This week, we encourage you to complete the 2024 State of Open Data survey. We also signpost an upcoming webinar about how to improve the quality of your Crossref metadata and explore new standardized peer review terminology. We also read the latest Open Pharma guest blog, learn of major investment in evidence banks, and consider the implications of a class action lawsuit against major publishers. Finally, we learn about QUB’s partnership with Figshare and read a summary of a recent White House webinar.
To engage with:
Complete the 2024 State of Open Data survey via Springer Nature, Figshare, and Digital Science
Have you completed the 2024 State of Open Data survey? Now in its ninth year, the survey aims to capture global experiences of and attitudes towards data sharing, and it will be used to produce a follow-up to the 2023 State of Open Data report. The survey is open until Monday 30 September, and your response could win you one of five $100 gift cards! Read previous State of Open Data reports – including an Open Pharma case study – on the Digital Science website.
Improve your metadata via Crossref
How good are your metadata? Join this webinar to assess and improve the quality of your Crossref metadata using the Participation Reports tool. Choose from several 1-hour sessions and get practical advice to “improve your metadata on-the-spot”.
STM and NISO announce standardized peer review terminology via Peer Review Terminology
The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) and National Information Standards Organization (NISO) have announced a standardized terminology for communicating peer review practices. The standardization aims to bring clarity and consistency to peer review processes, allowing authors, reviewers, editors and readers to access and compare practices between journals. Download the summary infographic and explore which publishers have adopted the terminology on the Peer Review Terminology website.
To read:
Engaging Gen Z in future healthcare: the role of pharma, open science and the third sector via Open Pharma | 6-min read
Positively engaging Gen Z in biomedicine and healthcare holds huge opportunities for future pharma research. In our latest guest blog, Deyaanjali Deb (Medical Student at the University of Oxford and former Youth Advocate for Barnardo’s) considers how the attributes of Gen Z can be positively harnessed for the future of pharma and biomedical research. Read the post now to discover how the third sector, open science and research engagement can help to tackle misinformation and foster trust in this cohort.
Synthesizing science for policymakers via Nature | 6-minute read
What if we could access all the evidence ever collected for any major social problem in one place? The Economic and Social Research Council and Wellcome have announced a £55 million investment in databases and tools that can help to synthesize scientific evidence. The ambitious plan aims to streamline the challenging and costly process of producing evidence syntheses, with the aim of helping policymakers quickly understand the importance of research outcomes. Read the full article to explore how evidence banks – shared databases of preselected studies – could be the answer.
Researchers sue major publishers via The Scholarly Kitchen | 20-minute read
Earlier this month, a group of researchers filed a class-action federal antitrust lawsuit against six journal publishers. The complaint alleges the publishers agreed “to not pay [scholars] for their peer review services”, to not “compete with each other for manuscripts”, and to “prohibit scholars from freely sharing the scientific advancements in submitted manuscripts while those manuscripts are under peer review”. In this article, members of the Scholarly Kitchen community share their thoughts on the litigation and what it might mean for the future of scholarly publishing.
QUB chooses Figshare for Research Repository via Digital Science | 3-minute read
Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) has chosen Figshare as its platform to store and share research data and outputs. The university hopes the partnership will support efforts to make their research content FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reproducible). As Jane O’Neill (University Librarian at QUB) says, “assigning DOIs [digital object identifiers] to digital content is probably the most important element to achieving FAIR, ensuring permanence, persistent identification, and helping other researchers cite the work of our authors”.
White House commits to accessible publications via The White House | 2-minute read
“Improving the digital accessibility of scientific and technical publications is critical to achieving equitable public access to federally funded research”. This press release summarizes a recent Office of Science and Technology Policy webinar that emphasized the importance of improving digital accessibility to scientific publications.
Enjoy reading our content? Read last week’s digest here and check out our latest guest blog!
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