Update. A letter to the editor about a study I posted to this thread 11/23/25: "The suggestion that [the lower #retraction rate for women] is because male researchers undergo more scrutiny, propose bolder ideas and lead larger and more dynamic teams than do female researchers implies that male scientists are better at science. As female scientists, our lived experience points to alternative explanations: elevated rigour and scientific integrity by female scientists or more critical peer review of female-led manuscripts."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00120-y
( #paywalled)

#Gender #GenderBias #ScholComm

"Trump Can’t Cap Overhead Rate on #NIH Grants to Research Universities, Appeals Court Rules."
https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/the-trump-agenda/trump-cant-cap-overhead-rate-on-nih-grants-to-research-universities-appeals-court-rules
( #paywalled)

"A federal appeals court on Monday ruled that the National Institutes of Health cannot unilaterally cap the indirect-cost rate on its grants at 15 percent, continuing a freeze on the controversial policy change that would cost universities billions."

#Academia #AcademicMastodon #Funding #Trump #Universities #USLaw #USPol #USPolitics

Update. Here's another article that made it through peer review (at #WoltersKluwer) falsely asserting that all #OpenAccess journals charge #APCs.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/SAP.0000000000004612
(#paywalled)

General thesis: Paying APCs is a hardship (true) and the prices are going up (true). Therefore, to help medical students publish OA, medical schools should fund their APCs.

The article never mentions no-fee OA journals (#DiamondOA) or no-fee OA repositories (#GreenOA).

#ScholComm

Update. Here's another article that made it through peer review (at #WoltersKluwer) falsely asserting that all #OpenAccess journals charge #APCs.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/SAP.0000000000004612
(#paywalled)

General thesis: Paying APCs is a hardship (true) and the prices are going up (true). Therefore, to help medical students publish OA, medical schools should fund their APCs.

The article never mentions no-fee OA journals (#DiamondOA) or no-fee OA repositories (#GreenOA).

#ScholComm

Update. Summary of 2025 progress and setbacks for the #RightToRepair movement.
https://www.wired.com/story/expired-tired-wired-right-to-repair/
( #paywalled)

"This year, the right-to-repair movement got a boost from—surprisingly—big tech, tariffs, and economic downturn. But the companies controlling who fixes their stuff aren’t giving up that power willingly."

Update. The U of Virginia surveyed its community in October on how it should respond to the #Trump compact. The Chronicle of Higher Education got the results through a public-records request.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/uva-asked-its-community-to-weigh-in-on-trumps-compact-heres-what-they-said
( #paywalled)

" 'Nope. Nothing. Nada.' 'Not at all.' 'No'. 'NO.' 'NO!'… Those curt replies were broadly representative of the responses as a whole…The F-word is used nine times…There were nearly 200 references to #UVa’s founder, #ThomasJefferson, almost all of which were in service of the argument that the compact went against his vision of the university. 'Stand your ground,' one wrote. 'You know it’s what Thomas Jefferson would have wanted.' "

#Academia #AcademicFreedom #AcademicMastodon
#Censorship #DefendResearch #Takedowns #TrumpVResearch #Universities #UVa #USPol #USPolitics

Update. "Women are markedly underrepresented among authors of retracted publications, particularly in cases involving multiple retractions."
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0335059

The article is #OpenAccess. But on the day of publication, this #paywalled comment by Jenna Ahart appeared in Nature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03796-w

Update. "Women are markedly underrepresented among authors of retracted publications, particularly in cases involving multiple retractions."
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0335059

The article is #OpenAccess. But on the day of publication, this #paywalled comment by Jenna Ahart appeared in Nature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03796-w

"Scientists had to change more than 700 grant titles to receive NIH funding. Health disparities researchers fear what’s next."
https://www.statnews.com/2025/10/29/nih-banned-words-analysis-grant-title-changes/
( #paywalled)

"McKay’s is one of more than 700 multiyear grants that changed their titles from 2024 to 2025, according to an analysis of NIH Reporter data by Jeremy Berg, who previously led one of the NIH’s institutes and has been a vocal critic of the administration’s moves at the agency…The vast majority [of these changes] were to remove words and phrases that have become anathema to the administration. Nearly 100 grants have removed “equity” from their title, dozens removed references to “disparities,” and many others removed references to specific racial groups and gender minorities."

