Trends in Reporting Procedural Integrity: A Comparison.

Procedural integrity refers to the extent to which an independent variable is implemented as described. Measuring procedural integrity is one important factor when considering internal and external validity of experiments. Experimental articles in behavior-analytic journals have rarely reported procedural-integrity data. The purpose of this study was to update previous reviews of whether articles published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis reported procedural integrity, spanning a period from 1980 to 2020, and compare reporting in JABA to recent reviews of studies published in Behavior Analysis in Practice (2008-2019) and the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (2000-2020). Procedural integrity continues to be underreported across all three journals, but an increasing trend in reporting procedural integrity is evident in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and Behavior Analysis in Practice. In addition to our recommendations and implications for research and practice, we provide examples and resources to assist researchers and practitioners with recording and reporting integrity data.

Medical Research Conduct and Publication during Higher Education in Syria: Attitudes, Barriers, Practices, and Possible Solutions.

Background: The huge workload on doctors especially residents, who are the main health care providers in public hospitals, in addition to the vanishing incomes and lack of personal safety during the decade-long Syrian crisis, led to further hurdles in the focus on research. Postgraduate students in the medical and paramedical fields must conduct original research projects as part of their graduation requirements. However, this does not reflect on research publications coming from Syria. Methods: This is a nation-wide cross-sectional study targeting medical, dental, and pharmacy postgraduate students who are at the phase of planning for their required projects. The questionnaire aimed to capture their attitudes toward research, perceived barriers, and previous research experiences in order to suggest evidence-based recommendations. Results: The sample consisted of 429 residents representing about 22% of the target population. Nearly all the participants had positive opinion toward the important role of medical research and the significance of their participation. Agreement was also clear regarding perceived barriers, including the lack of adequate training and research facility. Seventy-one percent of the participants were not involved in any research before the time of their master theses, less than 13% of them had submitted an article for publication, and less than 5% had submitted more than one paper. Despite that, high-quality internet connectivity and rich English writing skills were associated with further research experiences. Additionally, mentors' support and self-paced learning of research skills had significant positive impact on students' research contributions with odds ratios of 2.04 [[95% Confidence Interval]: 1.02-4.06] and 2.68 [1.48-4.84], respectively. Conclusion: Lack of training and mentorship, in addition to several common barriers to medical research, hampered residents' capacity of conducting and publishing research despite their positive attitudes toward it. Nevertheless, the variance within our sample exposed a promising window for implementing low-cost institutional and individual solutions such as peer-run self-paced training opportunities and long-distance mentoring.

Publication practices during the COVID-19 pandemic: Expedited publishing or simply an early bird effect?

This study explores the evolution of publication practices associated with the SARS-CoV-2 research papers, namely, peer-reviewed journal and review articles indexed in PubMed and their associated preprints posted on bioRxiv and medRxiv servers: a total of 4,031 journal article-preprint pairs. Our assessment of various publication delays during the January 2020 to March 2021 period revealed the early bird effect that lies beyond the involvement of any publisher policy action and is directly linked to the emerging nature of new and 'hot' scientific topics. We found that when the early bird effect and data incompleteness are taken into account, COVID-19 related research papers show only a moderately expedited speed of dissemination as compared with the pre-pandemic era. Medians for peer-review and production stage delays were 66 and 15 days, respectively, and the entire conversion process from a preprint to its peer-reviewed journal article version took 109.5 days. The early bird effect produced an ephemeral perception of a global rush in scientific publishing during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. We emphasize the importance of considering the early bird effect in interpreting publication data collected at the outset of a newly emerging event.

Open Data Practices among Users of Primary Biodiversity Data.

Presence-only biodiversity data are increasingly relied on in biodiversity, ecology, and conservation research, driven by growing digital infrastructures that support open data sharing and reuse. Recent reviews of open biodiversity data have clearly documented the value of data sharing, but the extent to which the biodiversity research community has adopted open data practices remains unclear. We address this question by reviewing applications of presence-only primary biodiversity data, drawn from a variety of sources beyond open databases, in the indexed literature. We characterize how frequently researchers access open data relative to data from other sources, how often they share newly generated or collated data, and trends in metadata documentation and data citation. Our results indicate that biodiversity research commonly relies on presence-only data that are not openly available and neglects to make such data available. Improved data sharing and documentation will increase the value, reusability, and reproducibility of biodiversity research.

