Do we need an Open Science coalition?

What exactly is Open Science? Its lack of an appropriate common definition has meant Open Science can be a variety of things; a social justice issue, part of a political capitalist regime, or a form of traditional science. But this lack of consensus leaves room for Open Science to be co-opted and even exploited. In seeking to (re)establish a common set of values and understanding here, Jon Tennant asks: do we need an Open Science coalition

What are the barriers to post-publication peer review?

Post-publication peer review emerged in response to increased calls for continuous moderation of the published research literature, consistent questioning of the functionality of the traditional peer review model, and a recognition that scientific discourse does not stop at the point of publication. However, uptake remains low overall. Jon Tennant sets out what the barriers to more widespread adoption of post-publication peer review have been and proposes potential solutions for each

Breaking the traditional mould of peer review: why we need a more transparent process of research evaluation

Jon Tennant takes a look at the transformations underway aimed at tackling the widespread dissatisfaction with the system of peer review. He provides further background on the platform ScienceOpen, which seeks to enable a process of transparent, self-regulating, peer review, where knowledge sharing is encouraged, valued, and rewarded. By adopting a more transparent process of research evaluation, we move one step closer towards a fairer and democratic research process

A number of freely available tools can help you improve your literature review routine and stay on top of published research

The sheer proliferation of newly published research articles can make staying on top of the literature a daunting, time-consuming task. Moreover, not being a deadline-driven activity, it can also fall down lists of priorities and be difficult to integrate into the everyday routine. Erzsébet Czifra-Tóth and Jon Tennant have put together a short sequence of steps and flagged a number of freely available online tools that will help researchers to easily integrate an effective literature review and discovery routine into their work lives. These include refined search and discovery options and a number of customised, organised alerts

We have the technology to save peer review - now it is up to our communities to implement it

Today marks the beginning of Peer Review Week 2017. Here on the Impact Blog, we’ll be featuring posts covering a variety of perspectives on and issues relating to peer review, and which also consider this year’s theme of “Transparency”. To kick things off, Jon Tennant, Daniel Graziotin and Sarah Kearns consider what can be done to address the various shortcomings and problems of the peer review process. While there is obviously substantial scope for improvement, none of the ideas proposed here are beyond our current technical and social means. The key challenge may lie in galvanising our scholarly communities

Plan S and global Open Access

Se presenta el Plan S y la Open Science como un derecho human

The "problem" of predatory publishing remains a relatively small one and should not be allowed to defame open access

A recent investigation led by an international group of journalists raised concerns over the scale of the problem of deceptive publishing practices, with many researchers of standing and reputation found to have published in "predatory" journals. However, while the findings of this investigation garnered significant media attention, the robustness of the study itself was not subject to the same scrutiny. To Tom Olijhoek and Jon Tennant, the profile afforded to investigations of this type causes some to overstate the problem of predatory publishing, while often discrediting open access publishing at the same time. The real problem here is one of education around questionable journals, and should not distract from more urgent questions around the shifting scholarly ecosystem

Making research evaluation processes in Europe more transparent

Researchers repeatedly cite career advancement as a key incentive for their practices and behaviours. This is critical to understanding the pace of change in scholarly communications, as those researchers inclined to innovate or experiment with new forms of research outputs, methodologies, or communication styles risk being penalised by the evaluation system used by many research institutions that are slow to adapt to the modern research environment. Sarah Slowe, Gareth Cole, Jon Tennant and Charlie Rapple are gathering data on current promotion and hiring guidelines used throughout Europe and will analyse how these compare to researchers’ attitudes of “publish or perish” and the impact factor as the key determining factor for career advancement. A number of recommendations will follow from this analysis, with the ultimate aim of fostering a more informed evaluation, promotion, and recruitment system for researchers

Physical Activity Producing Low, but Not Medium or Higher, Vertical Impacts Is Inversely Related to BMI in Older Adults: Findings from a Multicohort Study

© 2018 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Background: High impact physical activity (PA) is thought to improve skeletal health, but its relation to other health outcomes are unclear. We investigated associations between PA impact magnitude and body mass index (BMI) in older adults. Methods: Data were taken from the Cohort for Skeletal Health in Bristol and Avon (COSHIBA), Hertfordshire Cohort Study, and MRC National Survey of Health and Development. Vertical acceleration peaks from 7-day hip-worn accelerometer recordings were used to classify PA as low (0.5 < g < 1.0g), medium (1 < g < 1.5g), or higher (=1.5g) impact. Cohort-specific associations of low, medium, and higher impact PA with BMI were examined using linear regressions and estimates combined using random-effects meta-analysis. Results: A total of 1182 participants (mean age = 72.7 years, 68% female) were included. Low, medium, and higher impact PA were inversely related to BMI in initial models. After adjustment for confounders and other impacts, low, but not medium or higher, impacts were inversely related to BMI (-0.31, p < .001: overall combined standard deviation change in BMI per doubling in the number of low impacts). In adjusted analyses of body composition measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry in COSHIBA, low, but not medium or higher, impacts were inversely related to total body fat mass (-0.19, p < .001) and android:gynoid fat mass ratio (-0.16, p = .01), whereas high impact PA was weakly and positively associated with lean mass (0.05, p = .06). Conclusions: Greater exposure to PA producing low magnitude vertical impacts was associated with lower BMI and fat mass at older age. Low impact PA may help reduce obesity risk in older adults

Self-love and sociability: the ‘rudiments of commerce’ in the state of nature

Istvan Hont’s classic work on the theoretical links between the seventeenth-century natural jurists Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf and the eighteenth-century Scottish political economists remains a popular trope among intellectual and economic historians of various stamps. Despite this, a common criticism levelled at Hont remains his relative lack of engagement with the relationship between religion and economics in the early modern period. This paper challenges this aspect of Hont’s narrative by drawing attention to an alternative, albeit complementary, assessment of the natural jurisprudential heritage of eighteenth-century British political economy. Specifically, the article attempts to map on to Hont’s thesis the Christian Stoic interpretation of Grotius and Pufendorf which has gained greater currency in recent years. In doing so, the paper argues that Grotius and Pufendorf’s contributions to the ‘unsocial sociability’ debate do not necessarily lead directly to the Scottish school of political economists, as is commonly assumed. Instead, it contends that a reconsideration of Grotius and Pufendorf as neo-Stoic theorists, particularly via scrutiny of their respective adaptations of the traditional Stoic theory of oikeiosis, steers us towards the heart of the early English ‘clerical’ Enlightenment