p>
<p>Research funders have specific requirements that need to be met to comply with timelines and objectives. This is often a requirement for continued funding. With delays of months or even years, deadlines will not be met and objectives not achieved. Funding agencies generally seem willing to take this into account. But investigator and research assistant salary cuts may be necessary to fund extensions in order to see projects through to completion.</p>
<p>There has been a rapid redirection of resources towards COVID-19-related research, quite understandably. In the long term, this resource reallocation is likely to result in budget cuts in all research areas.</p>
<p>Taking all this into account, we are possibly looking at a ten year legacy of a one year crisis.</p>
<h2>Opportunities</h2>
<p>The pandemic has stimulated a storm of questions as the world seeks to understand COVID-19 and its causative agent, the SARS-CoV-2 virus. There has been an unprecedented move towards stronger cooperation and collaboration between scientists across the world such, as for example, the <a href="https://www.covid19hg.org/">COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative</a>. The drive to collect, analyse and publish data is fierce, as is the need to fast-track clinical trials and vaccine development.</p>
<p>This accentuated trend towards cooperation is not limited to understanding COVID-19. A spirit of compassion and collective gain pervades many research initiatives, often through multi- or trans-disciplinary collaborations.</p>
<p>There has been an <a href="https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/05/07/scientific-research-on-the-coronavirus-is-being-released-in-a-torrent">explosion in the quantity of research</a> being conducted on this topic. Close to 10,000 scientific articles have been published on COVID-19 in three months.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-how-coronavirus-is-changing-science-137641">What you need to know about how coronavirus is changing science</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Several important changes in the way research is done and reported have occurred. Approvals from ethics committees and other regulatory authorities are being expedited. Now, it’s not necessary to wait for extensive periods – as has been the case before. The time for articles to be accepted and published in journals has been reduced significantly.</p>
<p>This, of course, has to be seen against the backdrop of needing to maintain research standards to ensure that quality is not compromised. The time-honoured system of <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6490/476">peer review</a> is still very important.</p>
<h2>Opening up</h2>
<p>Any unnecessary delay in getting going again needs to be avoided. Milestones need to be met, students need to graduate, and the pipeline leading to the development of new products and services needs to be filled. In order to do this, however, safety needs to be ensured and protocols developed to ensure that returning to work does not put people at risk.</p>
<p>All of this is possible with a well thought through strategy. Researchers, students and administrators can use the lessons learned to work smarter and more efficiently, to refocus and prioritise, and to offer new insights into complex global challenges.</p>
<p>We can also use this momentous experience to improve on ways of communicating new information and truths to the global public, thereby generating mutual trust.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138355/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie G Burton receives funding from the University of Pretoria and has received funding from the South African National Research Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Sean Pepper receives funding from the South African Medical Research Council and the University of Pretoria (through the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine).</span></em></p>
There has been a rapid redirection of resources towards COVID-19-related research. In the long term, this resource reallocation is likely to result in budget cuts in all research areas.
Stephanie G Burton, Professor in Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology, and Professor at Future Africa, University of Pretoria, University of Pretoria
Michael Sean Pepper, Director, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Medicine & SAMRC Extramural Unit for Stem Cell Research & Therapy, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/137641
2020-05-05T09:31:11Z
2020-05-05T09:31:11Z
What you need to know about how coronavirus is changing science
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332407/original/file-20200504-83721-qp9zyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Angelina Bambina/shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The evolving COVID-19 pandemic has created an urgent need for scientific evidence, and quickly. We need politicians to be able to make informed decisions, and we need to support the development of effective vaccines and treatments, as well as understanding the unfolding impact of the pandemic on society. The speed with which the global scientific community has risen to this sudden pressing need is remarkable.</p>
<p>But science is usually a <a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-hold-your-breath-for-a-covid-19-vaccine-in-2020-137441">slow-moving process</a> – a series of steps towards a better understanding, rather than individual “eureka” moments. Getting to the truth is often not straightforward, and scrutinising claims and counter-claims is an inherent part of the scientific method. Individual studies need to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-reproducibility-crisis-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-74198">replicated</a> to see if the original observations are robust, and often they turn out not to be. </p>
<p>But now we are seeing – necessarily and understandably – a rush of studies attempting to add to our modest knowledge of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and provide answers to all of the other important questions emerging from the pandemic. </p>
<p>Some of these studies are conducted with limited resources, rather than specific funding for the purpose, although funders such as the <a href="https://wellcome.ac.uk/grant-funding/schemes/epidemic-preparedness-covid-19">Wellcome Trust</a> and the <a href="https://mrc.ukri.org/funding/browse/ukri-nihr-covid-19/ukri-nihr-covid-19-rolling-call/">UK Medical Research Council</a> have moved fast to provide significant support for research activity in this area.</p>
<h2>The rise of the preprint</h2>
<p>Scientific publishing is also changing. </p>
<p>Usually, scientific research is peer-reviewed before it is accepted for publication in a journal. This means that (typically) two or three researchers with relevant expertise have reviewed and critiqued the work, and often recommended revisions or even further experiments. It is meant to ensure that published work meets a certain minimum quality standard, although it is certainly by no means perfect. Even though it is the established means of ensuring quality, weak work can slip through, and strong work can be unfairly criticised and delayed. </p>
<p>Now, we are are increasingly seeing more results posted to preprint servers for more rapid dissemination. A preprint is effectively the version of a scientific article that has not yet been peer-reviewed. It is usually posted around the same time it is submitted to a journal for review. </p>
<p>Preprint servers have been around for a long time in some disciplines – notably mathematics and physics, where <a href="https://arxiv.org/">arXiv</a> has been in use since 1991 – and have existed in other guises, for example as “working papers” in areas such as economics. But they have only become widespread in recent years; there are now multiple platforms supporting preprints across a range of different disciplines, including biomedicine, for example <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/">bioRxiv</a> and <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/">medRxiv</a>.</p>
<p>Often the published version of a study – the one that has passed peer review – is little different from the preprint version. But sometimes changes are required, and often important ones, such as the inclusion of additional experiments or analyses that provide greater confidence in the overall conclusions of the work.</p>
<p>One of the advantages of preprints over traditional forms of peer review is that they allow more scrutiny from a far larger portion of the scientific community than is provided by the traditional peer review process. The danger comes when a preliminary report is interpreted as definitive. </p>
<p>The fact that preprints should be treated as preliminary is well known by researchers. However, in the current situation we are increasingly seeing results reported in preprints being picked up by the media. For example, a <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v2">study</a> of the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies conducted in Santa Clara, California was reported by a number of outlets, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-antibody-evidence-11587769490">including the Wall Street Journal</a>, despite having been heavily <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/coronavirus-antibody-test-santa-clara-los-angeles-stanford">criticised by some researchers</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332454/original/file-20200504-83769-xnmc69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332454/original/file-20200504-83769-xnmc69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332454/original/file-20200504-83769-xnmc69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332454/original/file-20200504-83769-xnmc69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332454/original/file-20200504-83769-xnmc69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332454/original/file-20200504-83769-xnmc69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332454/original/file-20200504-83769-xnmc69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Preprints allow researchers to get their results out quicker, but they should be treated with caution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This in itself is not entirely new, but we are seeing rapid growth in preprints as scientists attempt to put their findings in the public domain as quickly as possible – at the beginning of April 2020, around <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/huge-covid-19-output-prompting-sea-change-access-research">17% of COVID-19 publications were preprints</a>. This is coupled with a desire for equally rapid dissemination of apparently noteworthy new findings by the media. The overall sense is that the scientific process has been accelerated.</p>
<p>But is this entirely a good thing? There is a long-standing aphorism – originally from engineering but perhaps applicable here – fast, cheap, good; you can pick two. We all know from personal experience that when we rush mistakes are more likely to happen. This is simply human nature, and scientists, however well trained and well intentioned, are human too. The fundamentals of good design, careful conduct and thoughtful interpretation apply even when there is a pressing need for knowledge.</p>
<p>These different issues – research conducted quickly and disseminated via preprints rapidly, and the media reporting these findings equally rapidly – perhaps conspire to mean we are at risk of generating and communicating findings that are not robust. And we have already begun to see <a href="https://retractionwatch.com/2020/04/22/study-claiming-broader-spread-of-aerosolized-coronavirus-is-retracted/">retractions of COVID-19 research</a>.</p>
<h2>Transparency is everything</h2>
<p>Work that is still at the preprint stage should be clearly reported as such by media outlets, and readers should treat the findings as preliminary. Perhaps more importantly, we all need to recognise that our knowledge will evolve, and no single study or finding will be definitive. Understanding COVID-19 is a team effort.</p>
<p>The current pandemic is unprecedented in recent history, and has demonstrated the strength of the global scientific community. Resources have been rapidly diverted towards understanding the virus, modelling strategies to reduce its impact, developing vaccines and treatments, and more. Collaborations – both national and international – have emerged almost overnight, and preprint servers have experienced a surge of submissions. We are making progress, and at an extraordinary pace.</p>
<p>However, we also need to ensure that our desire for speed in the generation of knowledge is not at the expense of quality. Given the importance and the immediacy of the challenge we face, rigorous and high-quality research is more important than ever. Transparency will be critical. By making study protocols, materials, data and analysis plans available to researchers, work will be able to be scrutinised more closely, and any errors detected and corrected more rapidly. Indeed, the mere act of making our research transparent may encourage more error-checking before we release our work.</p>
<p>There is an urgent need for data and knowledge, but it is critically important that research is of high quality and that the knowledge generated is robust. False information is worse than no information at all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137641/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marcus Munafo is chair of the UK Reproducibility Network (<a href="http://www.ukrn.org">www.ukrn.org</a>) steering group, which receives funding from several UK research funders.</span></em></p>
Scientific results are being rushed out quicker than ever to fight coronavirus. Here’s what you need to know about preprints, peer review and the difference between the two.
