Weekend reads, part 2: Pressure to publish limits innovation; Frontiers a predatory publisher?

Lots of good reads elsewhere this week. As promised yesterday, here’s part 2:

• Pressure to publish “might discourage scientists from asking the innovative questions that are most likely to lead to the biggest breakthroughs, according to a new study spearheaded by a UCLA professor.”
• Meet the professor behind the popular Twitter feed Shit Academics Say.
• Jeffrey Beall’s addition of the Frontiers journals to his list of possible predatory publishers has been met with a backlash, Mollie Bloudoff-Indelicato reports for Nature.
• We need more scientific rock stars, not fewer, says Alex Eliseev.
• A group of researchers is trying to help reporters decode studies on deadline (Joseph Lichterman at Nieman Lab).
• The “massive pool” of biomedical postdocs in the US may finally be starting to shrink, reports Monya Baker in Nature.
• “US astronomers are stuck in a grant rejection cycle,” reports Chris Cesare for Nature.
• “[W]hile senior academics tend to have the most followers on social networking site, the most junior researchers are not far behind,” according to a new study (Times Higher Education).
• Research assessment in the UK and Italy is “costly and difficult, but probably worth it (at least for a while),” say two academics in Italy (sub req’d).
• Meanwhile, others are criticizing the UK’s teaching excellence framework. (Times Higher Education)
• “[A]s long as recruitment and promotion panels attach value to papers published in specific journals only, [the role of arXiv and similar preprint servers] will be limited,” says Jan van den Heuvel.
• ORI officials discuss scientific integrity on Voice of America Radio.
• “Recruitment Processes in Academia: Does the Emperor Have Any Clothes?” asks Behzad Ataie-Ashtiani (sub req’d).
• “The value of the humanities to business is underestimated, but few departments are able to demonstrate relevance of studies to industry,” a George Mason professor told a conference. (Times Higher Education)
• In response to reporting about a requirement that patients who wanted a co-pay card for one of its products give access to ­­a decade of medical records, Amgen is “assessing the privacy notice and authorization to determine whether we can improve it,” Larry Husten reports.
• Three authors of a letter in the BMJ hope that the recent analysis of Study 329 will lead to its retraction. (sub req’d)
• “[T]he vast majority of meta-analyses of antidepressants have some industry link, with a corresponding suppression of negative results,” writes Roni Jacobson at Scientific American of a new analysis.
• 99.9% chance of a magnitude 5 or higher earthquake in southern California in the next three years? Hold on, says the US Geological Survey (Los Angeles Times).
• Bob Ward finds more alleged errors in the work of environmental economist Richard Tol.
• The latest analysis on GDF11, a proposed antiaging protein, blames discrepancies in the literature on misreported doses and misinterpretation,” Kerry Grens reports at The Scientist.
• What does scientific fraud cost us? asks Chiara Lalli (in Italian).
• The US Federal Aviation Administration has retracted – aka rescinded – a drone permit they issued to man who claimed on his application to be CEO of a company where it turns out he doesn’t even work.
• A company is retracting two news releases, “as well as the Technical Report which these news releases reference. The Company is also specifically retracting the term ‘Diluted Recoverable Resources’ from the news releases as this is not a Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum category and therefore must not be disclosed.
• “…I made an extremely inappropriate response to a reader’s question on my views of the newly public company, BitGold, which I hope to rectify with this communication.”
• “Because of the sensitivities surrounding the subject matter, the editors [of The Malay Mail Online] have now made the decision to withdraw publication of said column and to apologise unreservedly to anyone who may have been offended by it.”
• “The New Statesman has retracted its report on the Group Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Springfield Group of Companies, Mr Kevin Okyere, which was deemed libellous.”
• What is objectivity in environmental journalism? A new study takes a look at the case of reporters in China (sub req’d).
• Meanwhile, coverage of synthetic biology in Nordic countries “was very positive, with an optimistic look at future benefits and very little discussion of possible risks,” according to a new study (sub req’d).
• Charlie Rapple celebrates five years of altmetrics at the Scholarly Kitchen.
• Find out why biomedical superstars are signing on with Google (Erika Check Hayden in Nature).
• PLOS introduces PLOScast, “a podcast on science, academia and the future of scholarship.”
• Is economics based on shaky statistics? asks David Matthews at Times Higher Education.
• Tenure in Canada vs. Wisconsin: A reflection by Kris Olds at Inside Higher Ed.

For Open Access Week:

• Kathleen Fitzpatrick “reflects on the wider OA movement and whether the singular focus on making publications freely available has prematurely foreclosed a set of larger discussions about the broader circulation of scholarship in general.”
• Gary Hall wonders whether the growth of Academia.edu means that open access is becoming irrelevant.
• The battle for open access is far from over, says Ginny Barbour.
• Christine Thomsen looks back at Wiley’s open access activity in 2015.
• Vikki Renwick offers five steps to success in open access publishing.
• We need to make sure the future of scientific publishing is fair as well as transparent, argues Graham Kendall.
• Barbara Fister reminds us to check our library privilege.
• Sonia Livingstone offers her thoughts on open access.
• Sara Bowman reviews the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines.

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