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.
It can be painful for researchers to read harshly worded criticism of their work from peer reviewers.
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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.
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.
Dear Diary, keeping a daily journal of these pandemic times can help us process them and follow in some great literary footsteps.
Many African researchers feel they should do research that would be acceptable for publication in Western outlets.
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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.
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.
There were eerie similarities between Pepys’ time and our own.
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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.
Nigerian universities should ensure their journals are of a high standard.
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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.
For now, it’s going to be trickier for the University of California community to access some academic journals.
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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.
Open access journals come with hidden costs.
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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.
‘Say cheese so I can show all my friends how cute you are – and unwittingly show corporations your age, race and gender!’
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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.
There’s huge societal value in opening up access to knowledge resources.
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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.
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University