Marcus Munafo, Professor of Biological Psychology, University of Bristol
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/136222
2020-04-24T12:19:10Z
2020-04-24T12:19:10Z
Diary of Samuel Pepys shows how life under the bubonic plague mirrored today’s pandemic
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330233/original/file-20200423-47847-1xfis9d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C9%2C1095%2C651&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There were eerie similarities between Pepys' time and our own.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/emergency-medical-technicians-with-royal-ambulance-move-a-news-photo/1219227285?adppopup=true">Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In early April, writer Jen Miller urged New York Times readers to start a coronavirus diary. </p>
<p>“Who knows,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/smarter-living/why-you-should-start-a-coronavirus-diary.html">she wrote</a>, “maybe one day your diary will provide a valuable window into this period.” </p>
<p>During a different pandemic, one 17th-century British naval administrator named Samuel Pepys did just that. He fastidiously <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UHMO8YWg3hYC&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Diary+of+Samuel+Pepys+vol.+6&hl=en#v=onepage&q=The%20Diary%20of%20Samuel%20Pepys%20vol.%206&f=false">kept a diary from 1660 to 1669</a> – a period of time that included a severe outbreak of the bubonic plague in London. Epidemics have always haunted humans, but rarely do we get such a detailed glimpse into one person’s life during a crisis from so long ago.</p>
<p>There were no Zoom meetings, drive-through testing or ventilators in 17th-century London. But Pepys’ diary reveals that there were some striking resemblances in how people responded to the pandemic.</p>
<h2>A creeping sense of crisis</h2>
<p>For Pepys and the inhabitants of London, there was no way of knowing whether an outbreak of the plague that occurred in the parish of St. Giles, a poor area outside the city walls, in late 1664 and early 1665 would become an epidemic.</p>
<p>The plague first entered Pepys’ consciousness enough to warrant a diary entry on April 30, 1665: “Great fears of the Sickenesse here in the City,” he wrote, “it being said that two or three houses are already shut up. God preserve us all.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330186/original/file-20200423-47815-1q830vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330186/original/file-20200423-47815-1q830vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330186/original/file-20200423-47815-1q830vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330186/original/file-20200423-47815-1q830vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330186/original/file-20200423-47815-1q830vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330186/original/file-20200423-47815-1q830vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330186/original/file-20200423-47815-1q830vp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Samuel Pepys by John Hayls (1666).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw04948/Samuel-Pepys">National Portrait Gallery</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pepys continued to live his life normally until the beginning of June, when, for the first time, he saw houses “shut up” – the term his contemporaries used for quarantine – with his own eyes, “marked with a red cross upon the doors, and ‘Lord have mercy upon us’ writ there.” After this, Pepys became increasingly troubled by the outbreak.</p>
<p>He soon observed corpses being taken to their burial in the streets, and a number of his acquaintances died, including his own physician. </p>
<p>By mid-August, he had drawn up his will, writing, “that I shall be in much better state of soul, I hope, if it should please the Lord to call me away this sickly time.” Later that month, he wrote of deserted streets; the pedestrians he encountered were “walking like people that had taken leave of the world.” </p>
<h2>Tracking mortality counts</h2>
<p>In London, the Company of Parish Clerks printed “<a href="https://collation.folger.edu/2018/03/counts-causes-london-bills-mortality/">bills of mortality</a>,” the weekly tallies of burials.</p>
<p>Because these lists noted London’s burials – not deaths – they undoubtedly undercounted the dead. Just as we follow <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-toll/">these numbers</a> closely today, Pepys documented the growing number of plague victims in his diary.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330202/original/file-20200423-47799-fz2bdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330202/original/file-20200423-47799-fz2bdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330202/original/file-20200423-47799-fz2bdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330202/original/file-20200423-47799-fz2bdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330202/original/file-20200423-47799-fz2bdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330202/original/file-20200423-47799-fz2bdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330202/original/file-20200423-47799-fz2bdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330202/original/file-20200423-47799-fz2bdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Bills of mortality’ were regularly posted.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/title-page-of-mortality-bill-for-london-for-1664-5-covering-news-photo/815623320?adppopup=true">Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty Image</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the end of August, he cited the bill of mortality as having recorded 6,102 victims of the plague, but feared “that the true number of the dead this week is near 10,000,” mostly because the victims among the urban poor weren’t counted. A week later, he noted the official number of 6,978 in one week, “a most dreadfull Number.” </p>
<p>By mid-September, all attempts to control the plague were failing. <a href="https://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol1/pp494-513">Quarantines were not being enforced</a>, and people gathered in places like the Royal Exchange. Social distancing, in short, was not happening.</p>
<p>He was equally alarmed by people attending funerals in spite of official orders. Although plague victims <a href="https://archives.history.ac.uk/cmh/epiharding.html">were supposed to be interred at night</a>, this system broke down as well, and Pepys griped that burials were taking place “in broad daylight.” </p>
<h2>Desperate for remedies</h2>
<p>There are few known effective treatment options for COVID-19. Medical and scientific research need time, but people hit hard by the virus are willing to try anything. Fraudulent treatments, <a href="https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-update-fda-and-ftc-warn-seven-companies-selling-fraudulent-products-claim-treat-or">from teas and colloidal silver</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/16/as-coronavirus-spreads-around-the-world-so-too-do-the-quack-cures">to cognac and cow urine</a>, have been floated.</p>
<p>Although Pepys lived during the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/Scientific-Revolution">Scientific Revolution</a>, nobody in the 17th century knew that the <em>Yersinia pestis</em> bacterium carried by fleas caused the plague. Instead, the era’s scientists theorized that the plague was spreading <a href="http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/techniques/miasmatheory">through miasma</a>, or “bad air” created by rotting organic matter and identifiable by its foul smell. <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/XGaG2hAAANfAsTGg">Some of the most popular measures</a> to combat the plague involved purifying the air by smoking tobacco or by holding herbs and spices in front of one’s nose.</p>
<p>Tobacco was the first remedy that Pepys sought during the plague outbreak. In early June, seeing shut-up houses “put me into an ill conception of myself and my smell, so that I was forced to buy some roll-tobacco to smell … and chaw.” Later, in July, a noble patroness gave him “a bottle of plague-water” – a medicine made from various herbs. But he wasn’t sure whether any of this was effective. Having participated in a coffeehouse discussion about “the plague growing upon us in this town and remedies against it,” he could only conclude that “some saying one thing, some another.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328832/original/file-20200418-152591-18pxc02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328832/original/file-20200418-152591-18pxc02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328832/original/file-20200418-152591-18pxc02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328832/original/file-20200418-152591-18pxc02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328832/original/file-20200418-152591-18pxc02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328832/original/file-20200418-152591-18pxc02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328832/original/file-20200418-152591-18pxc02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328832/original/file-20200418-152591-18pxc02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1666 engraving by John Dunstall depicts deaths and burials in London during the bubonic plague.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/application/files/4414/5622/4848/wpf-mortality-broadhseet.jpg">Museum of London</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the outbreak, Pepys was also very concerned with his frame of mind; he constantly mentioned that he was trying to be in good spirits. This was not only an attempt to “not let it get to him” – as we might say today – <a href="http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/themes/traditions/humours">but also informed by the medical theory of the era</a>, which claimed that an imbalance of the so-called humors in the body – blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm – led to disease. </p>
<p>Melancholy – which, according to doctors, resulted from an excess of black bile – could be dangerous to one’s health, so Pepys sought to suppress negative emotions; on Sept. 14, for example, he wrote that hearing about dead friends and acquaintances “doth put me into great apprehensions of melancholy. … But I put off the thoughts of sadness as much as I can.”</p>
<h2>Balancing paranoia and risk</h2>
<p>Humans are social animals and thrive on interaction, so it’s no surprise that so many have found social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-experts-in-evolution-explain-why-social-distancing-feels-so-unnatural-134271">challenging</a>. It can require constant risk assessment: How close is too close? How can we avoid infection and keep our loved ones safe, while also staying sane? What should we do when someone in our house develops a cough?</p>
<p>During the plague, this sort of paranoia also abounded. Pepys found that when he left London and entered other towns, the townspeople became visibly nervous about visitors. </p>
<p>“They are afeared of us that come to them,” he wrote in mid-July, “insomuch that I am troubled at it.”</p>
<p>Pepys succumbed to paranoia himself: In late July, his servant Will suddenly developed a headache. Fearing that his entire house would be shut up if a servant came down with the plague, Pepys mobilized all his other servants to get Will out of the house as quickly as possible. It turned out that Will didn’t have the plague, and he returned the next day. </p>
<p>In early September, Pepys refrained from wearing a wig he bought in an area of London that was a hotspot of the disease, and he wondered whether other people would also fear wearing wigs because they could potentially be made of the hair of plague victims.</p>
<p>And yet he was willing to risk his health to meet certain needs; by early October, he visited his mistress without any regard for the danger: “round about and next door on every side is the plague, but I did not value it but there did what I could con ella.”</p>
<p>Just as people around the world eagerly wait for a falling death toll as a sign of the pandemic letting up, so did Pepys derive hope – and perhaps the impetus to see his mistress – from the first decline in deaths in mid-September. A week later, he noted a substantial decline of more than 1,800.</p>
<p>Let’s hope that, like Pepys, we’ll soon see some light at the end of the tunnel.</p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136222/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ute Lotz-Heumann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Sure, there were no Zoom calls or ventilators. But thanks to a prolific diarist, we can see some striking similarities, from daily death counts to quack remedies.
Ute Lotz-Heumann, Heiko A. Oberman Professor of Late Medieval and Reformation History, University of Arizona
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/135107
2020-04-14T15:15:36Z
2020-04-14T15:15:36Z
Nigeria’s academic journals have a quality issue. This can be fixed
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326817/original/file-20200409-188938-14gu3m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nigerian universities should ensure their journals are of a high standard</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vehicles-drive-into-the-university-of-lagos-in-lagos-on-news-photo/1207810456?adppopup=true">Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Academic journals are central to the careers of academic staff of tertiary institutions, especially universities. They are considered an important way to assess academics for promotion, especially in the non-humanities disciplines. </p>
<p>In fact, they carry more weight in promotion discussions than, for instance, books, monographs, occasional publications – the proceedings of in-house seminars or workshops, or occasional publications by an institute – and book chapters. A reason for this is that they have a relatively quick turnaround in publication, compared to books and monographs that take longer, often years, to produce. Others include the fact that many journals are published regularly; content is peer reviewed. Journals offer academics global visibility on online platforms. The journals’ <a href="https://libguides.ioe.ac.uk/c.php?g=482311&p=3299102">impact factor</a> can also be measured. </p>
<p>The impact factor is a scientific ranking of every journal to determine how often its contents (articles) are cited by scholars all over the world. The number and frequency of citations validate the credibility and authority of the articles and the journals in which they are published. High impact journals are, therefore, highly coveted by scholars. They are more difficult to break into as they publish only the best in the discipline. </p>
<p>Academic journals vary in quality. But most share certain features. A journal has a stated period in which it appears; an editorial office domiciled in a tertiary institution or a professional association; an editor-in-chief or editors. Journals also have an editorial advisory board, often made up of eminent scholars, as well as an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN). This is the registration number each journal carries that is unique to it and identifies it. </p>
<p>In terms of content, every issue contains an editorial that introduces the articles, the table of contents, the main articles and book reviews. Notes on contributors can appear at the beginning or end of the issue. A table of contents could be placed on the outside back cover.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293145626_Academic_journal_publishing_in_Nigeria_Issues_challenges_and_prospects">many journals</a> circulating out of Nigerian tertiary institutions are in breach of some or most of these basic standards. Contributors to such journals and their home institutions and countries lose credibility and respect. That diminishes their ranking in the world of scholarship. Low quality journals give a bad reputation to their host institutions and means they can be regarded as promoters of mediocrity.</p>
<h2>Common issues</h2>
<p>These are some of the issues I have identified around many Nigerian academic journals. I have also contributed to this discussion in a <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/African-Universities-Twenty-First-Century-Knowledge/dp/2869781253">major publication</a>.</p>
<p>One problem is that journals are founded merely to aid in promoting a clique of scholars. Once they obtain the expected rank within academia, they let the journals die. Many such journals do not proceed beyond the maiden issue: the “vol.1, no.1” syndrome.</p>
<p>Another is that the creators give journals ridiculous, prosaic titles in an attempt to create a brand. An example is the penchant for adding the word “International” to satisfy universities’ demand for publications in “international” (actually, foreign) journals. Another is the adoption of an omnibus title encompassing several related and unrelated subjects: for example, Journal of Culture, Religion, Education and Environmental Studies. It suggests an all-comers’ journal rather than one adding to specialised knowledge in a particular discipline or field.</p>
<p>Some journals are domiciled in non-academic settings, such as non governmental organisations and commercial (for-profit only) publishers without academic pedigree. These are often predatory journals. Such journals dispense with the fundamental prerequisites of academic publishing: peer-blind review and copy-editing. The former requires every manuscript to be diligently assessed by at least two experts and subsequently revised by the author to meet a required standard, both parties being anonymous to each other. Predatory journals merely publish any material for money.</p>
<p>Another problem is the dumping of articles. This is exemplified by practices like putting as many as 20 to 40 articles in a single issue or allowing a single author to publish more than one article in a single issue of the journal. These are products of patronage and cronyism, designed to aid a friendly person to gain undeserved promotion. This promotes mediocrity.</p>
<p>Such journals often have an unchanging list of editorial advisory board members, sometimes for a decade at a time. They also appoint inexperienced and incompetent editors or delegate editorial tasks to senior but uncommitted scholars. They rush to publish, leaving little or no time for reviewing, revising and copy-editing papers. </p>
<p>The proliferation of sub-standard journals may be attributed to the proliferation of universities. Also, the declining number of experienced and committed scholars, who are spread thin and overburdened across several institutions. Another reason is the desire of impatient young scholars for promotion without due process. There is a rising tide of academic titles’ reduction to mere status symbols or awards by proprietors and chief executives as reward for loyalty. In addition, some editors are basically incompetent and inexperienced, lacking the mentoring afforded by publishing in journals of international standards.</p>
<h2>Recommendations</h2>
<p>There are a few approaches that journals in Nigeria could take to ensure these problems are tackled. Each chief executive (a university’s vice-chancellor or rector) should pay attention to the quality of journals published in their domains or subscribed to by their staff. They should discourage, rather than reward, mediocrity in the form of sub-standard scholarship. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nuc.edu.ng/">National Universities Commission</a> should set minimum benchmarks based on global best practices. </p>
<p>Universities should enforce standards, and recognise and reward academic staff that publish in high impact journals. The Academic Staff Union of Universities should support a nationwide scheme of objective quality control. All should work together to block loopholes exploited by mercenary publishers and mediocre academics. There should be one national standard of excellence which every scholar and institution should subscribe to without local or regional variation. The best quality control measure is self respect and self regulation by scholars. </p>
<p>These are my specific recommendations:</p>
<ul>
<li>Journals to be domiciled in academic units with competent, experienced editors.</li>
<li>Editors must ensure rigorous peer review and authors’ compliance, as far as possible, with reviewers’ strong recommendations. They should publish quality papers, not names.</li>
<li>Authors to justify articles: Indicate what they add to knowledge explicitly; use abstract and key words for effect. </li>
<li>The <a href="https://www.nuc.edu.ng/">National Universities Commission</a> should rank journals every three years: bad ones to be named and shamed.</li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135107/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ayodeji Olukoju does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The proliferation of sub-standard journals may be attributed to the proliferation of universities in Nigeria and this demands urgent attention.
Ayodeji Olukoju, Distinguished Professor of History and Strategic Studies, University of Lagos
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/123374
2019-09-12T00:44:40Z
2019-09-12T00:44:40Z
‘There is a problem’: Australia’s top scientist Alan Finkel pushes to eradicate bad science
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292020/original/file-20190911-190065-16xm35j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australia's Chief Scientist Alan Finkel</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the main, Australia produces high-quality research that is rigorous and reproducible, and makes a significant contribution towards scientific progress.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t do it better.</p>
<p>In the case of the research sector here and abroad, we need to acknowledge that as good as the research system is, there is a problem.</p>
<p>There are a significant number of papers that are of poor quality, and should never have made it through to publication. In considering why this might be the case, I have found myself reflecting on the role of incentives in the research system. </p>
<p>Because incentives matter, as we have seen through the findings of the Royal Commission into the banking sector led by Kenneth Hayne.</p>
<p>The commission shone a light on how the sector incentivises its employees. And there are some incentives in the research community that, in my view, need to be looked at.</p>
<p>We may be inadvertently encouraging poor behaviour. And to ensure research remains high-quality and trustworthy, we need to get the incentives right.</p>
<h2>Lessons from the banking Royal Commission</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292027/original/file-20190911-190065-1hxdgl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292027/original/file-20190911-190065-1hxdgl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292027/original/file-20190911-190065-1hxdgl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292027/original/file-20190911-190065-1hxdgl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292027/original/file-20190911-190065-1hxdgl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292027/original/file-20190911-190065-1hxdgl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292027/original/file-20190911-190065-1hxdgl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parallels can be drawn between inappropriate incentives in both the banking and research sectors, Dr Finkel says.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The commission showed that over the past decade or two, the banking sector moved from salary-based to bonus-based remuneration. But those bonuses have been mapping to the wrong values: to sales and profit instead of compliance with the law and net benefit to customers.</p>
<p>Similarly in the research sector, we can’t ignore that there are many incentives pushing some to cut corners and lower their standards.</p>
<p>The competition for funding is fierce and is increasing every day. The temptation to judge a researcher’s performance through simple metrics, such as the number of published research papers, is strong. These metrics are incentives that drive behaviour - not all of it good. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/finkel-students-focus-on-your-discipline-then-youll-see-your-options-expand-107440">Finkel: students, focus on your discipline then you’ll see your options expand</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We all know of instances of poor research practice. Selective publication of results to support a hypothesis. HARKing: hypothesising after results are known. Manipulating data and research methods to achieve statistical significance.</p>
<p>If we can focus on improving the quality of research in general, we can achieve broad and long-lasting benefits. And I think the best way to do this is to look at the incentives.</p>
<h2>Quality should trump quantity</h2>
<p>Publication is a principal criterion for career advancement in the research sector. And I don’t want to change that. However, the institutionalisation of performance metrics has created incentives for researchers to publish as many papers as possible.</p>
<p>There shouldn’t be an incentive for a researcher to salami-slice their results into three or four separate publications, rather than one meaningful publication. If the purpose of publication is to share your results in a way that can be built on by other researchers, this kind of practice completely defeats that purpose.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292030/original/file-20190911-190050-1kpy5jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292030/original/file-20190911-190050-1kpy5jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292030/original/file-20190911-190050-1kpy5jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292030/original/file-20190911-190050-1kpy5jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292030/original/file-20190911-190050-1kpy5jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292030/original/file-20190911-190050-1kpy5jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292030/original/file-20190911-190050-1kpy5jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Perverse incentives can encourage the manipulation of research results, Dr Finkel says.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One model that places the focus on quality over quantity is the “Rule of Five”.
