Quantitative and qualitative analysis of editor behavior through potentially coercive citations

© 2017 by the authors. How much is the h-index of an editor of a well-ranked journal improved due to citations which occur after his/her appointment? Scientific recognition within academia is widely measured nowadays by the number of citations or h-index. Our dataset is based on a sample of four editors from a well-ranked journal (impact factor, IF, greater than 2). The target group consists of two editors who seem to benefit by their position through an increased citation number (and subsequently h-index) within the journal. The total amount of citations for the target group is greater than 600. The control group is formed by another set of two editors from the same journal whose relations between their positions and their citation records remain neutral. The total amount of citations for the control group is more than 1200. The timespan for which the citations' pattern has been studied is 1975-2015. Previous coercive citations for a journal's benefit (an increase of its IF) has been indicated. To the best of our knowledge, this is a pioneering work on coercive citations for personal (editors') benefit. Editorial teams should be aware about this type of potentially unethical behavior and act accordingly

Challenges for the academic editor in the scientific publication

UIDB/04647/2020 UIDP/04647/2020The academic editor has been, and still is, the gatekeeper of peer-reviewed scientific publications, by being whom, ultimately, defines whether or not a manuscript can be published. At a time of profound transformation in the context of scientific publication (digital publishing, open access, preprint, open peer review,...) and the expectations, inside and outside academia, towards academic publication, this perspective paper aims to add to the discussion of the (re)formulation of the academic editor's role, considering that he or she, in this panoply of changes, continues, and will continue to be, the ultimate guardian of the scientific quality of what is published.publishersversionpublishe

Comparing the writing style of real and artificial papers

Recent years have witnessed the increase of competition in science. While promoting the quality of research in many cases, an intense competition among scientists can also trigger unethical scientific behaviors. To increase the total number of published papers, some authors even resort to software tools that are able to produce grammatical, but meaningless scientific manuscripts. Because automatically generated papers can be misunderstood as real papers, it becomes of paramount importance to develop means to identify these scientific frauds. In this paper, I devise a methodology to distinguish real manuscripts from those generated with SCIGen, an automatic paper generator. Upon modeling texts as complex networks (CN), it was possible to discriminate real from fake papers with at least 89\% of accuracy. A systematic analysis of features relevance revealed that the accessibility and betweenness were useful in particular cases, even though the relevance depended upon the dataset. The successful application of the methods described here show, as a proof of principle, that network features can be used to identify scientific gibberish papers. In addition, the CN-based approach can be combined in a straightforward fashion with traditional statistical language processing methods to improve the performance in identifying artificially generated papers.Comment: To appear in Scientometrics (2015

Pros and Cons of the Impact Factor in a Rapidly Changing Digital World

The purpose and novlty of the paper is to present arguments for and against the use of the Impact Factor (IF) in a rapidly changing digital world. The paper discusses the calculation of IF, as well as the pros and cons of IF. Editorial policies that affect IF are examined, and the merits of open access online publishing are presented. Scientific quality and the IF dilemma are analysed, and alternative measures of impact and quality are evaluated. The San Francisco declaration on research assessment is also discussed

Online Visibility, Social Networks and Glamorous Scientific Publications

In a context of transformation of the higher education institutions’ mission, there is a growing need for the academy to respond to the needs placed both at the political and social levels, which has implications for the scholar’s expected activity. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the growing importance, besides publishing and being cited, of having visibility in the digital world. We conclude that this new dimension, which is being added to the success and legitimacy of the scholar and his/her institution, will have probable direct consequences both on the form and on the contents of future publications. The willingness of scholars to produce publications worthy of social visibility may foster a growing number of publications that are attractive, perhaps less complex and more accessible to the “uninitiated”, what we call glamorous publications

Intimate partner violence within LGBTQ+ samples: a systematic review

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a prominent problem within relationships (Centers for Disease Control, n.d.). As more research is conducted on IPV, it has become apparent that the prevalence of females perpetrating IPV is similar to the rates of males (Archer, 2000), which challenges the feminist theories of men’s IPV that assert it is strongly related to patriarchy. This debate over sex differences in perpetration rates means LGBTQ+ populations become ignored due to contradicting many of the popular theories for IPV perpetration and victimization, creating a gap in research. Therefore, this systematic literature review was conducted in an attempt to highlight the prevalence of IPV within LGBTQ+ relationships. The main aim of this systematic literature review is to investigate the prevalence of IPV within same-sex relationships and its behavioral manifestations. Further implications for research will also be considered

Service delivery interventions to increase uptake of voluntary medical male circumcision for HIV prevention: A systematic review.

BackgroundVoluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) remains an essential component of combination HIV prevention services, particularly in priority countries in sub-Saharan Africa. As VMMC programs seek to maximize impact and efficiency, and to support World Health Organization guidance, specific uptake-enhancing strategies are critical to identify.MethodsWe systematically reviewed the literature to evaluate the impact of service delivery interventions (e.g., facility layout, service co-location, mobile outreach) on VMMC uptake among adolescent and adult men. For the main effectiveness review, we searched for publications or conference abstracts that measured VMMC uptake or uptake of HIV testing or risk reduction counselling within VMMC services. We synthesized data by coding categories and outcomes. We also reviewed studies assessing acceptability, values/preferences, costs, and feasibility.ResultsFour randomized controlled trials and five observational studies were included in the effectiveness review. Studies took place in South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. They assessed a range of service delivery innovations, including community-, school-, and facility-based interventions. Overall, interventions increased VMMC uptake; some successfully improved uptake among age-specific subpopulations, but urban-rural stratification showed no clear trends. Interventions that increased adult men's uptake included mobile services (compared to static facilities), home-based testing with active referral follow-up, and facility-based HIV testing with enhanced comprehensive sexual education. Six acceptability studies suggested interventions were generally perceived to help men choose to get circumcised. Eleven cost studies suggested interventions create economies-of-scale and efficiencies. Three studies suggested such interventions were feasible, improving facility preparedness, service quality and quantity, and efficiencies.ConclusionsInnovative changes in male-centered VMMC services can improve adult men's and adolescent boys' VMMC uptake. Limited evidence on interventions that enhance access and acceptability show promising results, but evidence gaps persist due to inconsistent intervention definition and delivery, due in part to contextual relevance and limited age disaggregation