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Virtually the Same? Evaluating the Effectiveness of Remote Undergraduate Research Experiences

Virtually the Same? Evaluating the Effectiveness of Remote Undergraduate Research Experiences

In-person undergraduate research experiences (UREs) promote students' integration into careers in life science research. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted institutions hosting summer URE programs to offer them remotely, raising questions about whether undergraduates who participate in remote research can experience scientific integration.

Preprints in Motion: Tracking Changes Between Posting and Journal Publication

Preprints in Motion: Tracking Changes Between Posting and Journal Publication

Study utilised a combination of automatic and manual annotations to quantify how an article from early 2020 changed between the preprinted and published version.

'Nepotistic Journals': a Survey of Biomedical Journals

'Nepotistic Journals': a Survey of Biomedical Journals

Context Convergent analyses in different disciplines support the use of the Percentage of Papers by the Most Prolific author (PPMP) as a red flag to identify journals that can be suspected of questionable editorial practices. We examined whether this index, complemented by the Gini index, could be useful for identifying cases of potential editorial bias, using a large sample of biomedical journals. Methods We extracted metadata for all biomedical journals referenced in the National Library of Medicine, with any attributed Broad Subject Terms, and at least 50 authored (i.e. by at least one author) articles between 2015 and 2019, identifying the most prolific author (i.e. the person who signed the most papers in each particular journal). We calculated the PPMP and the 2015-2019 Gini index for the distribution of articles across authors. When the relevant information was reported, we also computed the median publication lag (time between submission and acceptance) for articles authored by any of the most prolific authors and that for articles not authored by prolific authors. For outlier journals, defined as a PPMP or Gini index above the 95th percentile of their respective distributions, a random sample of 100 journals was selected and described in relation to status on the editorial board for the most prolific author. Results 5 468 journals that published 4 986 335 papers between 2015 and 2019 were analysed. The PPMP 95th percentile was 10.6% (median 2.9%). The Gini index 95th percentile was 0.355 (median 0.183). Correlation between the two indices was 0.35 (95CI 0.33 to 0.37). Information on publication lag was available for 2 743 journals. We found that 277 journals (10.2%) had a median time lag to publication for articles by the most prolific author(s) that was shorter than 3 weeks, versus 51 (1.9%) journals with articles not authored by prolific author(s). Among the random sample of outlier journals, 98 provided information about their editorial board. Among these 98, the most prolific author was part of the editorial board in 60 cases (61%), among whom 25 (26% of the 98) were editors-in-chief. Discussion In most journals publications are distributed across a large number of authors. Our results reveal a subset of journals where a few authors, often members of the editorial board, were responsible for a disproportionate number of publications. The papers by these authors were more likely to be accepted for publication within 3 weeks of their submission. To enhance trust in their practices, journals need to be transparent about their editorial and peer review practices.

Open Science Saves Lives: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Open Science Saves Lives: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

In the last decade Open Science principles, such as Open Access, study preregistration, use of preprints, making available data and code, and open peer review, have been successfully advocated for and are being slowly adopted in many different research communities. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic many publishers and researchers have sped up their adoption of some of these Open Science practices, sometimes embracing them fully and sometimes partially or in a sub-optimal manner. In this article, we express concerns about the violation of some of the Open Science principles and its potential impact on the quality of research output. We provide evidence of the misuses of these principles at different stages of the scientific process. We call for a wider adoption of Open Science practices in the hope that this work will encourage a broader endorsement of Open Science principles and serve as a reminder that science should always be a rigorous process, reliable and transparent, especially in the context of a pandemic where research findings are being translated into practice even more rapidly. We provide all data and scripts at . ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

Preprinting a Pandemic: the Role of Preprints in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Preprinting a Pandemic: the Role of Preprints in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Analysis of over 16,000 preprints released within 4 months of the first confirmed case found that COVID-19 preprints are shorter, with fewer panels and tables, and reviewed faster.

Tracking Self-Citations in Academic Publishing

Tracking Self-Citations in Academic Publishing

Citation metrics have value because they aim to make scientific assessment a level playing field, but urgent transparency-based changes are necessary to ensure that the data yields an accurate picture. One problematic area is the handling of self-citations.

The Future of OA: A Large-scale Analysis Projecting Open Access Publication and Readership

The Future of OA: A Large-scale Analysis Projecting Open Access Publication and Readership

This study analyses OA papers over time. Given existing trends, the authors estimate that by 2025, the declining relevance of closed access articles is likely to change the landscape of scholarly communication in the years to come.