#Censorship #DefendResearch #Funding #Medicine #Trump #TrumpVResearch #USPol #USPolitics

"NIH funding cuts have affected over 74,000 people enrolled in experiments, a new report says."
https://apnews.com/article/nih-funding-cuts-32b9b7bad01457a5412af26e394e3735

This AP article doesn't link to the primary source in _JAMA Internal Medicine_ or the accompanying editor's note, perhaps because they're both #paywalled. (If that's the reason, it's weak.) Here they are:

* primary source
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2840939

* editor's note
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2840943

#ClinicalTrials #DefendResearch #Funding #Medicine #NIH #Trump #TrumpVResearch #USPol #USPolitics

Thinking about #AI, Paul Ford (@ftrain) proposes a quirky but plausible test to distinguish bubble technologies from normal technologies.
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-normal-after-ai-plateaus/
(#paywalled)

"The metric I use is the C/B ratio: conferences to blogging. If people are steadily attending conferences about a subject, it is not normal yet. If they’re mostly blogging about it, it is. I made this up, but I assure you it’s predictive."

By this test, he concludes that AI is a bubble technology.

I bring this up because it seems that this test also makes #OpenAccess a bubble something, even if not a technology. But I'd call OA normal -- here to stay, wanted for good reasons, widely accepted, widely implemented, and growing, though previously novel and still overcoming obstacles.

Now I'm wondering: Is Ford's test bogus? Is it valid in some domains but not for something like OA? If it applies to OA, am I applying it too loosely? Or is OA still not normal?

#HalfSerious

"More than 20% of chemistry researchers have deliberately added information they believe to be incorrect into their manuscripts during the peer review process, in order to get their papers published."
https://cen.acs.org/policy/publishing/One-five-chemists-deliberately-added/103/web/2025/10

* Primary source
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08989621.2025.2564106
(#paywalled)

#AddedValue #Chemistry #PeerReview #Reviewer2 #ScholComm

"More than 20% of chemistry researchers have deliberately added information they believe to be incorrect into their manuscripts during the peer review process, in order to get their papers published."
https://cen.acs.org/policy/publishing/One-five-chemists-deliberately-added/103/web/2025/10

* Primary source
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08989621.2025.2564106
(#paywalled)

#AddedValue #Chemistry #PeerReview #Reviewer2 #ScholComm

Update. In response to this problem (previous post, this thread), some publishers are desk-rejecting papers based on open health datasets. The problem is not the quality of the data, but the absence of additional work to validate findings.

Two reports:

1. "Journals and publishers crack down on research from open health data sets," Science, Oct 8, 2025.
https://www.science.org/content/article/journals-and-publishers-crack-down-research-open-health-data-sets

2. "AI: Journals are automatically rejecting public health dataset papers to combat paper mills," BMJ, Oct 15, 2025.
https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj.r2170
( #paywalled)

#AI #Data #Frontiers #Medicine #PaperMills #PLOS #OpenData

Update. #Dartmouth has not yet made a public statement rejecting the Trump compact. But two Dartmouth sources "who asked to speak anonymously…said they participated in a meeting with President Sian Leah Beilock in which…she said 'she would not sign the compact as written.'"
https://www.chronicle.com/article/dartmouths-president-balks-at-trump-compact-sources-say-as-feds-expand-offer-to-any-institution
( #paywalled)

#Academia #AcademicFreedom #AcademicMastodon #Censorship #DefendResearch #Funding #Trump #TrumpVResearch #Universities #USPol #USPolitics