This week, we highlight the opening of registrations for OASPA 2023! We read about FAIR data, about banning the use of AI for peer review, and about read and publish agreements with the RSC. We also read about Peer Review Week 2023, about the benefits of making data sharing the norm in medical research, and about the changing face of the medical publishing industry. Finally, we learn about measuring and monitoring open science practices at biomedical institutes across the globe.
To engage with:
Registration opens for OASPA 2023 via Eventbrite
The Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) has announced that registration for its annual online conference is now open! Taking place between 19 and 21 September, this year’s virtual conference will focus on “making equitable open scholarship a reality” and aims to address a number of contemporary topics in the world of scholarly open access, including diamond OA, preprints and research integrity. More information about the conference can be found here.
To read:
FAIR data: what, why and how? via SciBite | 6-minute read
The FAIR principles for data sharing aim to improve the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reuse of data. Over the past few years, data sharing has become increasingly ubiquitous when publishing research, and it is often mandated by funding bodies. This blog post by Jane Lomax (Head of Ontologies at SciBite) is part of a series explaining the FAIR principles of data sharing, what they mean, why they matter, and how to adhere to them. This first blog post introduces the FAIR principles, and the potential implications of their implementation for pharma.
Organizations implement bans on using AI for peer review via STM Publishing News | 4-minute read
Discussions about the proper and ethical use of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence (AI) tools are omnipresent at the moment, especially in the worlds of education, publishing and research. For instance, some researchers have been using AI to draft peer review critiques of research proposals, which others argue is unethical. The National Institutes of Health, the Australian Research Council and other funding agencies seem to agree, having now banned the use of AI for writing peer review critiques. Other organizations look set to follow suit, with both the US National Science Foundation and the European Research Council expected to release guidance on the use of AI.
One thousand institutions covered by RSC open access agreements via Royal Society of Chemistry | 3-minute read
Following its agreement with Conferencia de Rectores de las Universidades Españoles (a national consortium of Spanish universities), the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) now has read and publish agreements with over 1000 institutions across more than 30 countries. You can read more about what these agreements mean for researchers and authors here.
Looking ahead to Peer Review Week 2023 via The Scholarly Kitchen | 6-minute read
This year’s Peer Review Week will take place between 25 and 29 September and will explore the world of peer review and the future of scholarly publishing. This blog post – written by the Co-chairs of this year’s event Roohi Ghosh (Ambassador for Researcher Outreach, Engagement and Success at Cactus Communications) and Lindsay Morton (Senior Communications Manager of Open Science Community Engagement at PLOS) – looks ahead to the event and what they expect to be the major talking points of the week. You can find out more about Peer Review Week 2023 and what is planned here. There is also still time for you to get involved in many different ways!
What are the benefits of making data sharing the norm? via The BMJ | 5-minute read
This editorial, published in The BMJ, discusses the “undeniable” benefits of mandatory data sharing in medical research for patients, science and society. These benefits include enabling the testing of alternative hypotheses, the validation of research, the exploration of controversies, the avoidance of duplications, and the production of new knowledge from existing data sets. But widespread sharing of medical research data doesn’t come without challenges, such as making sure that sensitive data is shared responsibly. If the potential risks of data sharing are adequately dealt with, the authors call for the adoption of mandatory data sharing policies.
The changing face of the medical publishing industry via Journal of General Internal Medicine | 16-minute read
The medical publishing world has changed substantially over the past 10 years. Some major changes include the shift from print to digital publishing, the rise of open access publishing, and the consequential emergence of article processing charges. This article, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, looks at some of these changes, with a particular focus on changes in equity and economics within the sector.
Measuring and monitoring open science practices via The Publication Plan | 2-minute read
This blog post provides a brief summary of a recent publication in PLOS Biology that looked at which open science practices should be measured and monitored at biomedical institutions across the globe. After asking 80 participants, including researchers, open science experts and librarians, the authors developed 19 open science practices that should be monitored. These practices included the timely registering and reporting of clinical trials and systematic reviews, the sharing of information such as data, study materials or code, the use of persistent identifiers such as ORCID iDs, the publication of research via open access routes, and the disclosure of author contributions, conflicts of interest and funding.
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