Insights from a Survey-based Analysis of the Academic Job Market

Insights from a Survey-based Analysis of the Academic Job Market

Many postdoctoral fellows in the STEM fields enter the academic job market with little knowledge of the process and expectations, and without any means to assess their qualifications relative to the general applicant pool. Demystifying this process is critical, as there is little information publicly available.

Comparison of Bibliographic Data Sources: Implications for the Robustness of University Rankings

Comparison of Bibliographic Data Sources: Implications for the Robustness of University Rankings

Universities are increasingly evaluated, both internally and externally on the basis of their outputs. Often these are converted to simple, and frequently contested, rankings based on quantitative analysis of those outputs. These rankings can have substantial implications for student and staff recruitment, research income and perceived prestige of a university. Both internal and external analyses usually rely on a single data source to define the set of outputs assigned to a specific university.

Can Scientists Fill the Science Journalism Void? Online Public Engagement with Science Stories Authored by Scientists

Can Scientists Fill the Science Journalism Void? Online Public Engagement with Science Stories Authored by Scientists

In recent years traditional journalism has experienced a collapse, and science journalism has been a major casualty. One potential remedy is to encourage scientists to write for news media about science.

What Difference Do Retractions Make? An Estimate of the Epistemic Impact of Retractions on Recent Meta-analyses

What Difference Do Retractions Make? An Estimate of the Epistemic Impact of Retractions on Recent Meta-analyses

Every year, several hundred publications are retracted due to fabrication and falsification of data or plagiarism and other breeches of research integrity and ethics. However, the extent to which a retraction requires revising previous scientific estimates and beliefs is unknown.

Why We Publish Where We Do: Faculty Publishing Values and Their Relationship to Review, Promotion and Tenure Expectations

Why We Publish Where We Do: Faculty Publishing Values and Their Relationship to Review, Promotion and Tenure Expectations

A survey of academics finds that respondents most value journal readership, while they believe their peers most value prestige and related metrics such as impact factor when submitting their work for publication.

Releasing a Preprint is Associated with More Attention and Citations

Releasing a Preprint is Associated with More Attention and Citations

Preprint examines whether having a preprint on bioRxiv.org was associated with the Altmetric Attention Score and number of citations of the corresponding peer-reviewed article.

The Effect of BioRxiv Preprints on Citations and Altmetrics

The Effect of BioRxiv Preprints on Citations and Altmetrics

Article finds that bioRxiv-deposited journal articles received a sizeable citation and altmetric advantage over non-deposited articles.

The Life of P.I. - Transitions to Independence in Academia

The Life of P.I. - Transitions to Independence in Academia

The data in this report summarises the responses gathered from 365 principle investigators of academic laboratories, who started their independent positions in the UK within the last 6 years up to 2018. We find that too many new investigators express frustration and poor optimism for the future. These data also reveal, that many of these individuals lack the support required to make a successful transition to independence and that simple measures could be put in place by both funders and universities in order to better support these early career researchers. We use these data to make both recommendations of good practice and for changes to policies that would make significant improvements to those currently finding independence challenging. We find that some new investigators face significant obstacles when building momentum and hiring a research team. In particular, access to PhD students. We also find some important areas such as starting salaries where significant gender differences persist, which cannot be explained by seniority. Our data also underlines the importance of support networks, within and outside the department, and the positive influence of good mentorship through this difficult career stage.

Where Do Our Graduates Go? A Toolkit for Retrospective and Ongoing Career Outcomes Data Collection for Biomedical PhD Students and Postdoctoral Scholars

Where Do Our Graduates Go? A Toolkit for Retrospective and Ongoing Career Outcomes Data Collection for Biomedical PhD Students and Postdoctoral Scholars