With this rule, a researcher’s performance for grant funding or promotion is judged on their best five publications over a five year period, accompanied by a description of its impact and the researcher’s individual contribution.</p>
<p>The exact number of publications or years isn’t important, as long as it is less than ten.</p>
<p>Of course, there are disciplinary differences that may need to be taken into account. But what matters is the emphasis on the significance of the research.</p>
<h2>Researchers must undergo integrity training</h2>
<p>Unlike other professions, there are no national competencies and no national
recognition of education and training in research integrity. While many institutions in Australia do provide training programs for their PhD students, these programs vary in quality, content and reach.</p>
<p>And, to the best of my knowledge, no Australian institutions have a training
requirement for their existing research workforce.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-is-clear-we-have-to-start-creating-our-low-carbon-future-today-104774">The science is clear: we have to start creating our low-carbon future today</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>I strongly believe the overall quality of research in Australia would be strengthened by research integrity training for all researchers.</p>
<p>Training puts a spotlight on expectations for the whole community and
encourages consistent behaviour. It also removes that old chestnut of plausible deniability: “Honest, officer, I didn’t know it was wrong!”</p>
<p>The training must be accredited, and must be high quality. It should not be a
“tick the box” exercise. And if we circle back to incentives, the best way to encourage researchers to undertake the training is to make proof of training a requirement for obtaining a grant. </p>
<p>To those naysayers who say it will never happen, let me tell you that it already has. The Irish Health Research Board has recently implemented such a scheme. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292033/original/file-20190911-190007-1qlk67q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292033/original/file-20190911-190007-1qlk67q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292033/original/file-20190911-190007-1qlk67q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292033/original/file-20190911-190007-1qlk67q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292033/original/file-20190911-190007-1qlk67q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292033/original/file-20190911-190007-1qlk67q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292033/original/file-20190911-190007-1qlk67q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Finkel: research integrity training should be mandatory for all researchers, and tied to grant funding.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Predatory, evil’ scholarly journals</h2>
<p>Finally, I am concerned that the incentives in the research system are not just
driving bad behaviour for researchers, but are also creating a market for
criminals to enter scholarly publishing.</p>
<p>What is motivating the crooks is the pay-per-page system that has come with
the introduction of open access publishing.</p>
<p>Now, open access publishing has many benefits and I support the move towards it. But I remain concerned that it has opened the door for predatory, evil, crooked journals.</p>
<p>It is just too easy to set up a journal and a website with a highfalutin title, and appropriate the biographies of leading researchers for the editorial board – without their knowledge or permission. Before you know it, huge numbers of papers are being published without any rigour.</p>
<p>And there are researchers who are knowingly paying to publish in journals that have no peer review, even though they claim to. Journals that have no ethics. Not even an editorial team to consider the submitted paper.</p>
<p>These researchers might just be naïve, but we have to acknowledge that the current incentives reward this behaviour.</p>
<p>While this is not a major problem in Australia, emerging research nations are
really struggling with this. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292034/original/file-20190911-190021-1jyabgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292034/original/file-20190911-190021-1jyabgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292034/original/file-20190911-190021-1jyabgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292034/original/file-20190911-190021-1jyabgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292034/original/file-20190911-190021-1jyabgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292034/original/file-20190911-190021-1jyabgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/292034/original/file-20190911-190021-1jyabgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Finkel: a new publishing standard should be introduced to weed out unscrupulous research journals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my conversations with senior research leaders around the world, they are
looking for ways to improve performance metrics in a way that does not drive
their researchers to these journals.</p>
<p>I propose a rigorous quality assurance system, designed to inform
stakeholders that a particular journal’s processes for assessing a paper meets
agreed publishing standards. I like to call it Publication Process Quality Assurance, or PPQA.</p>
<p>Compliance with PPQA would indicate to researchers, research institutions,
libraries and granting agencies that the journal follows internationally accepted guidelines for the publication process.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/science-isnt-broken-but-we-can-do-better-heres-how-95139">Science isn't broken, but we can do better: here's how</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Granting agencies are best placed to provide the incentive for researchers to only publish in PPQA-compliant journals by enforcing it through their grant application process.</p>
<h2>Follow the money</h2>
<p>You might have picked up by now a common thread; that in each of my three
recommendations, I am looking to take the responsibility back to the granting
agencies. It’s a concept referred to by others as “follow the money”.</p>
<p>If the granting agencies put in place these measures, they will ripple through
into the research institutions and mitigate the ongoing risks of poor quality research.</p>
<p>It will change the culture and ensure that last century’s academic rigour
continues for the 21st century research workforce and beyond. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an edited version of a speech Dr Finkel will deliver in Melbourne on September 12 at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, to mark its fifth anniversary.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123374/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Finkel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Australia’s top scientist Alan Finkel says too many poor quality research papers are being published in Australia, and the system may inadvertently encourage academics to behave badly.
Alan Finkel, Australia’s Chief Scientist, Office of the Chief Scientist
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/120323
2019-07-15T12:03:16Z
2019-07-15T12:03:16Z
University of California’s showdown with the biggest academic publisher aims to change scholarly publishing for good
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283903/original/file-20190712-173338-1gov2o5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=311%2C0%2C4985%2C3581&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For now, it's going to be trickier for the University of California community to access some academic journals.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/michelle658/6022758297">Michelle/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This month, academic publisher Elsevier <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/07/11/elsevier-ends-journal-access-uc-system">shuttered</a> the University of California’s online access to current journal articles. It’s the latest move in the high stakes <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-uc-elsevier-20190711-story.html">standoff</a> between Elsevier, the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-uc-elsevier-20181207-story.html">world’s largest publisher of scholarly research</a>, and the University of California, whose scholars <a href="https://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/2018/chapters/chapter-9.html">produce about 10%</a> of the nation’s research publications.</p>
<p>Last February, Elsevier chose to continue providing access to journals via its <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com">ScienceDirect</a> online platform after UC’s <a href="https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-terminates-subscriptions-worlds-largest-scientific-publisher-push-open-access-publicly">subscription expired</a> and negotiations broke down. With its instant access now cut off, the UC research community will learn firsthand what it’s like to rely on the open web and other means of accessing critical research.</p>
<p>The UC-Elsevier showdown made headlines because it’s symptomatic of the way the internet has failed to deliver on the promise to make knowledge easily accessible and shareable by anyone, anywhere in the world. It’s the latest in a succession of cracks in what is widely considered to be a <a href="https://www.researchinformation.info/news/new-report-warns-%E2%80%98failing-system%E2%80%99-scholarly-publishing">failing system</a> for sharing academic research. <a href="https://leadership.ucdavis.edu/people/mackenzie-smith">As the head of the research library at UC Davis</a>, I see this development as a <a href="https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access-at-uc/publisher-negotiations/uc-and-elsevier-impact/">harbinger of a tectonic shift</a> in how universities and their faculty share research, build reputations and preserve knowledge in the digital age.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Accessing a journal no longer means going to a periodicals room.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/13873472463/in/faves-52792775@N00/">Newton W. Elwell/Boston Public Library/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Moving from stacks to screens</h2>
<p>Here’s how things traditionally worked.</p>
<p>Universities have always subscribed to scientific journals so their researchers can study and build on the work that came before, and won’t needlessly duplicate research they never knew about. In the print age, university library shelves were lined with journals, available for any researcher or – in the case of public universities like the University of California – any member of the public to peruse and learn from.</p>
<p>Now, for almost all journals, and a growing number of books, libraries sign contracts to license access to digital versions. Since academic publishers moved their journals online, it has become rare for libraries to subscribe to printed journals, and researchers have adapted to the convenience of accessing journal articles on the internet.</p>
<p>Under the new business model of licensing access to journals online rather than distributing them in print, for-profit publishers often lock libraries into bundled subscriptions that wrap the majority of a publisher’s portfolio of journals – <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals">almost 3,000 in Elsevier’s case</a> – into a single, multimillion dollar package. Rather than storing back issues on shelves, libraries can lose permanent access to journals when a contract expires. And members of the public can no longer read the library’s copy of a journal because the licenses are limited to members of the university. Now the public must buy online copies of academic articles for an average of US$35 to $40 a pop. </p>
<p>The shift to digital has been good for researchers in many ways. It is far more convenient to search for articles online, and easier to access and download a copy – provided you work for an institution with a paid subscription. Modern software makes organizing and annotating them simpler, too. With all of these benefits, no one would advocate for going back to the old days of print journals. </p>
<p>Online access to journals did not improve the picture overall. Despite digital copies of articles costing nothing to duplicate and the cost of producing an article online being lower than in the past, the cost to libraries of licensing access to them has continued to experience <a href="https://www.arl.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/5yr_ongoing-resource-expenditures_by_type.pdf">hyperinflation</a>. <a href="https://theconversation.com/academic-journal-publishing-is-headed-for-a-day-of-reckoning-80869">No library</a> can afford to license all the journals its faculty and students want access to, and many researchers around the world are shut out completely. Compounding the problem, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">consolidation in the scholarly publishing market</a> has reduced competition significantly, causing even more price inflexibility.</p>
<h2>Excessive profits?</h2>
<p>Academic publishers certainly bear costs. They pay for professional editors and programmers, they manage the peer review process, they market their journals and so on. However, their revenues far exceed these costs and are among the highest of any companies in the world. Elsevier’s profit margin is reported to be <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kittyknowles/2018/06/13/blockchain-science-iris-ai-project-aiur-elsevier-academic-journal-london-tech-week-cogx/">nearly 40%</a>, far higher than even Apple at <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/profit-margins">around 23%</a>.</p>
<p>Where social media platforms like Facebook profit from – and indeed, would not exist without – the content generated by users, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/04/the-guardian-view-on-academic-publishing-disastrous-capitalism">the parallel is true</a> for academic journals. Companies like Elsevier receive articles from university faculty and other researchers for free, summarizing research that was often publicly funded by government grants. Then other faculty and researchers serve on their editorial boards and peer-review those articles for free or a nominal fee. Finally the company publishes them in journals available only behind a paywall.</p>
<p>And there’s the rub: the paywall. The great promise of the internet was that it would make <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free">knowledge more freely and easily accessible</a>. In the world of academic research – where new discoveries are made and new knowledge is born – the hope 20 years ago was that the advent of online platforms would make research articles universally available. It would also bring down the cost of publishing scholarly journals and, consequently, begin to reduce the multimillion dollar subscription costs borne by universities and other research institutions.</p>
<p>Instead, articles are not readily available to everyone, subscription costs have continued to rise, and subscribers’ rights have eroded, including what they can do with articles they buy and their ability to provide long-term access to them.</p>
<p>What happened to sharing knowledge with the people who need it, funded or created it?</p>
<h2>A model for the digital age</h2>
<p>Maybe it’s time to just blow up the whole system and start over. But today’s scholarly system of sharing knowledge evolved over hundreds of years and contains certain qualities – peer review of accuracy, editorial judgment, long-term preservation – that still matter deeply.</p>
<p>While research products – books, journals and articles – would definitely benefit from modernization in the digital age, we at the University of California are focusing on fixing the business model first. Paywalls and online subscriptions may make sense in other parts of the media ecosystem, but it’s not a good model for academic publishing, where authors and reviewers are paid by universities and research grants (with public money) rather than by publishers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The open access movement would get rid of paywalls and let anyone read anything for free.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/set-ornate-gates-heaven-opening-under-158678495">Inked Pixels/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fortunately, the academy has another option for a publishing business model that can better achieve the promise of the internet: open access. In that model, authors, or their funders or institutions, pay the publisher a fee to cover the cost of publishing each article. In exchange, the articles are made freely available for everyone to read online, anywhere, anytime. Article quality is preserved by the same unpaid peer-review system. Libraries at research institutions could shift their payments from licenses and subscriptions to publication fees for their affiliated authors. The cost is theoretically the same, but everyone can read everything for free. </p>
<p>The University of California has long <a href="https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access-at-uc/open-access-policy/">supported the ideals of open access</a> – allowing everyone in the world to access the knowledge created by its faculty and researchers, for the benefit of all. In fact, since open access became an option for publishing, more and more UC authors, following the <a href="https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4375">global trend</a>, have independently chosen to pay their publisher a fee in order to make their article freely available to the public.</p>
<p>But those fees come on top of the <a href="https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-uc-split-publishing-giant-elsevier">tens of millions of dollars</a> that the university is already paying the publisher for access to the same articles. This “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-science-of-the-tax-dollar-double-dip-1459379449">double dipping</a>” by publishers was the final straw in UC’s resolve to change the system.</p>
<p>Several years ago, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_Sp-B_0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I worked</a> with colleagues within the University of California and other academic research institutions to study the <a href="https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/icis/uc-pay-it-forward-project/">costs of publishing with this open access model</a>. We found that, while costs would shift and more research-grant funds may need to be applied to publishing fees, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284316481">overall it would be affordable</a> for research universities, at least in North America where libraries are relatively well funded. With these results, UC could see a way out of its dilemma. </p>
<p>When UC’s contract with Elsevier was up for renewal, we resolved to put our ideas into practice and pursue the twin goals of increasing open access to UC’s research while containing or lowering our journal-related costs – and finally achieving something of the promise of the internet. While I was not on UC’s negotiating team, I was among the group of faculty and library leaders that worked closely with them and decided to take this step.</p>
<p>Now, UC’s researchers will have to find other ways to get Elsevier journal articles than the online access they have become accustomed to. Many of those articles are already <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/daily-news/open-access-on-the-rise-study-31125">freely available</a> on the web and the rest can be borrowed from libraries or requested from authors. There are also a growing number of tools like <a href="https://unpaywall.org/">Unpaywall</a>, which searches the web for free copies of articles, to help researchers with that transition. But for busy researchers with little time to spare, convenience is king, and they’ll likely soon learn from experience why achieving 100% open access to research articles is so important.</p>
<p>UC’s goals are ambitious and their implementation will be complex. Changing a system this intricate is akin to modernizing the FAA’s air traffic control system – a million planes are in the air at any moment and altering anything can have serious consequences elsewhere. But we have to start somewhere or the whole system is at risk, and UC has placed its bet. We join an expanding <a href="https://oa2020.org/mission/#eois">global movement</a>, and we believe we’re now on the path to a better system for sharing knowledge in the 21st century.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/university-of-californias-break-with-the-biggest-academic-publisher-could-shake-up-scholarly-publishing-for-good-112941">an article</a> originally published on March 7, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120323/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>MacKenzie Smith receives funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>
The UC libraries let their Elsevier journal subscriptions lapse and now the publisher has cut their online access. It’s a painful milestone in the fight UC hopes may transform how journals get paid.
