In May, the White House produced a report called " Restoring Gold Standard Science ", which was followed by an NIH plan to implement this po...| deevybee.blogspot.com
In my previous blogpost, I discussed why many scientists can't take seriously the lofty ideals expressed in Trump's plans for Gold Standard Science, even though the basic principles seem excellent. Given the current Republican administration's catastrophic track record in undermining US science, their demands for high standards ring hollow. It appears that demands for Gold Standard Science will be weaponised against types of science they don't like. | BishopBlog
I guess many readers will have had peer reviews where the reviewer doesn't appear to have understood, or even properly read, the paper they...| deevybee.blogspot.com
Complaints about the broken academic publishing system have been around for years and are getting louder. A common theme is that with the rise of open access publishing, commercial publishers have grasped the opportunity to grow their profits from article-processing-charges (APCs). Whereas in the past, journals competed to be the most highly respected outlet, now they compete to publish on the grounds of speed and quantity of publications (see e.g. Timmis et al, 2025). | BishopBlog
by Csaba Szabo, Columbia University Press, 2025 This is a rollicking good read, written in an informal style, and enlivened by cartoons, wh...| deevybee.blogspot.com
Guest post by Solal Pirelli| BishopBlog
Last November, I wrote a blogpost explaining why I had resigned as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). In brief, over the summer a group of 74 FRSs asked the RS Council to consider revoking Musk's FRS on the grounds that he had attempted to interfere with British politics by spreading disinformation with the aim of stirring up unrest. The Council took advice, considered carefully and concluded that nothing should be done. I discussed this decision with senior figures in the RS and presented...| BishopBlog
Many publishers are getting nervous about infiltration by paper mills, who can torpedo a journal's reputation when they succeed in publishing papers that are obvious nonsense. In a recent Open Letter, a group of sleuths drew attention to an example in Scientific Reports, published by Springer Nature. | BishopBlog
It's always interesting for a blogger to look back to see which posts have garnered most attention. In 2024 there were three standout items, my resignation from the Royal Society, an Open Letter about editorial failings at the journal Scientific Reports, and a guest post by René Aquarius about his experiences as a reviewer for MDPI. For each of these blogposts, it's interesting to consider not just the number of hits, but also the broader impact. Blogging is a great way to let off steam, ...| BishopBlog
It's been an odd week for the academic publisher MDPI. On 16th December, Finland's Publication Forum (known as JUFO) announced that from January 2025 it was downgrading its classification of 271 open access journals to the lowest level, zero. | BishopBlog
The Royal Society is a venerable institution founded in 1660, whose original members included such eminent men as Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton. It promotes science in many ways: administering grants, advising government, holding meetings and lectures, and publishing expert reports on scientific matters of public importance. | BishopBlog
There's been a fair bit of discussion about Clarivate's decision to pause inclusion of eLife publications on the Science Citation Index (e.g. on Research Professional). What I find exasperating is that most of the discussion focuses on a single consequence - loss of eLife's impact factor. For authors, there are graver consequences. | BishopBlog
Last week this blog focussed on problems affecting Scientific Reports, a mega-journal published by Springer Nature. This week I look at a journal at the opposite end of the spectrum, the Journal of Psycholinguistic Research (JPR), a small, specialist journal which has published just 2187 papers since it was founded in 1971. This is fewer than Scientific Reports publishes in one year. It was brought to my attention by Anna Abalkina because it shows every sign of having been targeted by one or...| BishopBlog
Source: http://www.weblogcartoons.com/2008/11/23/ideas/| BishopBlog
16th October 2024 | BishopBlog
2023 was the year when academic publishers started to take seriously the threat that paper mills posed to their business. Their research integrity experts have penned various articles about the scale of the problem and the need to come up with solutions (e.g., here and here). Interested parties have joined forces in an initiative called United2Act. And yet, to outsiders, it looks as though some effective actions are being overlooked. It's hard to tell whether this is the result of timi...| BishopBlog
Like many academics, I was interested to see an announcement| BishopBlog
There is growing awareness that Special Issues have become a menace in the world of academic publishing, because they provide a convenient way for large volumes of low quality work to be published in journals that profit from a healthy article processing charge. There has been a consequent backlash against Special Issues, with various attempts to rein them in. Here I'll describe the backstory and show how such attempts are being subverted. | BishopBlog
An article was published last week by Caron et al (2024) entitled "The PubPeer conundrum: Administrative challenges in research misconduct proceedings". The authors present a perspective on research misconduct from a viewpoint that is not often heard: three of them are attorneys who advise higher education institutions on research misconduct matters, and the other has served as a Research Integrity Officer at a hospital. | BishopBlog
Guest post by | BishopBlog
"Here's one for you", said my husband, as he browsed| BishopBlog
Book Review| BishopBlog
Yesterday, Retraction Watch published a piece about a notorious 2020 article by Gautret et al that had promoted the idea that hydroxychloroquine could treat COVID-19. Despite numerous concerns, the article has not been retracted from the International Journal for Antimicrobial Agents, a journal that is co-owned by the publisher, Elsevier, and The International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC). | BishopBlog
As Betteridge's law of headlines states: "Any headline| BishopBlog
I've just been sent an email from eLife, pointing me to links to a report called "eLife's New Model: One year on" and a report by the editors "Scientific Publishing: The first year of a new era". To remind readers who may have missed it, the big change introduced by eLife in 2023 was to drop the step where an editor decides on reject or accept of a manuscript after reviewer comments are received. Instead, the author submits a preprint, and the editors then decide whether it should be reviewe...| BishopBlog
Need for transparent and robust response when research misconduct is found Scroll down for update on correspondence with CNRS Scientific Int...| deevybee.blogspot.com