Featuring the fight against quackery, a round-up of open access for 2017, and Crossref’s plans for a new persistent identifier for grant-funded research.
How quackery gets published via Nautilus
This article emphasizes the need for constant vigilance against pseudoscience, even in published materials. Taking examples of two erroneously published articles, one denying the link between HIV and AIDS, and the other contravening the second law of thermodynamics, the article suggests that even journals from respected publishers are not doing enough to prevent ‘garbage’ from being published.
Crossref to work on persistent identifiers for grants via Crossref
This week, Crossref have announced a pilot to include a persistent identifier for all research funded by a particular grant. This would enable funders to gain a better oversight of the breadth of work they fund, encourage collaboration between researchers funded by a common institution, and allow for research to be conducted on relationships between co-funding bodies.
Open data maturity in Europe 2017 via European Data Portal
This report evaluates various European countries with regards to open data readiness, the scope of open data policy and data portal maturity. The results are promising; they show that the open data journey for European countries is now approximately 72.5% complete, progress of more than 10% on the previous year.
A review of open access in 2017 via Googledocs
There have been a lot of big stories on open access this year: Researchgate-gate; the fallout between Elsevier and German Universities; a number of new funder platforms and the suing of Sci-Hub to name a few. This collaborative document aims to outline the key developments in open access that have taken place in 2017.
A patient’s perspective on the need for open access via Martin Paul Eve blog
This blog recounts the author’s experience of trying to learn about a rare disease with which he is living without access to the medical literature. The article lambasts the patronizing opinion that ‘everyone who needs access to the literature has it’ and argues that patients should have the freedom to access scientific literature, if only to gain some clarity on what their condition actually means.
Make your comments on the FAIR data sharing working document via Force11
The FAIR principles have been developed to serve as a guiding light to those aiming to work towards greater data transparency. The document breaks out FAIR’s four principles: that research data should be made findable, accessible, interoperable and re-useable; and invites the research community to comment.