MacKenzie Smith, University Librarian and Vice Provost for Digital Scholarship, University of California, Davis
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/113856
2019-04-10T14:04:45Z
2019-04-10T14:04:45Z
How the open access model hurts academics in poorer countries
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264835/original/file-20190320-93048-iv2dqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Open access journals come with hidden costs.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">rvlsoft/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/58.full">The rise</a> of open access publishing should be applauded. Scientific research and literature should be made available to everyone, with no cost to the reader.</p>
<p>But there’s a catch: nothing is actually free and someone has to pay. The open access model merely changes who pays. So rather than individuals or institutions paying to have access to publications, increasingly, academics are expected to pay for publishing their research in these “open access” journals. In this way, publishers continue to make money even though they no longer charge readers to access their journals. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that payment has been transferred from institutions and individuals paying to have access to researchers having to pay to have their work published.</p>
<p>And these are substantial. For example, PlosOne charges academics US $1,595 per paper; PlosBiology charges US $3 000. Cell Reports charges US $5 000. Some journals call this cost a “publication fee”. Others refer to “article processing charges”. Ironically, the revenue received in this way is much higher than journal subscriptions – and yet the costs are minimal because the publications are digital with no hard copy costs and little administration. </p>
<p>The cost is usually borne by individual researchers in many institutions. This is a huge burden particularly in developing countries with weaker currencies. Some universities are able to cover part or all of the cost of open access articles, but some make no provision. Universities in most economies, particularly in the developing world, are under <a href="http://www.cedol.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Steve-Maharey-article.pdf">huge financial pressure</a>.</p>
<p>An urgent discussion is needed around the cost of research publications. A more equitable system, in which the full costs and benefits are properly rewarded, is crucial. </p>
<h2>Rising costs</h2>
<p>There has been some debate about the rising cost of journal subscriptions and the University of California has recently “<a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/04/demanding-open-access-uc-rebuffs-worlds-largest-publisher/">broken away</a>” from academic publisher Elsevier, stopping its subscriptions entirely.</p>
<p>There is however, little focus on the costs of open access to researchers in the developing world. Most people we have spoken to inside academia are under the impression that these costs are waived. But that’s only the case for some journals in 47 of the world’s “<a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/publication/ldc_list.pdf">least developed” nations</a>; researchers in the 58 other countries in the developing world must pay the full price.</p>
<p>Currently, individual research programmes must bear the rising cost of open access publication. University researchers write grants for funding research and providing graduate students with scholarships. Few granting agencies take the cost of open access publication into account – and so publication costs eat into whatever precious grant funding researchers get.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://fabinet.up.ac.za/index.php/people-profile?profile=908">research programme</a> I (Professor Wingfield) run, we’ve found that it is just too expensive to only publish in open access journals. Many of the articles in subscription journals are now made available online between six months and a year after publication. This time lag can be problematic in fast moving fields.</p>
<p>The cost of a PlosOne article is 20% of the cost of a Masters student’s scholarship. So the choice is “do I give a Masters student a scholarship, or publish more in open access journals?” We are trying to do both and we are sure that’s the approach many research programmes are trying to take. But as more journals take the open access route this is going to be more difficult. In future, if we want to publish more articles in open access journals, we will have to reduce the number of Masters, Doctoral and post doctoral students in our programmes.</p>
<p>This isn’t a problem that’s unique to our research groups or university. Colleagues in Europe and the US are also concerned about the cost of publishing in open access journals. But the problem is amplified in institutions located in developing economies.</p>
<h2>Finding solutions</h2>
<p>One of the solutions to this problem lies with publishing houses. Of course publishers want to make money. But if they’re serious about genuine open access and getting more authors from the developing world then some serious discussions are needed about reworking the current model. </p>
<p>One suggestion is to “flip” the current model, so there would only be open access and no subscription-only journals. This, however, may still be too expensive for many universities in the developing world who currently cannot afford journal subscriptions.</p>
<p>Some journals are already helping authors by offering incentives and rewards to reviewers. Editors approach experts in their fields to review manuscripts, this is the basis of peer review. These reviewers receive no remuneration for their input but are essential for the peer review process. In some cases, journals offer reviewers subscription access for a year. This only benefits the individual reviewer, not the organisation which pays their salaries. </p>
<p>This isn’t an ideal approach for universities. Perhaps publishers could consider a voucher approach in which vouchers accrue to the institution that pays the reviewer’s salary. These vouchers could contribute towards subscription costs or the article publication charges. More altruistic publishers could even donate vouchers to universities in the developing world.</p>
<p>The use of such vouchers would also have the potential of encouraging academics to undertake reviews. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find reviewers for journal articles. Knowing that there is some benefit to their institutions would inspire more people to accept the work of reviewing. </p>
<p>Another possible solution is pressuring open access journals to waive charges for researchers in developing countries. Academics could also be encouraged to write first for journals that are affiliated to societies. Profits from these kinds of journals go back into supporting science through research grants, travel grants and meeting support. </p>
<p>And researchers must start incorporating publishing costs when applying for grants. Some major funders already encourage this, as does South Africa’s National Research Foundation <a href="https://www.nrf.ac.za/sites/default/files/documents/IFRR%20Framework%20and%20funding%20Guide%202018-%20Final%202Feb2018.pdf">in some cases</a>. Other granting agencies should be urged to do the same.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113856/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brenda Wingfield receives funding from NRF (National Research Foundation) and DST (South African Dept of Science and Technology) as the DST/NRF SARChI (research chair) in Fungal Genomics. I am the vice president of Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) and the Secretary General of the International Society of Plant Pathology.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Millar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An urgent discussion is needed around the cost of research publications.
Brenda Wingfield, Vice President of the Academy of Science of South Africa and DST-NRF SARChI chair in Fungal Genomics, Professor in Genetics, University of Pretoria, University of Pretoria
Bob Millar, Professor and Director, Centre for Neuroendocrinology, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/113212
2019-03-14T13:13:48Z
2019-03-14T13:13:48Z
Free to reproduce, free to exploit: South Africa’s copyright amendment bill
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263377/original/file-20190312-86693-lbnn2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If passed as is, the South African Copyright Amendment Bill will lead to revenue and job losses in the publishing industry.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Being an academic is like driving a car. We can all do it but few of us actually know how a car is manufactured. When something goes wrong, we phone the Automobile Association. </p>
<p>Similarly, as academics we know how to write, but few have any idea how the publication value chain operates. When something goes wrong we call the editor. The Academic and Non-fiction Authors’ Association is like the AA for authors – and there’s about to be a collision with the <a href="https://libguides.wits.ac.za/ld.php?content_id=45613747">South African Copyright Amendment Bill</a>. </p>
<p>The general consensus of a recently organised symposium attended by copyright lawyers, law professors, university presses, journal editors, copyright officers and other interested parties is that the proposed bill will hammer one more nail into the coffin of South Africa’s <a href="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/e9dc3c9df130a26b20b802af6/files/9ea03d00-dcd7-45c0-b81c-57abb5cc398e/ANFASA_Symposium_19_2_2019.pdf">ailing</a> university system.</p>
<p>The Copyright Amendment Bill applies a very wide ranging definition of “fair use” on all materials to be used for “education”. Free access to information is the cry – but as always, <a href="http://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-star-early-edition/20150825/281934541697695">someone is paying</a>. By eliminating the rights of educational authors and publishers and making all published work “free” to be reproduced, the bill could alienate authors from the fruits of their labour and their right to be cited. </p>
<p>Section 12D of the bill allows for unrestricted copying of content “for educational and academic purposes” provided that the copying doesn’t exceed the length justified by the purpose (open to interpretation by a court). The section lists the reproduced content as: “printed and electronic course packs, study packs, resource lists and in any other material to be used in a course of instruction or in virtual learning environments…”. </p>
<p>The section further states that the “name of the author shall be indicated as far as is practicable”. This means it can be left out where not practicable, which opens the door to plagiarism and could lead to authors not being cited.</p>
<p>There will be many negative effects if the bill’s amendments are accepted. Some of these are outlined in <a href="http://publishsa.co.za/file/1532283880bpc-pwcreportoncopyrightamendmentbill-31july2017.pdf">a study</a> conducted by Price Waterhouse Coopers which assessed the bill’s possible impacts on South Africa’s publishing industry.</p>
<h2>The ripple effect</h2>
<p>The study found that that if the bill is accepted as is proposed, the publishing industry will experience a 33% decline in sales. This could result in a R2.1 billion loss in revenue and 1250 jobs will be lost in a country where the official <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=11882">unemployment rate</a> is 27%.</p>
<p>What might happen under a reproduction without permission or royalty system? Publishers of both journals and books will institute hefty article processing charges and open access fees will be paid upfront. This means that the cost of publication will no longer be absorbed by publishers. In this model, the author pays. And it’s an expensive business.</p>
<p>The subscription driven “reader pays” model will decline, which means that economies of scale stretched across tens of thousands of subscribing libraries and millions of readers will be replaced with authors paying for readers to read. Less work will be published less often as authors will need to access large sums of money from a limited number of donors to pay for publication. The rank and file who don’t have access to donor funding will have to pay from their own pockets and research grants.</p>
<p>In Canada, where a similar provision was enacted in 2012, the negative effects on the industry are clear. There, widespread copying depressed book sales. Here, the volume of publication output may decrease, and South African journals might become more selective in what they publish. Getting reproduced books for free will also not result in lower costs to students if the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9HlGQ_7974&feature=youtu.be">Canadian experience</a> is anything to go by. </p>
<h2>The consequences</h2>
<p>Big tech companies will be legally able to appropriate authors’ intellectual work, monetise it and sell their labour to advertisers. Academics will not own their intellectual labour. Researchers and textbook writers will be enriching these companies because they won’t have to buy permission for reproducing educational texts from publishers.</p>
<p>South Africa’s educational publishing industry will decline. This will put the brakes on the <a href="https://www.newframe.com/copyright-bill-threatens-publishers">decolonisising of curricula</a> in academia because homegrown publishers publishing homegrown content will have difficulty entering into the market. The country will again become reliant on expensive international imports written for international readers.</p>
<p>The counter position argues exactly the opposite – that all will be well because information freedom will be <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-fair-use-is-so-important-for-south-african-copyright-law-107098">attained</a>. This argument confuses access with content. Content needs to be created, published and circulated. Content is created out of a particular research and publication production value chain. Access is the consumption side: it involves readers. Libraries, for example, don’t produce content. They house it. Libraries, like bookshops, enable readers to access the content. </p>
<p>The proposed bill will not only be harmful to authors but to the sustenance of scholarly innovation and cultural development.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keyan G Tomaselli works at the University of Johannesburg and is affiliated with the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He receives funding from the National Research Foundation. He is editor of Critical Arts and co-editor of Journal of African Cinemas. He serves as series editorial board member for the following academic Presses: University of South Africa, Toronto and Michigan State. He is a board member of the Academic and Non-fiction Authors' Association for South Africa, and a member of the Academy of Science for South Africa and its National Scholarly Editors' Forum</span></em></p>
If South Africa’s Copyright Amendment Bill is accepted as is, it will be detrimental to academic content production.
