"This review draws upon insights from a curated body of recently published research papers to highlight structural injustices in academic publishing, their adverse effects on global research output, and the excessive pressure placed on faculty members to fulfill the requirements of accreditation agencies."
J. Nathan Matias 🦣
boosted
New study: "More women-led papers receive at least one media mention in women-underrepresented fields, but they are cited less frequently across all fields. Women authors are underrepresented in national outlets and are more often reported by liberal media. Sentiment analysis shows that men-led papers are more often associated with positive sentiment in news text, while women-led papers elicit more negative sentiment."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10755470251360187
New study: "More women-led papers receive at least one media mention in women-underrepresented fields, but they are cited less frequently across all fields. Women authors are underrepresented in national outlets and are more often reported by liberal media. Sentiment analysis shows that men-led papers are more often associated with positive sentiment in news text, while women-led papers elicit more negative sentiment."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10755470251360187
Ulrike Hahn
boosted
#AI tools seem to be generating a large swath of low-quality, formulaic biomedical articles drawn from #OpenAccess biomedical databases. For example, since the rise of #LLMs about three years ago, the number of new biomedical articles is about 5k larger than previous moving average would have predicted. The researchers who noticed this trend argue for the "adoption of controlled data-access mechanisms" -- that is, pulling back from #OpenData.
* Primary source (a preprint)
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.07.25331008v1
* Summary (in Nature)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02241-2
PS: The conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. This is like arguing that we should restrict clean air, clean air, and crowbars because criminals take advantage of them to commit crimes.
#AI tools seem to be generating a large swath of low-quality, formulaic biomedical articles drawn from #OpenAccess biomedical databases. For example, since the rise of #LLMs about three years ago, the number of new biomedical articles is about 5k larger than previous moving average would have predicted. The researchers who noticed this trend argue for the "adoption of controlled data-access mechanisms" -- that is, pulling back from #OpenData.
* Primary source (a preprint)
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.07.25331008v1
* Summary (in Nature)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02241-2
PS: The conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. This is like arguing that we should restrict clean air, clean air, and crowbars because criminals take advantage of them to commit crimes.
Nicolas Fressengeas
boosted
The #NIH just announced that it will "cap how much #publishers can charge NIH-supported scientists to make their research findings publicly accessible."
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-crack-down-excessive-publisher-fees-publicly-funded-research
We don't yet know the cap or how NIH will calculate or enforce it.
#APCs#DefendResearch#GoldOA#OpenAccess#ScholComm #Trump #TrumpVResearch#USPol#USPolitics
The #NIH just announced that it will "cap how much #publishers can charge NIH-supported scientists to make their research findings publicly accessible."
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-crack-down-excessive-publisher-fees-publicly-funded-research
We don't yet know the cap or how NIH will calculate or enforce it.
#APCs#DefendResearch#GoldOA#OpenAccess#ScholComm #Trump #TrumpVResearch#USPol#USPolitics
Nicolas Fressengeas
boosted
Most science today is published in countries with low ratings for democracy and freedom of the press.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.03.663115v1
"In 2024, countries characterized as full democracies produced only 22% of the Scopus-indexed publications, versus 66% in 2006…78% of publications in 2024 came from countries with problematic (including USA) or worse (including China) freedom of press."
The authors took the democracy ratings from Democracy Index…
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu
…and the freedom of the press ratings from Reporters Without Borders.
https://rsf.org/en/rsf-world-press-freedom-index-2025-economic-fragility-leading-threat-press-freedom
Most science today is published in countries with low ratings for democracy and freedom of the press.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.03.663115v1
"In 2024, countries characterized as full democracies produced only 22% of the Scopus-indexed publications, versus 66% in 2006…78% of publications in 2024 came from countries with problematic (including USA) or worse (including China) freedom of press."
The authors took the democracy ratings from Democracy Index…
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu
…and the freedom of the press ratings from Reporters Without Borders.
https://rsf.org/en/rsf-world-press-freedom-index-2025-economic-fragility-leading-threat-press-freedom
Alex Akselrod
and 2 others
boosted
"Springer Nature book on machine learning is full of made-up citations."
https://retractionwatch.com/2025/06/30/springer-nature-book-on-machine-learning-is-full-of-made-up-citations/
PS: Will this kind of slipshod practice decline on its own? Or does it require publicity and public shaming? I don't know. But I'm grateful to @retractionwatch for turning on its spotlight.
