Authorship
In the era of Team Science, careful attention to authorship criteria is critical
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2667044
Especially when intense competition for journal space and research funding can encourage authorship and citation manipulation. Who are the culprits, and why do they do it?
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0187394
But maybe this will all be a thing of the past when automated tools are writing our scientific papers, in the not too distant future?
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/12/science_papers_should_be_written_by_robots.html
Data and reproducibility
A UK parliamentary committee held a fascinating discussion ranging over retractions, research misconduct and how to regulate it, and whether all clinical trial data should be published
http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/science-and-technology-committee/research-integrity/oral/75580.html
Meanwhile, four health integrity organisations have called for governments to ensure that patients, doctors, and scientists can access the full results of all clinical trials, as they claim that not doing so puts patients at risk
http://ti-health.org/content/opacity-clinical-trials-medical-treatments-putting-patients-risk/
http://www.transparency.org.uk/publications/clinical-trial-transparency/#.Wi_ssIWRWaM"
Wellcome is joining ClinicalStudyDataRequest.com (CSDR), a data-sharing initiative which provides researchers with access to trial data
https://wellcome.ac.uk/news/sharing-clinical-trial-data-what-it-means-you
Crossref has convened a group to explore the creation of a global grant identifier system.
https://www.crossref.org/blog/global-persistent-identifiers-for-grants-awards-and-facilities/
Ethical oversight
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has updated the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. www.icmje.org
Journal management
More on predatory journals….
First off, a response to Beall’s critique of OA publishing – by his boss.
http://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/16837/18435
and a response to that critique
https://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1712b&L=MEDLIB-L&P=11444
A number of articles suggesting steps to be taken to combat the rise in predatory journals (and an interview with the authors of one of the articles
https://phys.org/news/2017-12-predatory-journals-solutions-corruption-science.html
https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/12/05/illegitimate-journals-stop-interview-kelly-cobey-larissa-shamseer/
http://www.icmje.org/news-and-editorials/fake_predatory_pseudo_journals_dec17.html
and in other news…
Nordic countries are collaborating to produce "the Nordic List" - a common list of reputable publishing channels
https://librisbloggen.kb.se/2017/12/13/the-nordic-list/
And some reflections on 2017, and thoughts about 2018 from Kent Anderson
https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/12/21/wakeup-call-looking-back-2017-factors-affecting-2018/
Peer review
A blog in the Times Higher Education Supplement criticising peer review for not calling out issues of reproducibility and deceptive practices, and calling for innovation in peer review which addresses both issues.
These recommendations from three national academies on good practice in peer reviewing researchers and research are also relevant to journals peer review.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08289-z