Keyan Tomaselli, Distinguished Professor, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/112941
2019-03-08T01:28:07Z
2019-03-08T01:28:07Z
University of California’s break with the biggest academic publisher could shake up scholarly publishing for good
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262542/original/file-20190306-100784-oqhxay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=155%2C248%2C2355%2C1691&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Libraries subscribe digitally to academic journals – and are left with nothing in the stacks when the contract expires.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/maveric2003/137231015">Eric Chan/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The University of California recently made international headlines when it <a href="https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-terminates-subscriptions-worlds-largest-scientific-publisher-push-open-access-publicly">canceled its subscription</a> with scientific journal publisher <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/">Elsevier</a>. The twittersphere <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ucelsevier">lit up</a>. And Elsevier’s parent company, RELX, saw its stock <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-stocks/uk-main-index-bounces-back-on-wpp-strength-relx-tumbles-idUKKCN1QI42N">drop 7 percent</a> in response to the announcement.</p>
<p>A library canceling a subscription seems like a simple, everyday business decision, so what’s the big deal?</p>
<p>It was not just the clash-of-the-titans drama between the University of California, whose scholars <a href="https://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/2018/chapters/chapter-9.html">produce nearly 10 percent</a> of the nation’s research publications, and Elsevier, the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-uc-elsevier-20181207-story.html">world’s largest publisher</a> of academic research. </p>
<p>The story made headlines because it’s symptomatic of the way in which the internet has failed to deliver on the promise to make knowledge easily accessible and shareable by anyone, anywhere in the world. The UC-Elsevier showdown was the latest in a succession of cracks in what is widely considered to be a <a href="https://www.researchinformation.info/news/new-report-warns-%E2%80%98failing-system%E2%80%99-scholarly-publishing">failing system</a> for sharing academic research. <a href="https://leadership.ucdavis.edu/people/mackenzie-smith">As the head of the research library at UC Davis</a>, I see this development as a harbinger of a tectonic shift in how universities and their faculty share research, build reputations and preserve knowledge in the digital age.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Accessing a journal no longer means going to a periodicals room.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/13873472463/in/faves-52792775@N00/">Newton W. Elwell/Boston Public Library/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Moving from stacks to screens</h2>
<p>Here’s how things traditionally worked.</p>
<p>Universities have always subscribed to scientific journals so their researchers can study and build on the work that came before, and won’t needlessly duplicate research they never knew about. In the print age, university library shelves were lined with journals, available for any researcher or – in the case of public universities like the University of California – any member of the public to peruse and learn from.</p>
<p>Now, for almost all journals, and a growing number of books, libraries sign contracts to license access to digital versions. Since academic publishers moved their journals online, it has become rare for libraries to subscribe to printed journals, and researchers have adapted to the convenience of accessing journal articles on the internet.</p>
<p>Under the new business model of licensing access to journals online rather than distributing them in print, for-profit publishers often lock libraries into bundled subscriptions that wrap the majority of a publisher’s portfolio of journals – <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals">almost 3,000 in Elsevier’s case</a> – into a single, multi-million dollar package. Rather than storing back issues on shelves, libraries can lose permanent access to journals when a contract expires. And members of the public can no longer read the library’s copy of a journal because the licenses are limited to members of the university. Now the public must buy online copies of academic articles for an average of US$35 to $40 a pop. </p>
<p>The shift to digital has been good for researchers in many ways. It is far more convenient to search for articles online, and easier to access and download a copy – provided you work for an institution with a paid subscription. Modern software makes organizing and annotating them simpler, too. With all of these benefits, no one would advocate for going back to the old days of print journals. </p>
<p>But this online system did not improve the picture overall. Despite digital copies of articles costing nothing to duplicate and the cost of producing an article online being lower than in the past, the cost to libraries of licensing access to them has continued to experience <a href="https://www.arl.org/storage/documents/5yr_ongoing-resource-expenditures_by_type.pdf">hyperinflation</a>. <a href="https://theconversation.com/academic-journal-publishing-is-headed-for-a-day-of-reckoning-80869">No library</a> can afford to license all of the journals that its faculty and students want access to, and many researchers around the world are shut out completely. Compounding the problem, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">consolidation in the scholarly publishing market</a> has reduced competition significantly, causing even more price inflexibility.</p>
<h2>Excessive profits?</h2>
<p>Academic publishers certainly bear costs. They pay for professional editors and programmers, they manage the peer review process, they market their journals and so on. However, their revenues far exceed these costs and are among the highest of any companies in the world. Elsevier’s profit margin is reported to be <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kittyknowles/2018/06/13/blockchain-science-iris-ai-project-aiur-elsevier-academic-journal-london-tech-week-cogx/">nearly 40 percent</a> far higher than even Apple at <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/profit-margins">around 23 percent</a>.</p>
<p>Where social media platforms like Facebook profit from – and indeed, would not exist without – the content generated by users, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/04/the-guardian-view-on-academic-publishing-disastrous-capitalism">the parallel is true</a> for academic journals. Companies like Elsevier receive articles from university faculty and other researchers for free, summarizing research that was often publicly funded by government grants. Then other faculty and researchers serve on their editorial boards and peer-review those articles for free or a nominal fee. Finally the company publishes them in journals available only behind a paywall.</p>
<p>And there’s the rub: the paywall. The great promise of the internet was that it would make <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free">knowledge more freely and easily accessible</a>. In the world of academic research – where new discoveries are made and new knowledge is born – the hope 20 years ago was that the advent of online platforms would make research articles universally available. It would also bring down the cost of publishing scholarly journals and, consequently, begin to reduce the multi-million dollar subscription costs borne by universities and other research institutions.</p>
<p>Instead, articles are not readily available to everyone, subscription costs have continued to rise, and subscribers’ rights have eroded, including what they can do with articles they buy and their ability to provide long-term access to them.</p>
<p>What happened to sharing knowledge with the people who need it, funded or created it?</p>
<h2>A model for the digital age</h2>
<p>Maybe it’s time to just blow up the whole system and start over. But the system of sharing knowledge that scholars have today evolved over hundreds of years and contains certain qualities – peer review of accuracy, editorial judgment, long-term preservation – that still matter deeply.</p>
<p>While research products – books, journals and articles – would definitely benefit from modernization in the digital age, we at the University of California are focusing on fixing the business model first. Paywalls and online subscriptions may make sense in other parts of the media ecosystem, but it’s not a good model for academic publishing, where authors and reviewers are paid by universities and research grants (with public money) rather than by publishers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The open access movement would get rid of paywalls and let anyone read anything for free.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/set-ornate-gates-heaven-opening-under-158678495">Inked Pixels/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fortunately, the academy has another option for a publishing business model that can better achieve the promise of the internet: open access. In that model, authors, or their funders or institutions, pay the publisher a fee to cover the cost of publishing each article. In exchange, the articles are made freely available for everyone to read online, anywhere, anytime. Article quality is preserved by the same unpaid peer-review system. Libraries at research institutions could shift their payments from licenses and subscriptions to publication fees for their affiliated authors. The cost is theoretically the same, but everyone can read everything for free. </p>
<p>The University of California has long <a href="https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access-at-uc/open-access-policy/">supported the ideals of open access</a> – allowing everyone in the world to access the knowledge created by its faculty and researchers, for the benefit of all. In fact, since open access became an option for publishing, more and more UC authors, following the <a href="https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4375">global trend</a>, have independently chosen to pay their publisher a fee in order to make their article freely available to the public.</p>
<p>But those fees come on top of the <a href="https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-uc-split-publishing-giant-elsevier">tens of millions of dollars</a> that the university is already paying the publisher for access to the same articles. This “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-science-of-the-tax-dollar-double-dip-1459379449">double dipping</a>” by publishers was the final straw in UC’s resolve to change the system.</p>
<p>Several years ago, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_Sp-B_0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I worked</a> with colleagues within the University of California and other academic research institutions to study the <a href="https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/icis/uc-pay-it-forward-project/">costs of publishing with this open access model</a>. We found that, while costs would shift and more research-grant funds may need to be applied to publishing fees, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284316481">overall it would be affordable</a> for research universities, at least in North America where libraries are relatively well funded. With these results, UC could see a way out of its dilemma. </p>
<p>When UC’s contract with Elsevier was up for renewal, we resolved to put our ideas into practice and pursue the twin goals of increasing open access to UC’s research while containing or lowering our journal-related costs – and finally achieving something of the promise of the internet. While I was not on UC’s negotiating team, I was among the group of faculty and library leaders that worked closely with them and decided to take this step.</p>
<p>Our goals are ambitious and their implementation will be complex. Changing a system this intricate is akin to modernizing the FAA’s air traffic control system – a million planes are in the air at any moment and changing anything can have serious consequences elsewhere. But we have to start somewhere or the whole system is at risk, and UC has placed its bet. We join a <a href="https://oa2020.org/mission/#eois">global movement</a> that began in Europe and is expanding around the world, and we believe we’re now on the path to a better system for sharing knowledge in the 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112941/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>MacKenzie Smith receives funding from Mellon Foundation, IMLS, NSF. </span></em></p>
Digital publishing hasn’t resulted in the free and open access to information many envisioned. Universities are increasingly fed up with a system they see as charging them for their own scholars’ labor.
MacKenzie Smith, University Librarian and Vice Provost for Digital Scholarship, University of California, Davis
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/110131
2019-02-04T11:40:05Z
2019-02-04T11:40:05Z
The real problem with posting about your kids online
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255862/original/file-20190128-108367-1f84g22.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=471%2C431%2C2897%2C1603&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Say cheese so I can show all my friends how cute you are – and unwittingly show corporations your age, race and gender!'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/mother-son-posing-selfie-on-white-1105410509?src=oEd5Q9nhIGnL07HSfbVI9w-2-34">Fancy Studio/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/01/03/my-daughter-asked-me-stop-writing-about-motherhood-heres-why-i-cant-do-that/">recent essay</a> published in The Washington Post, a mother explained her decision to continue writing essays and blog posts about her daughter even after the girl had protested. The woman said that while she felt bad, she was “not done exploring my motherhood in my writing.”</p>
<p>One commentor <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/01/mommy-blogging-christie-tate-generation-gap.html">criticized</a> parents like the essay’s author for having “turned their family’s daily dramas into content.” Another <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/things-you-should-not-post-on-social-media-children-influencers-mommy-bloggers">said</a> the woman’s essay surfaces a “nagging – and loaded – question among parents in the age of Instagram. … Are our present social media posts going to mortify our kids in the future?”</p>
<p>These questions are valid, and I’ve <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2014/11/baby-picture-posting-etiquette-parents-cant-control-their-childrens-digital-footprints.html">published research</a> about the need for parents to steward their children’s privacy online. I agree with critics who accuse the woman of being tone-deaf to her child’s concerns. </p>
<p>However, I believe the broader criticism of parents and their social media behavior is misplaced.</p>
<p>I’ve been studying this topic – sometimes called <a href="https://theconversation.com/too-much-information-more-than-80-of-children-have-an-online-presence-by-the-age-of-two-83251">“sharenting”</a> – <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9XBNcA8AAAAJ&hl=en">for six years</a>. Too often, public discourse pits parents against children. Parents, critics say, are being narcissistic by blogging about their kids and posting their photos on Facebook and Instagram; they’re willing to invade their child’s privacy in exchange for attention and likes from their friends. So the story goes. </p>
<p>But this parent-versus-child framing obscures a bigger problem: the economic logic of social media platforms that exploit users for profit.</p>
<h2>A natural impulse</h2>
<p>Despite the heated responses sharenting can evoke, it’s nothing new. For centuries, people have recorded daily minutiae in diaries and scrapbooks. Products like baby books explicitly invite parents to log information about their children. </p>
<p>Communication scholar Lee Humphreys sees the impulse parents feel to document and share information about their kids as a form of “<a href="http://blogs.cornell.edu/humphreys/the-qualified-self/">media accounting</a>.” Throughout their lives, people occupy many roles – child, spouse, parent, friend, colleague. Humphreys argues that one way to perform these roles is by documenting them. Looking back on these traces can help people shape a sense of self, construct a coherent life story and feel connected to others.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255868/original/file-20190128-108358-9gpw14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255868/original/file-20190128-108358-9gpw14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255868/original/file-20190128-108358-9gpw14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255868/original/file-20190128-108358-9gpw14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255868/original/file-20190128-108358-9gpw14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255868/original/file-20190128-108358-9gpw14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255868/original/file-20190128-108358-9gpw14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">To share photographs of your kids is to be human.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pxhere.com/en/photo/908990">pxhere</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If you’ve ever thumbed through an old yearbook, a grandparent’s travel photos or a historical figure’s diary, you’ve looked at media accounts. Same if you’ve scrolled through a blog’s archives or your Facebook Timeline. Social media may be fairly new, but the act of recording everyday life is age-old.</p>
<p>Writing about family life online can <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/67380/">help parents</a> express themselves creatively and connect with other parents. Media accounting can also help people make sense of their identities as a parent. Being a parent – and seeing yourself as a parent – involves talking and writing about your children. </p>
<h2>Surveillance capitalism enters the equation</h2>
<p>Framed this way, it becomes clear why telling parents to stop blogging or posting about their children online is a challenging proposition. Media accounting is central to people’s social lives, and it’s been happening for a long time.</p>
<p>But the fact that parents are doing it on blogs and social media does raise unique issues. Family album photos don’t transmit digital data and become visible only when you decide to show them to someone, whereas those Instagram pictures sit on servers owned by Facebook and are visible to anyone who scrolls through your profile.</p>
<p>Children’s opinions matter, and if a child vehemently opposes sharenting, parents could always consider using paper diaries or physical photo albums. Parents can take <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2017/05/17/sharenting-in-whose-interests/">other steps</a> to manage their children’s privacy, such as using a pseudonym for their child and giving their child veto power over content.</p>
<p>However, debates about privacy and sharenting often focus on a parent’s followers or friends seeing the content. They tend to ignore what corporations do with that data. Social media didn’t cause parents to engage in media accounting, but it has profoundly altered the terms by which they do so. </p>
<p>Unlike the diary entries, photo albums and home videos of yore, blog posts, Instagram photos and YouTube videos reside in platforms owned by corporations and can be made visible to far more people than most parents realize or expect.</p>
<p>The problem is less about parents and more about social media platforms. These platforms increasingly operate according to an economic logic that business scholar Shoshana Zuboff calls “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism-google-facebook">surveillance capitalism</a>.” They produce goods and services designed to extract enormous amounts of data from individuals, mine that data for patterns, and use it to influence people’s behavior.</p>
<p>It doesn’t have to be this way. <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/qualified-self">In her book</a> on media accounting, Humphreys mentions that in its early days, Kodak exclusively developed its customers’ film. </p>
<p>“While Kodak processed millions of customer photos,” Humphreys writes, “they did not share that information with advertisers in exchange for access to their customers. … In other words, Kodak did not commodify its users.” </p>
<p>Social media platforms do just that. Sharenting tells them what your child looks like, when she was born, what she likes to do, when she hits her developmental milestones and more. These platforms pursue a business model predicated on knowing users – perhaps more deeply than they know themselves – and using that knowledge to their own ends. </p>
<p>Against this backdrop, the concern is less that parents talk about their kids online and more that the places where parents spend time online are owned by companies who want access to every corner of our lives.</p>
<p>In my view, that’s the privacy problem that needs fixing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Priya Kumar is affiliated with Ranking Digital Rights, a nonprofit research initiative that sets human rights standards for technology companies.</span></em></p>
Parents have engaged in forms of ‘sharenting’ for generations. The digital age has complicated things, but while critics make some valid points, they’re not seeing the forest for the trees.