#AI#Hallucinations#Proofreading#Publishers#ScholComm #SpringerNature#SubtractedValue
"Springer Nature book on machine learning is full of made-up citations."
https://retractionwatch.com/2025/06/30/springer-nature-book-on-machine-learning-is-full-of-made-up-citations/
PS: Will this kind of slipshod practice decline on its own? Or does it require publicity and public shaming? I don't know. But I'm grateful to @retractionwatch for turning on its spotlight.
#AI#Hallucinations#Proofreading#Publishers#ScholComm #SpringerNature#SubtractedValue
Nicolas Fressengeas
boosted
📢 The Bologna Meeting Report on Open Research Information is now available!
Nearly 200 participants from 35 countries joined us (in the room and online) to advance the @BarcelonaDORI. The report captures key outcomes, showcases implementation journeys, and highlights next steps.
📄 Read it on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15730917
🎥 Morning session video coming soon in our Youtube Channel!
📢 The Bologna Meeting Report on Open Research Information is now available!
Nearly 200 participants from 35 countries joined us (in the room and online) to advance the @BarcelonaDORI. The report captures key outcomes, showcases implementation journeys, and highlights next steps.
📄 Read it on Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15730917
🎥 Morning session video coming soon in our Youtube Channel!
Update. "Since 2017, the #UK has mandated organisations employing more than 250 people to publicly report their annual #gender#PayGap…Every science publisher pays men more than women. In 2024, the lowest median pay gap favouring men was 9.5% ( #SpringerNature), followed by #Sage (13.3%), #Wiley (17.7%), and #Informa (formerly Taylor & Francis) (22.7%). #Elsevier remains an outlier in the magnitude of its gender pay gap and in the lack of progress. Eight years ago Elsevier stood out among publishers, with a median pay gap in 2017 of 40.4% in favour of men over women in its UK business…Elsevier’s median pay gap for 2024 is 32.8%, maintaining its position as worst performer among peers over all eight years of mandatory reporting."
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004673
I've signed this Declaration To #DefendResearch Against US Gov #Censorship and hope you will too. (Disclosure: I was on the drafting committee.)
https://tinyurl.com/2dyadwzr
Update. The @WashPost does a good job showing the breadth of govt science and info taken down by the #Trump admin.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2025/sample-government-webpages-trump-doesnt-want-you-see/
Update. "Trump officials exerting unprecedented control over CDC scientific journal"
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-officials-influence-cdc-mmwr/
"Trump administration political appointees have taken steps in recent weeks to exert unprecedented influence over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's flagship medical research publication, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, multiple federal health officials tell CBS News. The interference included dictating what to cover and withholding studies on the growing bird flu outbreak."
PS: Just curious. How do Trump officials decide that covering bird flu is bad for their agenda?
Update. The #BMJ isn't the only journal pushing back against the #CDC directive that staff scientists should retract pending publications that use Trump-banned words. (Earlier in this thread.)
Kudos to the American Journal of Public Health (#AJPH) for pushing back as well.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/114076
From publisher Georges Benjamin: "We at the American Journal of Public Health have no interest in following the president's prohibitions on language. We will publish things under our guidelines, under our ethical principles." Benjamin acknowledged that the journal may now get fewer submissions from government scientists.
AJPH is published by the American Public Health Association ( #APHA).
#Censorship#Medicine#ScholComm#SocietyPublisher #Trump#USPol#USPolitics
Update. "#USDA ordered to scrub climate change from websites"
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/31/usda-climate-change-websites-00201826
"Agriculture Department employees have been ordered to delete landing pages discussing climate change across agency websites and document climate change references for further review, according to an internal email obtained by POLITICO...."
#Agriculture#Censorship #Climate#Takedowns #Trump#USPol#USPolitics
Update. I just posted an item outside this thread that belongs in the thread. Sorry. Here it is. The #Trump#CDC is asking staffers to withdraw pending scientific publications that use newly-prohibited terms like #transgender, #immigrant, or #LGBT.
https://fediscience.org/@petersuber/113946091994922725