Category: Publication

Categories
Publication

Article: Predatory journals: No definition, no defense.

Businessman chased by shark

Everyone agrees that predatory publishers sow confusion, promote shoddy scholarship and waste resources. What is needed is consensus on a definition of predatory journals. This would provide a reference point for research into their prevalence and influence, and would help in crafting coherent interventions.

Grudniewicz, A. (2019). Predatory journals: no definition, no defence. Nature, 576, 210-212, doi: 10.1038/d41586-019-03759-y.
There exist a variety of checklists to determine if a journal is widely recognised as being “predatory” but the challenge is that few lists are consistent and some are overlapping, which is not helpful for authors.

The consensus definition reached by the authors of the paper:

Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices.

Further details of the main concepts in the definition are included in the article.

Note: Some parts of this article were cross-posted at OpenPhysio, an open-access, peer-reviewed online journal with a focus on physiotherapy education. If you’re doing interesting work in the classroom, even if you have no experience in publishing educational research, we’d like to help you share your stories.

Categories
Publication research

Resource: The Scholarly Kitchen podcast.

The Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) is a “nonprofit organization formed to promote and advance communication among all sectors of the scholarly publication community through networking, information dissemination, and facilitation of new developments in the field.” I’m mainly familiar with SSP because I follow their Scholarly Kitchen blog series and only recently came across the podcast series throught the 2 episodes on Early career development (part 1, part 2). You can listen on the web at the links or subscribe in any podcast client by searching for “Scholarly Kitchen”.

Note: I’m the editor and founder of OpenPhysio, an open-access, peer-reviewed online journal with a focus on physiotherapy education. If you’re doing interesting work in the classroom, even if you have no experience in publishing educational research, we’d like to help you share your stories.

Categories
Publication

Resource: Advice for successful academics.

30 tips for successful academic research and publishing.

15 top tips for revising journal articles.

Ten tips for increasing your academic visibility.

Tips for qualitative researchers seeking funding – What not to leave out of your grant applications.

Opening up your research – Self-archiving for sociologists.

Why I blog.

Lupton, D. (2019). Resource: Advice for successful academics. This Sociological Life blog.

I’m a fan of Deborah Lupton’s writing and research in general but she also has a great sideline act where she shares her ideas on academic work at her blog, This Sociological Life. Over the years she’s published a few posts that sum up some of her thinking on academia and she’s now put those posts into a PDF that you can download.

If you’re an academic then you’re probably familiar with some of the challenges that Deborah highlights in this short collection of advice, from writing in general, to applying for funding, to reviewing papers. You’ll recognise that, while no-one can really “teach” you how to do any of this, a few suggestions from someone who’s done a lot of it can go a long way. The PDF is relatively short (14 pages) but includes links to additional resources on the topics that Deborah covers. This isn’t a document to read cover to cover (although you may find that valuable too) but something you can dip into every now and again for inspiration and guidance.

I hope you find it as useful as I did.

Note: I’m the editor and founder of OpenPhysio, an open-access, peer-reviewed online journal with a focus on physiotherapy education. If you’re doing interesting work in the classroom, even if you have no experience in publishing educational research, we’d like to help you share your stories.

Categories
Publication research scholarship

Article: Which are the tools available for scholars?

In this study, we explored the availability and characteristics of the assisting tools for the peer-reviewing process. The aim was to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the tools available at this time, and to hint at new trends for further developments…. Considering these categories and their defining traits, a curated list of 220 software tools was completed using a crowdfunded database to identify relevant programs and ongoing trends and perspectives of tools developed and used by scholars.

Israel Martínez-López, J., Barrón-González, S. & Martínez López, A. (2019). Which Are the Tools Available for Scholars? A Review of Assisting Software for Authors during Peer Reviewing Process. Publications, 7(3): 59.

The development of a manuscript is inherently a multi-disciplinary activity that requires a thorough examination and preparation of a specialized document.

This article provides a nice overview of the software tools and services that are available for authors, from the early stages of the writing process, all the way through to dissemination of your research more broadly. Along the way the authors also highlight some of the challenges and concerns with the publication process, including issues around peer review and bias.

This classification of the services is divided into the following nine categories:

  1. Identification and social media: Researcher identity and community building within areas of practice.
  2. Academic search engines: Literature searching, open access, organisation of sources.
  3. Journal-abstract matchmakers: Choosing a journal based on links between their scope and the article you’re writing.
  4. Collaborative text editors: Writing with others and enhancing the writing experience by exploring different ways to think about writing.
  5. Data visualization and analysis tools: Matching data visualisation to purpose, and alternatives to the “2 tables, 1 figure” limitations of print publication.
  6. Reference management: Features beyond simply keeping track of PDFs and folders; export, conversion between citation styles, cross-platform options, collaborating on citation.
  7. Proofreading and plagiarism detection: Increasingly sophisticated writing assistants that identify issues with writing and suggest alternatives.
  8. Data archiving: Persistent digital datasets, metadata, discoverability, DOIs, archival services.
  9. Scientometrics and Altmetrics: Alternatives to citation and impact factor as means of evaluating influence and reach.

There’s an enormous amount of information packed into this article and I found myself with loads of tabs open as I explored different platforms and services. I spend a lot of time thinking about writing, workflow and compatability, and this paper gave me even more to think about. If you’re fine with Word and don’t really get why anyone would need anything else, you probably don’t need to read this paper. But if you’re like me and get irritated because Word doesn’t have a “distraction free mode”, you may find yourself spending a couple of hours exploring options you didn’t know existed.

Note: I’m the editor and founder of OpenPhysio, an open-access, peer-reviewed online journal with a focus on physiotherapy education. If you’re doing interesting work in the classroom, even if you have no experience in publishing educational research, we’d like to help you share your stories.