Correction notices in psychology: impactful or inconsequential?

Science is self-correcting, or so the adage goes, but to what extent is that indeed the case? Answering this question requires careful consideration of the various approaches to achieve the collective goal of self-correction. One of the most straightforward mechanisms is individual self-correction: researchers rectifying their own mistakes by publishing a correction notice. Although it offers an efficient route to correcting the scientific record, it has received little to no attention from a metascientific point of view. We aim to fill this void by analysing the content of correction notices published from 2010 until 2018 in the three psychology journals featuring the highest number of corrections over that timespan based on the Scopus database (i.e. Psychological Science with N = 58, Frontiers in Psychology with N = 99 and Journal of Affective Disorders with N = 57). More concretely, we examined which aspects of the original papers were affected (e.g. hypotheses, data-analyses, metadata such as author order, affiliations, funding information etc.) as well as the perceived implications for the papers' main findings. Our exploratory analyses showed that many corrections involved inconsequential errors. Furthermore, authors rarely revised their conclusions, even though several corrections concerned changes to the results. We conclude with a discussion of current policies, and suggest ways to improve upon the present situation by (i) preventing mistakes, and (ii) transparently rectifying those mistakes that do find their way into the literature.

Políticas de avaliação e práticas de publicação nas Ciências da Saúde no Brasil / Políticas de evaluación y prácticas de publicación en las Ciencias de la Salud en Brasil / Health sciences evaluation policies and publication practices in Brazil

Estudos teóricos sustentam a existência de culturas epistêmicas nas comunidades acadêmicas, bem como a influência que as políticas de avaliação exercem sobre elas. Este trabalho aprofunda a análise realizada pelos autores em estudos anteriores para melhorar a compreensão de mudanças nas práticas de publicação das Ciências da Saúde no Brasil entre 2000 e 2014. Pesquisa quantitativa-qualitativa, não experimental e longitudinal. Os dados de produção científica das Ciências da Saúde são coletados a partir do Diretório dos Grupos de Pesquisa do Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico e são representadas graficamente as séries históricas de artigos, monografias e trabalhos completos em anais, bem como as razões de artigos nacionais/internacionais e artigos/monografias, para identificar e comparar padrões. Os documentos das Comissões de Áreas (Capes) e dos Comitês de Assessoramento das Ciências da Saúde (CNPq) são analisados, identificando, examinando e classificando os critérios de avaliação utilizados. Os resultados indicam que os critérios de avaliação contribuem a promover mudanças nas práticas de publicação dos pesquisadores das Ciências da Saúde, especificamente, um aumento significativo na contribuição percentual de artigos internacionais e uma redução dos nacionais, das monografias e dos trabalhos completo em anais(AU)

Estudios teóricos fundamentan la existencia de culturas epistémicas en las comunidades académicas, así como la influencia que las políticas de evaluación ejercen sobre ellas. El presente trabajo profundiza los análisis realizados por los autores en estudios anteriores para mejorar la comprensión sobre los cambios ocurridos en las prácticas de publicación de las Ciencias de la Salud en Brasil entre los años 2000 y 2014. Se trata de una investigación cuantitativa-cualitativa, no experimental y longitudinal. Se colectan los datos de la producción científica de las Ciencias de la Salud a partir del Directorio de Grupos de Investigación del Consejo Nacional de Asesoramiento Científico y Tecnológico, y se representan gráficamente las series históricas de artículos, monografías y trabajos en anales, así como las razones de artículos nacionales/internacionales y artículos/monografías, para identificar y comparar patrones. Se analizan los documentos de las Comisiones de Áreas (Capes) y de los Comités de Asesoramiento de las Ciencias de la Salud (CNPq), y se identifican, examinan y clasifican los criterios de evaluación utilizados. Los resultados indican que los criterios de evaluación contribuyen a promover cambios en las prácticas de publicación de los investigadores de las Ciencias de la Salud, específicamente un aumento significativo de la contribución porcentual de los artículos internacionales y una reducción de los nacionales, de las monografías y de los trabajos completos en anales(AU)