Priya C. Kumar, PhD Candidate in Information Studies, University of Maryland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105583
2018-10-26T12:10:34Z
2018-10-26T12:10:34Z
The cost of accessing academic research is way too high. This must change
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242028/original/file-20181024-48697-1b6kk5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's huge societal value in opening up access to knowledge resources.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maksim Kabakou/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the last week of October each year, libraries and open access activists around the world celebrate <a href="http://www.openaccessweek.org/">Open Access Week</a>. It’s a week dedicated to increasing access to knowledge resources hosted by libraries, such as online journals and academic books.</p>
<p>Open access is very beneficial to society because research and knowledge is shared widely at no cost to the user. Ordinarily, a great deal of research and information is locked behind paywalls, where it’s only accessible at a high fee. Open Access gives users access to material under an open licence. This means that copyright permission need not be obtained each time material is used or reused. </p>
<p>Globally, the scholarly publishing system is in dire need of financial and legislative change. To address this issue, the Max Planck Digital Library in Munich has <a href="https://pure.mpg.de/pubman/faces/ViewItemOverviewPage.jsp?itemId=item_2148961">produced a White Paper</a> that aims to completely reform the business model of academic journals. The paper proposes that individual countries change the underlying legal and financial structures that challenge the high subscription fees levied by publishers.</p>
<p>Could a country like South Africa manage the changes as advocated in the White Paper? Getting new financial models going will be difficult because of the complexity of the industry’s internal workings and a shortage of data on actual expenditure. However, the country is making headway on the legal framework front. </p>
<h2>What’s missing</h2>
<p>There’s been a <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2016/02/16/what-should-we-make-of-secret-open-access-deals/">marked shift</a> over the past five decades in how academic publishers do business. Initially, every subscriber paid the same price. Then some price discrimination was introduced: libraries pay more than individuals; and consumers are asked to pay a unique price based on how much they can afford.</p>
<p>But the system isn’t transparent because publishers require institutions to sign non-disclosure agreements about payment. This is done to protect business models and pricing structures. It means there’s no transparency and we simply don’t know how much publicly funded universities <a href="https://f1000research.com/articles/3-274/v3">are paying</a> to commercial publishing houses.</p>
<p>To get a snapshot of what’s being paid in South Africa one of us did a quick survey to establish what the estimated expenditure for resources and copyright would be for South African public universities. We <a href="https://www.chelsa.ac.za">asked libraries</a> to provide this information for 2018. </p>
<p>Fifteen institutions responded to a request for estimated expenditure in 2018 relating to e-resources, book budgets and copyright fees. </p>
<p>It emerged that 15 of the country’s 26 higher education libraries will pay just over R1 billion (USD$69 million) in 2018 towards electronic and printed resources. This amount increases by 5% per year on average with the exchange rate of these international resources adding to the expense. In addition, 14 of the 15 mentioned institutions will pay about R31 million (USD$1.8 million) to the <a href="https://www.dalro.co.za/">Dramatic, Artistic and Literary Rights Organisation</a> for copyright licences on prescribed works. </p>
<p>The fact that knowledge resources expenditure for research and teaching purposes in the South African higher education sector is runs into the billions should be an issue of major concern. But the fact that there’s little collated information available makes it difficult for the tertiary sector to lobby for national licences, fee reductions, and sector reform. </p>
<p>Since an estimated 80% of the collections in academic libraries are purchased from international publishers, the majority of money flows out of the country to publishers in developed countries. Moreover a great deal of research produced locally is published internationally and forms part of the cohort of knowledge that is given to international publishers for free. These publishers legally become the copyright holders through publishing agreements and sell back information to libraries and institutions. </p>
<p>Getting new financial models going will be difficult. This is because there’s no national initiative tracking payments that universities and research councils make to national and international publishers for books, electronic resources, interlibrary loans, copyright fees, and other costs. </p>
<p>This is a problem because journal publishers <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">raise about 75%</a>
of their revenue from library subscriptions. And the academic knowledge contained in those journals is estimated to be worth billions of dollars.</p>
<p>This knowledge is <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">controlled by five monopoly publishers</a>, despite the fact that the research itself is mostly funded by governments, and paid for by the taxpayer. </p>
<h2>Legislative shifts</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://libguides.wits.ac.za/Copyright_and_Related_Issues/Version3_2018">Copyright Amendment Bill</a> offers some hope for change. The current Act is restrictive and allows only for limited exceptions.</p>
<p>Should the bill pass, it will be the first time in four decades that South Africa has taken steps to update its copyright law. This will align legislation to the digital era with improvements relating to limitations, exceptions, and fair use. </p>
<p>The new law will facilitate access to academic knowledge in the educational and library sectors through fair use provisions. It also introduces a generous number of educational exceptions to the exclusive rights of authors and creators. </p>
<p>These legal flexibilities will help university libraries service delivery, disseminate information, and preserve their collections. The bill has received <a href="https://libguides.wits.ac.za/Copyright_and_Related_Issues/SA_Copyright_Amendment_Bill_2017">overwhelming support</a> from the library, archival, and higher education sectors both nationally and internationally. </p>
<p>This is important because South Africa is party to various international intellectual property agreements that require the same standards to be applied in member countries. </p>
<p>The Amendment Bill, if passed, will allow educators to improve their range of teaching resources. And, finally, it’s hoped that access and resource-sharing will improve. This can happen through a more balanced copyright law, the creation of new open access works, and lower subscription fees. This will happen if national site-licences are negotiated, and fair use is enforced.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105583/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Globally, the scholarly publishing system is in dire need of financial and legislative change.
Leti Kleyn, Research Fellow, University of Pretoria
Denise Rosemary Nicholson, Scholarly Communications Librarian, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97705
2018-06-18T13:39:12Z
2018-06-18T13:39:12Z
Better standards and guidelines can bolster research literature reviews
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222207/original/file-20180607-137291-a6x52d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Literature reviews can help to synthesise a lot of information, but there are pitfalls.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eiko Tsuchiya/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is an enormous amount of academic research in the world. And the number is growing all the time. The volume of research articles <a href="http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/05/global-scientific-output-doubles-every-nine-years.html">doubles every nine years</a>. In 2010 there were already <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1087/20100308">estimated</a> to be more than 50 million research papers on pretty much every subject imaginable (and some we’d struggle to imagine).</p>
<p>In any one topic area there’s often so much research that people wanting to rapidly understand a subject and make a decision for policy or practice cannot read up on it comprehensively. </p>
<p>This is one of the main reasons that researchers write literature reviews. They provide a summary of a complex, large evidence base in a way that can be quickly and easily understood. </p>
<p>Some literature reviews act as introductions to a well understood topic. Some aim to summarise key theories that explain a phenomenon. Some try to comprehensively map what research has been done and how. Others aim to accurately and precisely summarise the impact of one factor on a specific outcome. </p>
<p>In many cases reviewers try to be comprehensive or transparent so their work could be repeated by other scientists and their conclusions can be verified relative to the evidence they found. </p>
<p>But there’s a problem. Reviewers might reach a conclusion that uses unreliable evidence or summarises the evidence in a way that isn’t as reliable as it could be. This might cause policymakers or practitioners to make an expensive or damaging decision.</p>
<p>One well known example is a <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM196707272770405">review published in 1967</a> that suggested fat and cholesterol – not sugar – were the most important dietary factors in causing coronary heart disease. The review was funded by the sugar industry, which also contributed to the planning and conduct of the review, even though no details of this were reported. </p>
<p><a href="https://jamanetwork-com.ezp.sub.su.se/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2548255">A detailed recent analysis</a> showed the review used unreliable and biased methods to claim that research linking sugar to coronary heart disease was invalid. The original finding benefited the sugar industry, but it may have caused significant damage to human health because of ill-informed policy.</p>
<p>This is why researchers should try to make their literature reviews as reliable as possible. They can do this by following <a href="http://www.environmentalevidence.org/information-for-authors">guidelines and standards</a> when they plan and conduct their reviews. Another approach is to adhere to established standards in how to report what they did and found in detail. </p>
<p>That’s what prompted myself and several colleagues to design a new set of rigorous standards specifically for reviews that do not fit the well defined field of health care.</p>
<p>Such standards help review authors to remember to report all of their methods in sufficient detail to be repeatable and verifiable. In the “real world”, this means that policymakers and practitioners can make decisions based on the best available evidence, helping to ensure their actions are likely to succeed.</p>
<h2>Transparency issues</h2>
<p>The methods that a literature review employs – or doesn’t – affect how reliable the review is as a whole. If a review skips an important step, the review conclusions may not be correct. </p>
<p>Generally speaking, two key factors affect the reliability of a literature review.</p>
<p>One is the quality and appropriateness of the studies going into the review. The other is the quality and appropriateness of the methods used to review the evidence. There’s a whole suite of carefully designed literature review methods to ensure these factors are addressed.</p>
<p>In describing their methods, authors should outline the system they studied, how they measured what they were interested in and how they calculated their summary data in detail so that someone could repeat exactly what they did. This allows the reader to be sure that the author has acted appropriately with the available information.</p>
<p>Instead, literature reviews very often lack even basic transparency regarding how they were undertaken and therefore cannot be repeated or checked for errors. Improving transparency shouldn’t be an onerous task: reviewers will know exactly what they have done and will probably have computerised records that outline their process and methodology.</p>
<h2>Implementing new standards</h2>
<p>There are some established, tested standards to help review authors be more transparent and reliable. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses, or <a href="http://prisma-statement.org/">PRISMA</a>, is commonly used in the field of health care. </p>
<p>Recently, I worked together with Biljana Macura (Stockholm Environment Institute), Paul Whaley (Lancaster Environment Centre), and Andrew Pullin (Bangor University) to develop a new set of standards. It’s called <a href="https://www.roses-reporting.com/">RepOrting standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses</a>, or ROSES and was produced specifically for those reviews that do not fit the well-defined field of health care. </p>
<p>These standards help review authors to make sure they have included all relevant information in their review reports. They also help authors to design their reviews from the start, and then help journal peer reviewers and editors to better understand how well the review was conducted. </p>
<p>Several journals, including <a href="https://environmentalevidencejournal.biomedcentral.com/">Environmental Evidence</a>, <a href="https://www.journals.elsevier.com/environment-international/">Environment International</a> and <a href="https://www.nature.com/nclimate/">Nature Climate Change</a> have begun to integrate ROSES forms into their publishing work flows. Their hope is that review authors will produce and submit more transparent and reliable reviews. </p>
<p>By widely adopting these reporting standards across academic journals, the research community can become more aware of the importance of transparency and clarity in how literature reviews are described. </p>
<p>This can help decision makers to identify when a review is reliable or not, and focus on the most reliable evidence when they are making decisions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97705/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neal Haddaway receives funding from the Swedish research council Formas. He is affiliated with the Stockholm Environment Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. </span></em></p>
Researchers should try to make their literature reviews as reliable as possible and adhere to strict standards.
