Chinese universities are prodigious producers of scientific papers, which will help garner them more prestige.
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Science rankings rely on papers in academic journals. Broadening the view to include many more open-access journals will upend the usual order – thanks to China’s vast number of publications.
A new statistical test lets scientists figure out if two groups are similar to one another.
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Evangeline Rose, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Kevin Omland, University of Maryland, Baltimore County e Thomas Mathew, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
A new statistical test lets researchers search for similarities between groups. Could this help keep new important findings out of the file drawer?
Academic journals rely on peer review to support editors in making decisions about what to publish.
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There’s peer review – and then there’s peer review. With more knowledge you can dive in a little deeper and make a call about how reliable a science paper really is.
Peer review takes time – around seven to eight hours per paper if done properly.
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Key areas of focus for tweaking peer review include making journal editors more directive in the process, rewarding reviewers, and improving accountability of editors, reviewers and authors.
There is a huge appetite for science and other research - so why aren’t more academic publications truly ‘open access’?
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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.
ZZZZZZ…even the smartest scientists struggle to follow very dense science writing.
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With the right approach to data security, scientists’ discoveries of the locations of rare and sought-after species needn’t leave a trail for poachers to follow.
More is less in the world of research publications.
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The traditional mode of publishing scientific research faces much criticism – primarily for being too slow and sometimes shoddily done. Maybe fewer publications of higher quality is the way forward.
Experiment design affects the quality of the results.
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Embracing more rigorous scientific methods would mean getting science right more often than we currently do. But the way we value and reward scientists makes this a challenge.
People get suspicious when ethically fraught science is discussed behind closed doors.
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Virtually every researcher relies on computers to collect or analyze data. But when computers are opaque black boxes that manipulate data, it’s impossible to replicate studies – a core value for science.
What does it mean if the majority of what’s published in journals can’t be reproduced?
Maggie Villiger
It’s a problem when much of what winds up in scientific journals isn’t replicable, for various reasons. The research community is taking baby steps toward addressing the “reproducibility crisis.”
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How do you know the people billed as science experts that you see, hear and read about in the media are really all that credible? Or have they been included just to create a perception of balance in the…
Most academic papers today are published only after some academic peers have had a chance to review the merits and limitations of the work. This seems like a good idea, but there is a growing movement…