Theoretical studies substantiate the existence of epistemic cultures in academic communities, as well as the influence that evaluation policies exert upon them. The present study reviews the analyses conducted by authors of previous research to improve understanding of the changes taking place in health sciences publication practices in Brazil between the years 2000 and 2014. A longitudinal non-experimental quantitative-qualitative study was conducted. Data about health sciences scientific production were collected from the Research Groups Directory of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, and a graphic representation is provided of the historical series of papers, monographies and studies contained in annals, as well as of the ratios of national/international papers and papers/monographies, with the purpose of identifying and comparing the patterns. An analysis was performed of documents from the Area Committees (Capes) and the Health Sciences Advisory Committees (CNPq), identifying, examining and classifying the evaluation criteria used. Results suggest that evaluation criteria contribute to foster changes in the publication practices of health sciences researchers, particularly a significant increase in the percentage of international papers and a decrease in national papers, monographies and full papers in proceedings(AU)

Open Centres for Journalology in Universities and Institutions.

Journalology is the science of publication practices and the study of these activities. This communication details a centre for Journalology run by the Ottawa Hospital, Canada. The Centre has a valued role to play in the publication practices, ethics, and guides that researchers need in order to identify suitable journals for their research. Such centres are needed in every university so that the best publication practices are promoted and scientific integrity is maintained and enhanced.

From Outcome to Process Focus: Fostering a More Robust Psychological Science Through Registered Reports and Results-Blind Reviewing.

A variety of alternative mechanisms, strategies, and "ways of doing" have been proposed for improving the rigor and robustness of published research in the psychological sciences in recent years. In this article, we describe two existing but underused publication models-registered reporting (RR) and results-blind reviewing (RBR)-that we believe would contribute in important ways to improving both the conduct and evaluation of psychological research. We first outline the procedures and distinguishing features of both publication pathways and note their value for promoting positive changes to current scientific practices. We posit that a significant value of RR and RBR is their potential to promote a greater focus on the research process (i.e., how and why research is conducted) relative to research outcomes (i.e., what was observed or concluded from research). We conclude by discussing what we perceive to be five common beliefs about RR and RBR practices and attempt to provide a balanced perspective of the realities likely to be experienced with these systems.

Correcting the literature: Improvement trends seen in contents of retraction notices.

OBJECTIVE: To analyse retraction notices from 2016 and compare their quality to the 2008 notices. RESULTS: From 146 retractions retrieved, only 123 were included, of which, a clear reason for retraction was available for 122 (99.2%) and no reason was given for one (0.8%). The main reasons for retraction were mistakes 26.0% (n = 32), fraud 26.0% (n = 32), plagiarism 20.3% (n = 25), and overlap 8.1% (n = 10). In 100 (81.3%) cases, a mention of retraction was available on the original paper, in 15 (12.2%) there was no mention of retraction, and 8 (6.5%) papers were deleted. Compared to the previous cohorts, management of retraction has improved because 99.2% provided a clear reason, and 81.3% of original articles were available with a mention of the retraction.

Caracterización de las prácticas de publicación de las grandes áreas de conocimiento en Brasil / Characterization of publication practices of the broad disciplinaries areas of knowledge in Brazil