Neal Robert Haddaway, Research Fellow, Africa Centre for Evidence, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/86058
2017-10-27T06:01:34Z
2017-10-27T06:01:34Z
Not just available, but also useful: we must keep pushing to improve open access to research
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191936/original/file-20171026-28083-18v0f4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=71%2C83%2C4262%2C4297&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There is a huge appetite for science and other research - so why aren't more academic publications truly 'open access'? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hand-opens-room-door-book-library-434135344?src=keBI2ko-ELJY6YgFZq0TGQ-1-98">from www.shutterstock.com </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Stephen Hawking’s PhD thesis became freely available online this week, and promptly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/23/stephen-hawkings-expanding-universes-thesis-breaks-the-internet">crashed a server</a> following massive public interest. </p>
<p>It’s a clear example of the public appetite for open access scientific information, and of the potential reach when articles are available. </p>
<p>But most of the world’s academic literature is still only legally available behind a paywall. </p>
<p>It’s time we brought the idea of open access publication truly to fruition: not just so more people can read research, but also to improve the application of academic work to address issues such as health inequity and poverty. </p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-insights-of-the-large-hadron-collider-are-being-made-open-to-everyone-70283">How the insights of the Large Hadron Collider are being made open to everyone</a></em> </p>
<hr>
<h2>A brief history of open access</h2>
<p>The example of Hawking’s thesis backs up what we know already from the numbers: work that is freely available is at least <a href="http://blogs.nature.com/ofschemesandmemes/2015/10/21/open-access-is-thriving-at-nature-publishing-group">two to three times more likely to be read</a> than closed access articles, and is <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.23687/full">47% more likely to be cited</a> in Wikipedia. </p>
<p>Defined simply, “open access” publications refer to work that is freely available, licensed in way that allows broad use and reuse, and which is permanently archived in a public repository or open publishing platform. </p>
<p>This week marks the tenth anniversary of <a href="http://www.openaccessweek.org/">Open Access Week</a>, and 15 years since the <a href="http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/">Budapest Open Access initiative</a> (one of the first definitions of open access) was launched. </p>
<p>In the past 15 years open access has morphed somewhat. It started as a fairly niche proposal, with small numbers of open access publishers in operation and <em>ad hoc</em> networks of repositories. Now it’s a truly global movement. Thousands of open access articles are freely available either through publishing in <a href="https://doaj.org/">open access journals</a>, or via the many open <a href="https://www.coar-repositories.org/">institutional repositories</a> globally. </p>
<p>There were <a href="http://www.caul.edu.au/caul-programs/caul-statistics/statistics-summary-current">32.4 million accesses</a> of content from Australian academic research repositories in 2014. But compared with the pace of change in the online newspaper or music industry, the adoption of open access to academic research is slow. Why? A few factors come into play. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/your-questions-answered-on-open-access-49284">Your Questions Answered on open access</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Commercial agendas</h2>
<p>One fundamental problem is that universities pay vast sums of money to support academic publishing through subscriptions. Most of this goes into the bank accounts of a <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">small number of commercial publishers</a> who have a powerful interest in not supporting wholesale change in business models.</p>
<p>This handful of publishers has been systematically <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">buying up</a> smaller publishers and journals, creating an oligopoly. They have now moved into ways of collecting revenues for open access via article processing charges (<a href="http://blogs.egu.eu/network/palaeoblog/files/2015/02/OpenGlossary1.pdf">APCs</a>) - payment for publication once a research paper has passed peer review. </p>
<p>APCs are levied by many, but not all, open access publishers (including not-for-profit ones). However, the highest APCs are seen at commercial publishers especially in their journals that are not fully open access – so-called <a href="https://wellcome.ac.uk/funding/managing-grant/wellcome-and-coaf-open-access-spend-2015-16">hybrid journals</a>, where costs can be up to US$5,000 per article.</p>
<h2>Different definitions</h2>
<p>Different <a href="https://peerj.com/preprints/3119/">descriptors of open access</a> can be confusing. </p>
<p>Research made open in a journal is referred to as “gold”, and in an institutional repository it is “green”. Work made open illegally has been called “black”. But open access is also often used as a synonym for just free access of a static version of a paper PDF, with no right to reuse. </p>
<p>True open access takes the form of a fully digitally interoperable article, electronically marked with rich metadata that indicates who wrote it, and with a licence that allows use and reuse. Such papers can be used in teaching, included seamlessly in other academic work, and much more – all with clear attribution and credit to the original author.</p>
<p>These ideas have been consolidated into the “F.A.I.R.” principles to describe research that is findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. A <a href="https://www.fair-access.net.au/">statement</a> laying out these principles for Australian research was developed last year.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bored-reading-science-lets-change-how-scientists-write-81688">Bored reading science? Let's change how scientists write</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Leadership matters</h2>
<p>The importance of strong leadership in pushing the case for open access is evident in the Netherlands. Dutch science minister Sander Dekker <a href="https://www.government.nl/documents/publications/2016/05/26/opiniestuk-van-staatssecretaris-dekker-over-open-access">has taken on open access as a cause</a>, which has resulted in a <a href="https://www.openscience.nl/en/open-science">national plan for open science</a>.</p>
<p>In Australia, open access policies are predominantly repository-based at the two big funders: the <a href="http://www.arc.gov.au/">Australian Research Council</a> and the <a href="https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/">National Health and Medical Research Council</a>. </p>
<p>An overall national position would be immensely valuable. Positive first steps were made towards this when the Productivity Commission made a recommendation for national and states open access policies in the 2016 <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/intellectual-property">Inquiry into Intellectual Policy Arrangements</a>. In August 2017 the federal government <a href="https://www.industry.gov.au/innovation/Intellectual-Property/Documents/Government-Response-to-PC-Inquiry-into-IP.pdf">accepted this recommendation</a>.</p>
<h2>A vision and a pathway</h2>
<p>Even if all the above issues were dealt with, open access will continue to advance piecemeal, unless we have a long-term clarification of what we’re aiming for and how to get there. </p>
<p>It’s important to note that increasing open access is <a href="https://openinorder.to/">not the end goal in itself</a>. We need open access in order to fulfil other urgent priorities such as maximising collaboration, improving global health, and reducing poverty, and this is the theme of this year’s open access week.</p>
<p>It’s worth noting here that caution may be needed around open access to sensitive data, for example relating to patients or <a href="https://theconversation.com/publish-and-dont-perish-how-to-keep-rare-species-data-away-from-poachers-80239">threatened species</a>, or some commercial work. </p>
<p>An effective open access scholarly ecosystem requires a collaborative, long-term commitment to policies and infrastructure by key players. Examples of how this can take place were detailed this week by a <a href="https://about.hindawi.com/opinion/a-radically-open-approach-to-developing-infrastructure-for-open-science/">publisher</a> and COAR, the global <a href="https://www.coar-repositories.org/news-media/beyond-open-access-five-prerequisites-for-a-sustainable-knowledge-commons/">repository association</a>. </p>
<p>In 2017 it’s high time to look beyond narrow definitions of open access. Let’s focus on infrastructure planning and building for the next decade, where research outputs are available not just for reading, but also for effective application.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Virginia Barbour is the Director of the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group, which advocates for open access. </span></em></p>
Could the real open access please stand up? If more research was published according to true open access principles, we’d see better application of evidence for everyone’s benefit.
Virginia Barbour, Director, Australasian Open Access Strategy Group, Queensland University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/72130
2017-02-08T09:50:53Z
2017-02-08T09:50:53Z
Why you should care about the rise of fake journals and the bad science they publish
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155838/original/image-20170207-30928-4lj1sk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many academics are falling prey to predatory journals.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pexels.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are more academic publishers out there than ever before. In 2014 there was an <a href="http://www.cdnsciencepub.com/blog/21st-century-science-overload.aspx">estimated 28,100 active scientific journals</a>, but while the large majority of these journals are highly respected, there has also been a sharp rise in the number of predatory journals. </p>
<p>These are journals without a readership, that cannot really be thought of as being part of the scientific archive as they have done away with the “peer review” process. This is a process where scientists <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-peer-review-27797">evaluate the quality of other scientists’</a> work. By doing this, they aim to ensure the work is rigorous, coherent, uses past research and adds to what we already know.</p>
<p>Predatory journals often don’t even bother to read the submitted paper, but just accept it. It might be an extreme example but <a href="http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/journal-accepts-paper-reading-get-me-your-fucking-mailing-list/">one paper was accepted</a> that repeated the phrase “Get me off your f**king mailing list” 863 times. </p>
<p>Fake journals make their money by charging a publication fee to the authors – anything from £100 to £1,000 a paper. They separate researchers from their money with little, or nothing, in return. And exist to make a profit without having any commitment to the scientific process – even plagiarising papers that have already been published. </p>
<p>Publishing in these journals, can not only have a negative effect on an academic’s career, but it can also mean that the academic community, as well as the general public, could be duped – with any old results being printed. And if this work is then cited elsewhere, then the non-reviewed research could propagate even further, and might be accepted as fact.</p>
<h2>Seemingly legitimate</h2>
<p>As somebody experienced in scientific publishing – with over 200 published peer reviewed articles, as well as being an editor-in-chief of one journal and an associate editor of nine others, I have seen first hand many of the techniques predatory journals use to make themselves look credible. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12024-016-9771-3">This includes using logos</a> that are similar to more established journals, using recognised academics on the advisory or editorial board (often without their knowledge) and claiming high impact factors. </p>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2016.10.008">They also tend to actively promote themselves</a> through email campaigns, have nonexistent peer review which speeds up time to publication and also have affordable publication fees when compared to legitimate open access journals.</p>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12024-016-9771-3">Roger Byard</a> from the University of Adelaide in Australia has investigated the subject and found that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There were 18 [predatory journals] in 2011, 477 at the end of 2014, and 923 in 2016 with the majority of those charging article publishing charges. The journals were found to be located in India, along with Nigeria, Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, and Pakistan.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In fact, it has been suggested that there are more “British Journal of …” based in Pakistan than there are in the United Kingdom. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l0_p0PjT_eo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>And things could be about to get even worse because up until recently, the scientific community used to have a gatekeeper that maintained a list of predatory journals – but it has now <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-will-keep-predatory-science-journals-at-bay-now-that-jeffrey-bealls-blog-is-gone-71613">disappeared</a>. </p>
<h2>The blacklist</h2>
<p>Academic Jeffrey Beall ran <a href="https://scholarlyoa.com/">a website</a>, which was a “critical analysis of scholarly open-access publishing”. But if you go to this site now, you will see that it is empty. He also stopped <a href="https://twitter.com/Jeffrey_Beall">tweeting</a> earlier this year. As yet, he has not said why he stopped. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wBwgj5lc0dE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Jeffrey Beall in conversation about predatory journals.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The website that was maintained by Beall listed more than 900 predatory journals. And while an <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170112125427/https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/">archive of Beall’s website</a> is available, it will no longer be updated. </p>
<p>There are many people in the scientific community that will mourn the passing of this resource and many would argue that there is a need for a service such as this in order to to monitor scientific integrity. </p>
<p>Until then, the scientific community needs to be vigilant against predatory journals. They add no value to the scientific record, and do not add anything to the CV of a scientist – it may even harm it. They are also taking money which could be used for more productive research.</p>
<p>Scientists should be encouraged to check before submitting to a journal that it is legitimate, and if a paper gets accepted very quickly and the journal asks for money the alarm bells should start ringing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72130/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Graham Kendall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Everything you need to know about predatory publishers.