Universities are at long last undertaking efforts to collect and disseminate information about student career outcomes, after decades of calls to action. Organizations such as Rescuing Biomedical Research and Future of Research brought this issue to the forefront of graduate education, and the second Future of Biomedical Graduate and Postdoctoral Training conference (FOBGAPT2) featured the collection of career outcomes data in its final recommendations, published in this journal (Hitchcock et al., 2017). More recently, 26 institutions assembled as the Coalition for Next Generation Life Science, committing to ongoing collection and dissemination of career data for both graduate and postdoc alumni. A few individual institutions have shared snapshots of the data in peer-reviewed publications (Mathur et al., 2018; Silva, des Jarlais, Lindstaedt, Rotman, Watkins, 2016) and on websites. As more and more institutions take up this call to action, they will now be looking for tools, protocols, and best practices for ongoing career outcomes data collection, management, and dissemination. Here, we describe UCSF's experiences in conducting a retrospective study, and in institutionalizing a methodology for annual data collection and dissemination. We describe and share all tools we have developed, and we provide calculations of the time and resources required to accomplish both retrospective studies and annual updates. We also include broader recommendations for implementation at your own institutions, increasing the feasibility of this endeavor.

Talent Identification at the Limits of Peer Review: an Analysis of the EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships Selection Process

Talent Identification at the Limits of Peer Review: an Analysis of the EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships Selection Process

The EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships selection process undergoes analysis.

Tracking the Popularity and Outcomes of All BioRxiv Preprints

Tracking the Popularity and Outcomes of All BioRxiv Preprints

Though the popularity and practical benefits of preprints are driving policy changes at journals and funding organizations, there is little bibliometric data available to measure trends in their usage. This study collected and analyzed data on all preprints that were uploaded to bioRxiv.org in the past five years.

Talent Identification at the Limits of Peer Review: an Analysis of the EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships Selection Process

Talent Identification at the Limits of Peer Review: an Analysis of the EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships Selection Process

A study evaluating two aspects of the selection process of the top-ranked applicants to the EMBO Long-Term Fellowship program in 2007.

Gender and International Diversity Improves Equity in Peer Review

Gender and International Diversity Improves Equity in Peer Review

The acceptance rate for eLife manuscripts with male last authors was significantly higher than for female last authors, and this gender inequity was greatest when the team of reviewers was all male; mixed-gender gatekeeper teams lead to more equitable peer review outcomes.

High Cost of Bias: Diminishing Marginal Returns on NIH Grant Funding to Institutions

High Cost of Bias: Diminishing Marginal Returns on NIH Grant Funding to Institutions

A study suggesting that implicit biases and social prestige mechanisms (e.g., the Matthew effect) have a powerful impact on where NIH grant dollars go and the net return on taxpayers investments. They support evidence-based changes in funding policy geared towards a more equitable, more diverse and more productive distribution of federal support for scientific research.

Illuminating Women's Hidden Contribution to the Foundation of Theoretical Population Genetics

Illuminating Women's Hidden Contribution to the Foundation of Theoretical Population Genetics

A study documenting acknowledgment sections and identified "acknowledged programmers" in Theoretical Population Biology articles published between 1970 and 1990. While only 7% of authors were women, 43% of acknowledged programmers were women.

A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions

A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions

Although the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is widely acknowledged to be a poor indicator of the quality of individual papers, it is used routinely to evaluate research and researchers. Here, we present a simple method for generating the citation distributions that underlie JIFs. Application of this straightforward protocol reveals the full extent of the skew of these distributions and the variation in citations received by published papers that is characteristic of all scientific journals. Although there are differences among journals across the spectrum of JIFs, the citation distributions overlap extensively, demonstrating that the citation performance of individual papers cannot be inferred from the JIF. We propose that this methodology be adopted by all journals as a move to greater transparency, one that should help to refocus attention on individual pieces of work and counter the inappropriate usage of JIFs during the process of research assessment.

Science Podcasts: Analysis of Global Production and Output from 2004 to 2018

Science Podcasts: Analysis of Global Production and Output from 2004 to 2018

The total number of science podcasts was found to have grown linearly between 2004 and 2010, but between 2010 and 2018 the number of science podcast has grown exponentially.

Edge Factors: Scientific Frontier Positions of Nations

Edge Factors: Scientific Frontier Positions of Nations

The United States and South Korea have the highest tendencies for novel science. China has become a leader in favoring newer ideas when working with basic science ideas and research tools, but is still slow to adopt new clinical ideas. Many locations remain far behind the leaders in terms of their tendency to work with novel ideas.

Persistent Underrepresentation of Women's Science in High Profile Journals

Persistent Underrepresentation of Women's Science in High Profile Journals

Study found that 1) Women authors have been persistently underrepresented in high-profile journals, and 2) The percent of female first and last authors is negatively associated with a journal's impact factor.