Doctoral and emerging researchers often believe that they must, from the very get go, publish in highly ranked journals. Where does this idea come from. Well sometimes word of mouth. Sometimes universities may try to point researchers in the top ranked journal direction. Some universities actually offer clear instructions about what journals to choose via […] … learn more→

When a paper is published could seem obvious but this is not a trivial question. For some time now, a research article can display several different dates that can prove confusing when trying to work out when a scholarly publication is actually released. In the hardcopy print era, before the Web shook up the academic […] … learn more→

Chief Scientist Cathy Foley is leading an open access strategy for Australia. Foley estimates the Australian government invests A$12 billion a year of public money in research and innovation only for most of the publications that eventuate to be locked behind a paywall, inaccessible to industry and the taxpayer. At the same time, Australian universities and […] … learn more→

Plan S is clear: science must be public and publicly funded research must be accessible by anyone. Like many colleagues, I am keen to see this happening. How to make it happen is, however, a different story. In an effort to liberalise the market, Plan S asked the publishers to disclose the price for open access […] … learn more→

I had two papers rejected this week: one by a psychiatry journal, the other by a business ethics journal. The former was a “desk rejection”, communicated via the usual cut-and-pasted paragraphs from an “associate editor”, whatever that is. The latter enclosed two reviews: one lukewarm, the other distinctly chilly. That paper had been rejected before. […] … learn more→

On 24 November, Twitter exploded with outrage at the announcement that the publisher Springer Nature plans to introduce an open access (OA) option for its Nature research journals, with an article processing charge (APC) of a whopping €9,500 (£8,290 or $11,390). Particular scorn was heaped on a subsidiary pilot scheme called “guided OA”, whereby authors can pay €2,190 in […] … learn more→

This week’s announcement that scientists who publish in the Nature journals will be able to make their papers freely available online marks another significant step on the journey towards what we hope will be full open access. However, the move also underlines that the bulk of open access (OA) budgets continue to be spent on […] … learn more→

The impact on teaching of the forced closure of university campuses around the world has understandably dominated institutional and press attention, with lecturers scrambling to learn new technologies and pedagogies so that disruption is minimised. But the implications of the coronavirus-related shutdown on research is also huge. Limited or no access to labs and research […] … learn more→

Writing has always been the storehouse of human knowledge and the backbone of civilisations. To this day, it carries our best hopes for building a better future. Within it is the potential to curb climate change, stave off drought and famine and cure diseases. However, the flow of information is stifled by the very means […] … learn more→

Today, the value of a researcher is mainly based on the number of citations he receives in scientific articles. A set of indices have been established, in the light of this vision of performance, to objectify the scientific productivity of a researcher. The best known of these was developed in 2005 by Jorge Hirsch: the h-index, […] … learn more→