Graham Kendall, Professor of Computer Science and Provost/CEO/PVC, University of Nottingham
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/60807
2016-06-14T15:21:23Z
2016-06-14T15:21:23Z
Why it is crucial to locate the ‘African’ in African Studies
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126117/original/image-20160610-29209-2ha24m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What is the best way to return ‘Africa’ to African Studies?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Africans have always produced knowledge about Africa. Their contributions have in some cases been “<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/772758-there-s-really-no-such-thing-as-the-voiceless-there-are">preferably unheard</a>”. In others they’ve been “<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/772758-there-s-really-no-such-thing-as-the-voiceless-there-are">deliberately silenced</a>”.</p>
<p>So what constitutes an “African” in the heyday of multiple citizenships and transnational flows of goods, ideas and people? In the first instance, an “African” has birthplace or bloodline ties to Africa. More importantly, an “African” has a psychological attachment to the continent. He or she is politically committed to its transformation.</p>
<p>I am approaching this question as a scholar of African Studies. The field’s purpose is to constantly interrogate epistemological, methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of Africa. Its role is to insert Africa and its people at the centre of that interrogation as subjects rather than objects. It is worth examining whether or not scholars of Africa have lived up to this mandate.</p>
<h2>Decolonising the space</h2>
<p>African Studies remains a colonised space rife with misrepresentation, homogenisation and essentialising about Africa. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2801594?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Early writings and teachings</a> about Africa are based on colonial expeditions, missionary exploits and anthropological ethnographies. Contemporary scholarship is dominated by some non-Africans who have strategically positioned themselves as the authoritative voices in a 21st century scramble for influence – as if Africa were a tabula rasa with no intellectuals or knowledge production of its own. This form of erasure is problematic and dangerous.</p>
<p>There have long been active demands to decolonise African Studies. The African Studies Association first invited Africa-based scholars in large numbers to its 1969 meeting in Montreal, Canada. Black American Africa scholars seized the platform. They <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00083968.1983.10803806">argued</a> that African Studies was firmly cemented on a foundation of institutional racism. Some years later, at the association’s meeting in Seattle, in the US, Nigerian scholar Oyekan Owomoyela <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9015951&fileId=S0002020600009653">questioned</a> whether or not African Studies had lived up to its ideal of producing and promoting “knowledge about Africa for purposes other than its exploitation”.</p>
<p>More recently, in her keynote lecture at the association’s 2006 meeting in San Francisco, in the US, Nigerian feminist scholar Amina Mama <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/213931/summary">demonstrated</a> that producing knowledge about Africa is an ethical dilemma as much as an epistemological consideration. This is true for Africans and non-Africans alike. She asked:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Can we develop the study of Africa so that it is more respectful toward the lives and struggles of African people and to their agendas?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She argued that Africanists in America were complicit in advancing a colonial patriarchal order by dismissing African scholars’ intellectual agendas. She has challenged the “externalisation of Africa scholarship”, which uncritically relies on externally generated concepts and methods. These transform highly complex processes into overly simplistic, homogenous tropes about Africa.</p>
<h2>Structural inequities</h2>
<p>Mama and others have shown that publishing about Africa is punctuated with structural inequities in which Africans are often dissed and dismissed. A recent <a href="http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/05/14/afraf.adw009">scholarly article</a> tracked the general decline in the number of articles published by Africa-based scholars in two top African Studies journals between 1993 and 2013. The authors illustrate that while article submissions from Africa-based scholars have increased for both <em>African Affairs</em> and the <em>Journal of Modern African Studies</em>, acceptance rates have declined significantly. Both of these journals are based in Europe.</p>
<p>There has been a wave in recent years of African-led publications. These include <a href="http://agi.ac.za/feminist-africa"><em>Feminist Africa</em></a>, which Mama founded, and the <a href="http://jwah.msu.edu/"><em>Journal of West African History</em></a>, which was started by author and academic <a href="http://history.msu.edu/people/faculty/nwando-achebe/">Nwando Achebe</a>. The Dakar, Senegal-based <a href="http://www.codesria.org/">Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa</a> also publishes extensively about Africa by Africans.</p>
<p>But this increase in alternative platforms does not exempt non-African publishers, editors and reviewers from addressing glaring citation and publication gaps in the field.</p>
<p>In light of these developments, it is timely and essential to ask where the “African” is in African Studies.</p>
<p>I am a Liberian who has studied Africa intently in North America, Africa and Europe. I’ve discovered that the extent to which the “African” in African Studies is concealed or revealed depends entirely on <em>who</em> writes or teaches about Africa. It also depends on <em>where</em>, <em>how</em> and <em>what</em> they write or teach about Africa. Essentially, it depends on the knowledge producer’s politics, the ethos of the institution they represent, the pedagogy and methods they employ, and on their level of commitment to the continent and its people.</p>
<p>Foregrounding the discussion about where the “African” is in African Studies as an ethical dilemma raises the stakes. It forces African and non-African scholars of Africa alike to remain self-reflexive, humble and accountable to the continent and its people.</p>
<h2>A more radical approach</h2>
<p>Perhaps, as Owomoyela has <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9015951&fileId=S0002020600009653">suggested</a>, a more radical approach to “getting ‘Africa’ back into African Studies is to get African Studies back to Africa”. </p>
<p>This can be achieved in several ways:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>A canon must be established of scholarly literature produced by Africans. It must include male and female scholars writing in multiple languages across the social sciences, natural sciences and humanities. This would be mandatory reading for all African Studies courses across the globe. </p></li>
<li><p>Non-African scholars must defer to authoritative voices and scholars on the continent. They can do so by citing them regularly and actively acknowledging their contributions to the field.</p></li>
<li><p>Open-access publishing on Africa must become the norm rather than the exception. This will allow Africa-based scholars to access, engage with and critique knowledge produced about the continent.</p></li>
<li><p>More African scholars – based in Africa and elsewhere – must serve on the editorial boards of top-rated African Studies journals, as both editors and reviewers. In this way they’ll be able to influence these publications’ research agendas.</p></li>
<li><p>African universities must value, support and validate good quality scholarship about Africa. Staff need research funding and living wages. They need sabbatical time to write and publish. They need paid subscriptions to relevant journals.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These measures and more like them will compel us to effectively re-insert the “African” in African Studies. Not as a token gesture, but as an affirmation that Africans have always produced knowledge about their continent.</p>
<p><em>A longer version of this article was <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2016/06/07/where-is-the-african-in-african-studies/">originally published</a> in African Arguments.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60807/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robtel Neajai Pailey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
African Studies remains a colonised space rife with misrepresentation, homogenisation and essentialising about Africa.
Robtel Neajai Pailey, Senior Researcher, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/59871
2016-06-02T01:04:41Z
2016-06-02T01:04:41Z
Accurate science or accessible science in the media – why not both?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124855/original/image-20160601-1951-sdxq1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scientists themselves may be the key to finding the right balance.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-342000797/stock-photo-scales-on-wooden-background.html">Scales image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every day, millions of people take to search engines with common concerns, such as “How can I lose weight?” or “How can I be productive?” In return, they find articles that offer simple advice and quick solutions, supposedly based on what “studies have shown.”</p>
<p>A closer look at these articles, however, reveals a troubling absence of scientific rigor. Few bother to cite research or discuss studies’ methodologies or limitations. The <a href="http://doi.org/10.1093/embo-reports/kvf225">authors seldom have scientific training</a>.</p>
<p>As young scientists from four diverse fields (psychology, chemistry, physics and neuroscience), we’ve noticed that much writing about science, particularly on topics most relevant to the daily lives of readers, is currently failing to resolve the trade-off between accessibility and accountability. Rigorous findings shared by researchers in specialist journals are obscured behind jargon and paywalls, while accessible science shared on the internet is untrustworthy, unregulated and often click-bait.</p>
<p>If this communication crisis is due to a lack of scientifically literate voices, the solution may be for more scientists to enter the fray. Scientists have the expertise to publicly correct misinterpretations of their and others’ data. By developing new ways to disseminate science knowledge, they can help prevent inaccurate and overhyped stories from gaining traction. We argue that scientists bear a responsibility to reform the way their work is ultimately communicated.</p>
<h2>Science gets lost in translation</h2>
<p>Scientific publication – which operates through an intensive peer review process – is flourishing. In 2014, over <a href="http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=scholcom">2.5 million scholarly articles</a> were published on topics that ranged from how to <a href="http://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2015.18965">reduce carbon emissions</a> to how <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614557867">Twitter influences the rate of heart disease</a> and how <a href="http://doi.org/10.1038/nrrheum.2014.193">regular exercise can prevent inflammation</a> associated with rheumatic diseases. Because of recent research, we know there’s little evidence that genetically modified vegetables <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2011.01.003">are unhealthy</a>, and that <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.02.004">eating less meat</a> is <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1104-5">a simple way</a> to positively influence the environment.</p>
<p>These are important messages, and when people don’t hear or listen to them, there can be serious consequences. Misinformed campaigns arise <a href="https://theconversation.com/vaccines-back-in-the-headlines-heres-what-the-experts-say-47815">against vaccinations</a>, and <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/06/anti-vaccine-movement-is-giving-diseases-a-2nd-life/7007955/">near-extinct diseases return</a>. Mental illness remains <a href="https://theconversation.com/inspiration-from-gamers-on-tackling-mental-health-stigma-18769">shamefully stigmatized</a>. Climate change is <a href="https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php">dismissed as fiction</a>. People become erroneously convinced that <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/bacon-and-sausages-do-cause-cancer-says-the-who#.mxz3wYjge">red meat causes cancer</a> and that <a href="http://io9.gizmodo.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800">eating dark chocolate helps weight loss</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124856/original/image-20160601-1951-zljpl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124856/original/image-20160601-1951-zljpl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124856/original/image-20160601-1951-zljpl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124856/original/image-20160601-1951-zljpl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124856/original/image-20160601-1951-zljpl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124856/original/image-20160601-1951-zljpl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124856/original/image-20160601-1951-zljpl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124856/original/image-20160601-1951-zljpl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s hard for the general public to even access most research journals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maggie Villiger</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Rigorous science is locked away</h2>
<p>So how can we ensure that everyone has access to useful science knowledge?</p>
<p>Most scientific articles are aimed at an audience of other experts in highly specific fields, making them ill-suited for popular consumption. Between complex methodological language and frequent acronyms, even scientists have trouble following the <a href="http://arstechnica.com/staff/2013/04/two-sciences-separated-by-a-common-language/">jargon specific to other fields</a>, leaving little hope for those with less scientific training.</p>
<p>An even more pressing issue, however, is that people outside of research institutions can’t even access most journal articles. Many of these papers are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2013/jan/17/open-access-publishing-science-paywall-immoral">hidden behind a publisher paywall</a>, and nonsubscribers are forced to pay <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/02/read-this-academic-journal-article-but-prepare-to-pay/71536/">US$30-$50 for a single article</a>.</p>
<p>These paywalls are not merely obstructive; we would argue they’re also unethical. Most research is publicly funded, yet taxpayers are charged to consume scientific articles.</p>
<p>Ideally, scientific publishing will transition to healthy open-access journals that serve both researchers and readers. Legislation regarding quasi-monopolistic scientific publishing companies, predatory publishing practices and public access to primary scientific sources would go far to serve this end. </p>
<p>The European Union recently stipulated that all <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.aag0577">publicly funded research articles be freely accessible</a> by 2020, but the United States has not yet passed a similar mandate. Scientists will play a crucial role in calling for and implementing these kinds of changes.</p>
<h2>The public wants accessible science</h2>
<p>As debates over open access continue, people’s desire and need for evidence-based solutions to medical and social dilemmas has not diminished. As a consequence, we see a rising tide of popular science outlets that are more accessible both in content and availability than the research journals some of their content is ostensibly based on. </p>
<p>These platforms range in accuracy, from questionable blogs preaching “7 ways to get happy now” to serious websites and magazines like <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/">Discover</a> and <a href="http://www.americanscientist.org">American Scientist</a>. As part of our own efforts to bridge the divide between accessibility and accuracy, we each contribute content to the nonprofit <a href="http://www.usefulscience.org/">Useful Science</a>, which curates research for the general public through short reviewed summaries and an <a href="http://www.usefulscience.org/podcast">in-depth podcast</a>.</p>
<p>However, even reputable sources are not immune to sensational headlines. In 2012, an article in ScienceNews on female mimicry in snakes was titled “<a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/she-male-garter-snakes-some-it-hot">She-male garter snakes: some like it hot</a>.” An article on male sheep neuroendocrinology was headlined “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/02/AR2007020201462.html">Brokeback mutton</a>” by the Washington Post, and “<a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1582336,00.html">Yep, they’re gay</a>” by Time. This unfortunate trend in popular science suggests that open-access publishing, even if it does proliferate, would still need to compete with flashier posts that sacrifice strict validity for clicks.</p>
<p>The growth of science communication websites that solicit and address questions and feedback directly and immediately from the general public provides some hope. These include <a href="https://www.quora.com/">Quora</a> and communities on Reddit such as <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience">AskScience</a>. The popularity of these resources (AskScience has over <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/">eight million subscribers</a>) shows that a good portion of the public wants scientific information communicated, on demand, in an accurate and approachable manner. Furthermore, a lack of direct incentive for contributors may make <a href="http://doi.org/10.1038/nn0505-535">content manipulation less likely</a>.</p>
<p>These efforts are laudable but suffer from a lack of accountability – any author can claim to be speaking from a perspective of expertise. Even in the best cases, when authors have training in science or its communication, advice is not scrutinized prior to posting.</p>
<p>There are ways to resolve these problems. Science journalists should solicit feedback from independent experts before publishing. Posts in scientific communities could go through an expedited peer-review process. In all cases, scientists and science communicators should be working together to match the accessibility of their content with accuracy and precision. </p>
<h2>Who will lead the revolution?</h2>
<p>The present state of science communication reveals important work to be done, but no burden of responsibility. </p>
<p>Some responsibility seems to fall on scientific journals, but most journals are profit vehicles, not conscientious individuals. Some seems to fall on media outlets, but many websites and magazines are squeezed by intense competition for ad revenue. Furthermore, reporters are seldom trained to understand science, let alone contribute to the discipline’s evolution.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124858/original/image-20160601-1425-wv6cbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124858/original/image-20160601-1425-wv6cbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124858/original/image-20160601-1425-wv6cbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124858/original/image-20160601-1425-wv6cbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124858/original/image-20160601-1425-wv6cbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124858/original/image-20160601-1425-wv6cbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124858/original/image-20160601-1425-wv6cbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124858/original/image-20160601-1425-wv6cbg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers need to think beyond the lab notebook.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/proteinbiochemist/3167660996">J Biochemist</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The onus, then, is on scientists. There are <a href="https://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acs-18.pdf">20 million people with science or engineering degrees</a> in the United States alone. Instead of passively consuming media with outrageous scientific claims, it should be scientists’ personal responsibility to make research freely available, and to moderate accessible scientific communities so they’re accurate and accountable. Scientists should also work with journalists to set guidelines for media publication, such as a vetting process where popular articles are approved by experts in the field before publication, and should speak up when inaccurate information is disseminated. </p>
<p>It’s time for the scientific community to act; not only as individuals, but also as interdisciplinary groups. If scientists do so, the next generation of science communication vehicles may be coalitions of journalists and researchers (as in <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/who-we-are">The Conversation’s collaborative model</a>) who can disseminate messages that are both exciting and responsible. Science will not only be more interesting and accountable. It will also be more useful.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59871/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Conrad Jackson receives funding from the National Science Foundation. He is affiliated with the non-profit organization Useful Science (usefulscience.org). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Mahar receives funding from Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Santé. He is affiliated with the non-profit organization Useful Science (usefulscience.org). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jaan Altosaar founded Useful Science (usefulscience.org) and receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Gaultois receives funding the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 659764. He is affiliated with the non-profit organization Useful Science (usefulscience.org).</span></em></p>
The public loses when their only choices are inaccessible, impenetrable journal articles or overhyped click-bait about science. Scientists themselves need to step up and help bridge the divide.
Joshua Conrad Jackson, Doctoral Student, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Ian Mahar, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Neuroscience, Boston University
Jaan Altosaar, Ph.D. Student in Physics, Princeton University
Michael Gaultois, Postdoctoral Researcher in Chemistry, University of Cambridge
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.