El objetivo del presente trabajo es caracterizar las prácticas de publicación de las grandes áreas del conocimiento en Brasil en el período 2000-2014. Se utilizaron los datos del Consejo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico sobre la producción científica de los investigadores brasileños: artículos nacionales e internacionales, libros, capítulos de libros y trabajos completos en anales de eventos. Se definieron las variables de análisis y se representaron gráficamente sus series históricas. La visualización de las series permitió identificar los canales predominantes: artículos nacionales, trabajos en anales y capítulos de libros en Ciencias Humanas, Sociales Aplicadas, Lingüística, Letras, Artes; artículos internacionales en Ciencias Exactas y de la Tierra, Agrarias, Biológicas y de la Salud; trabajos en anales en Ingeniería. Se corroboró la existencia de dos hiper-áreas: Humanidades (Ciencias Sociales Aplicadas, Humanas, Lingüística, Letras, Artes) y ciencias "duras" (Ingenierías, Ciencias Exactas y de la Tierra, Agrarias, Biológicas, Salud). En las primeras existe equilibrio entre la publicación de artículos, monografías y trabajos en anales y los artículos muestran una orientación predominantemente nacional. En las ciencias "duras" predomina la publicación de artículos si se comparan con otros tipos de documentos y los artículos tienen una orientación principalmente internacional. Se verifican cambios en las prácticas de publicación de las Ciencias Agrarias y de la Salud, áreas que pasaron de una orientación predominantemente nacional en la producción de artículos, para un equilibrio en la producción nacional e internacional. También se verifica un decrecimiento de la contribución de los trabajos en anales para la producción científica de las ciencias "duras"(AU)

The goal of this paper is to characterize the publication practices of the broad disciplinary areas of knowledge in Brazil during the 2000-2014 period. It was used the data of the National Council on Scientific and Technological Development on the scientific production of the Brazilian PhDs: national and international articles, books, book chapters and full papers in proceedings of scientific meetings. The analysis variables were defined, and their historical series were represented graphically. The series visualization allowed to identify the predominant communication channels: national articles, full papers in proceedings of scientific meetings and book chapters in Human Sciences, Applied Social Sciences and Linguistics, Letters and Arts; international articles in Exact and Earth Sciences, Agrarian, Biological and Health Sciences; full papers in proceedings of scientific meetings in Engineering. The existence of two hyper-areas was corroborated: Humanities (Applied Social Sciences, Human Sciences, Linguistics, Letters and Arts) and "hard" sciences (Engineering, Exact and Earth Sciences, Agrarian, Biological and Health Sciences). In the formers, there is a balance between the publication of articles, monographs and full papers in proceedings of scientific meetings, while articles show, predominantly, a national orientation. In the "hard" sciences the publication of articles predominates when compared with other types of documents and papers have, mainly, an international orientation. Changes in publishing practices of Agricultural and Health Sciences are verified, shifting from a predominantly national orientation in the production of articles to an equilibrium between national and international production. In "hard" sciences a decrease in the contribution of the full papers in proceedings of scientific meeting was also verified(AU)

A Question of Social Justice: How Policies of Profit Negate Engagement of Developing World Bioethicists and Undermine Global Bioethics.

We identify the ways the policies of leading international bioethics journals limit the participation of researchers working in the resource-constrained settings of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in the development of the field of bioethics. Lack of access to essential scholarly resources makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for many LMIC bioethicists to learn from, meaningfully engage in, and further contribute to the global bioethics discourse. Underrepresentation of LMIC perspectives in leading journals sustains the hegemony of Western bioethics, limits the presentation of diverse moral visions of life, health, and medicine, and undermines aspirations to create a truly "global" bioethics. Limited attention to this problem indicates a lack of empathy and moral imagination on the part of bioethicists in high-income countries, raises questions about the ethics of bioethics, and highlights the urgent need to find ways to remedy this social injustice.

Homo Citans and Carbon Allotropes: For an Ethics of Citation.

Cite we must, cite we do. We cite because we are links in a chain, using properties and methods validated by others. We also cite to negotiate the anxiety of influence. And to be fair. After outlining the reasons for citation, we use two case studies of citation amnesia in the field of hypothetical carbon allotropes to present a computer-age search tool (SACADA) in that subsubfield. Finally, we advise on good search practice, including what to do if you miss a citation.

Gendered Authorship and Demographic Research: An Analysis of 50 Years of Demography.

Demography, the official journal of the Population Association of America, has been given the highest rating among demographic journals by the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). Our aim here is to investigate the development of research subfields and female authorship in Demography over the last 50 years. We find that female authorship in Demography has risen considerably since the 1980s and that currently a woman is about as likely as a man to be the sole or the first author of a paper published in the journal. However, we find some differences by subfield. Women seem to be overrepresented in the "family and household" research subfield but underrepresented in the "mortality and health" and "data and methods" categories.

Evaluation by Citation: Trends in Publication Behavior, Evaluation Criteria, and the Strive for High Impact Publications.

Criteria for the evaluation of most scholars' work have recently received wider attention due to high-profile cases of scientific misconduct which are perceived to be linked to these criteria. However, in the competition for career advancement and funding opportunities almost all scholars are subjected to the same criteria. Therefore these evaluation criteria act as 'switchmen', determining the tracks along which scholarly work is pushed by the dynamic interplay of interests of both scholars and their institutions. Currently one of the most important criteria is the impact of publications. In this research, the extent to which publish or perish, a long standing evaluation criterion, led to scientific misconduct is examined briefly. After this the strive for high impact publications will be examined, firstly by identifying the period in which this became an important evaluation criterion, secondly by looking at variables contributing to the impact of scholarly papers by means of a non-structured literature study, and lastly by combining these data into a quantitative analysis.

Incidence of Data Duplications in a Randomly Selected Pool of Life Science Publications.

Since the solution to many public health problems depends on research, it is critical for the progress and well-being for the patients that we can trust the scientific literature. Misconduct and poor laboratory practice in science threatens the scientific progress, leads to loss of productivity and increased healthcare costs, and endangers lives of patients. Data duplication may represent one of challenges related to these problems. In order to estimate the frequency of data duplication in life science literature, a systematic screen through 120 original scientific articles published in three different cancer related journals [journal impact factor (IF) <5, 5-10 and >20] was completed. The study revealed a surprisingly high proportion of articles containing data duplication. For the IF < 5 and IF > 20 journals, 25% of the articles were found to contain data duplications. The IF 5-10 journal showed a comparable proportion (22.5%). The proportion of articles containing duplicated data was comparable between the three journals and no significant correlation to journal IF was found. The editorial offices representing the journals included in this study and the individual authors of the detected articles were contacted to clarify the individual cases. The editorial offices did not reply and only 1 out of 29 cases were apparently clarified by the authors, although no supporting data was supplied. This study questions the reliability of life science literature, it illustrates that data duplications are widespread and independent of journal impact factor and call for a reform of the current peer review and retraction process of scientific publishing.

The missing metric: quantifying contributions of reviewers.

The number of contributing reviewers often outnumbers the authors of publications. This has led to apathy towards reviewing and the conclusion that the peer-review system is broken. Given the trade-offs between submitting and reviewing manuscripts, reviewers and authors naturally want visibility for their efforts. While study after study has called for revolutionizing publication practices, the current paradigm does not recognize reviewers' time and expertise. We propose the R-index as a simple way to quantify scientists' contributions as reviewers. We modelled its performance using simulations based on real data to show that early-mid career scientists, who complete high-quality reviews of longer manuscripts within their field, can perform as well as leading scientists reviewing only for high-impact journals. By giving citeable academic recognition for reviewing, R-index will encourage more participation with better reviews, regardless of the career stage. Moreover, the R-index will allow editors to exploit scores to manage and improve their review team, and for journals to promote high average scores as signals of a practical and efficient service to authors. Peer-review is a pervasive necessity across disciplines and the simple utility of this missing metric will credit a valuable aspect of academic productivity without having to revolutionize the current peer-review system.

Psychologists Are Open to Change, yet Wary of Rules.

Psychologists must change the way they conduct and report their research-this notion has been the topic of much debate in recent years. One article recently published in Psychological Science proposing six requirements for researchers concerning data collection and reporting practices as well as four guidelines for reviewers aimed at improving the publication process has recently received much attention (Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn, 2011). We surveyed 1,292 psychologists to address two questions: Do psychologists support these concrete changes to data collection, reporting, and publication practices, and if not, what are their reasons? Respondents also indicated the percentage of print and online journal space that should be dedicated to novel studies and direct replications as well as the percentage of published psychological research that they believed would be confirmed if direct replications were conducted. We found that psychologists are generally open to change. Five requirements for researchers and three guidelines for reviewers were supported as standards of good practice, whereas one requirement was even supported as a publication condition. Psychologists appear to be less in favor of mandatory conditions of publication than standards of good practice. We conclude that the proposal made by Simmons, Nelson & Simonsohn (2011) is a starting point for such standards.