Development of a Peer-Reviewed Open-Access Undergraduate Research Journal.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Sun E
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7452719 | biostudies-literature | 2020
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Development of a Peer-Reviewed Open-Access Undergraduate Research Journal.
Sun Evelyn E Huggins Julia A JA Brown Kirstin L KL Boutin Rozlyn C T RCT Ramey William D WD Graves Marcia L ML Oliver David C DC
Journal of microbiology & biology education 20200831 2
Dissemination of results is a fundamental aspect of the scientific process and requires an avenue for publication that is specifically designed to suit the nature of the research being communicated. Undergraduate research journals provide a unique forum for students to report scientific findings and ideas while learning about the complete scientific process. We have developed a peer-reviewed, open-access, international undergraduate research journal that is linked to a course-based undergraduate ...[more]
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Project description:The University of British Columbia has developed a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) that engages students in authentic molecular microbiology research. This capstone course is uniquely built around an open-access online undergraduate research journal entitled Undergraduate Journal of Experimental Microbiology and Immunology (UJEMI). Students work in teams to derive an original research question, formulate a testable hypothesis, draft a research proposal, carry out experiments in the laboratory, and publish their results in UJEMI. The CURE operates in a feed forward manner whereby student-authored UJEMI publications drive research questions in subsequent terms of the course. Progress toward submission of an original manuscript is scaffolded using a series of communication assignments which facilitate formative development. We present a periodic model of our CURE that guides students through a research cycle. We review two ongoing course-based projects to highlight how UJEMI publications prime new research questions in the course. A journal-driven CURE represents a broadly applicable pedagogical tool that immerses students in the process of doing science.
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Project description:The Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) was an early pioneer of open access online publishing, and two decades later, some readers and authors may have forgotten the challenges of previous scientific publishing models. This commentary summarizes the many advantages of open access publishing for each of the main stakeholders in scientific publishing and reminds us that, like every innovation, there are disadvantages that we need to guard against, such as the problem of fraudulent journals. This paper then reviews the potential impact of some current initiatives, such as Plan S and JMIRx, concluding with some suggestions to help new open-access publishers ensure that the advantages of open access publishing outweigh the challenges.
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Project description:This article discusses the open-identity label, i.e., the practice of disclosing reviewers' names in published scholarly books, a common practice in Central and Eastern European countries. This study's objective is to verify whether the open-identity label is a type of peer-review label (like those used in Finland and Flanders, i.e., the Flemish part of Belgium), and as such, whether it can be used as a delineation criterion in various systems used to evaluate scholarly publications. We have conducted a two-phase sequential explanatory study. In the first phase, interviews with 20 of the 40 largest Polish publishers of scholarly books were conducted to investigate how Polish publishers control peer reviews and whether the open-identity label can be used to identify peer-reviewed books. In the other phase, two questionnaires were used to analyze perceptions of peer-review and open-identity labelling among authors (n = 600) and reviewers (n = 875) of books published by these 20 publishers. Integrated results allowed us to verify publishers' claims concerning their peer-review practices. Our findings reveal that publishers actually control peer reviews by providing assessment criteria to reviewers and sending reviews to authors. Publishers rarely ask for permission to disclose reviewers' names, but it is obvious to reviewers that this practice of disclosing names is part of peer reviewing. This study also shows that only the names of reviewers who accepted manuscripts for publication are disclosed. Thus, most importantly, our analysis shows that the open-identity label that Polish publishers use is a type of peer-review label like those used in Flanders and Finland, and as such, it can be used to identify peer-reviewed scholarly books.
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Project description:Selective publication and reporting in individual papers compromise the scientific record, but are meta-analyses as compromised as their constituent studies? We systematically sampled 63 meta-analyses (each comprising at least 40 studies) in PLoS One, top medical journals, top psychology journals, and Metalab, an online, open-data database of developmental psychology meta-analyses. We empirically estimated publication bias in each, including only the peer-reviewed studies. Across all meta-analyses, we estimated that "statistically significant" results in the expected direction were only 1.17 times more likely to be published than "nonsignificant" results or those in the unexpected direction (95% CI: [0.93, 1.47]), with a confidence interval substantially overlapping the null. Comparable estimates were 0.83 for meta-analyses in PLoS One, 1.02 for top medical journals, 1.54 for top psychology journals, and 4.70 for Metalab. The severity of publication bias did differ across individual meta-analyses; in a small minority (10%; 95% CI: [2%, 21%]), publication bias appeared to favor "significant" results in the expected direction by more than threefold. We estimated that for 89% of meta-analyses, the amount of publication bias that would be required to attenuate the point estimate to the null exceeded the amount of publication bias estimated to be actually present in the vast majority of meta-analyses from the relevant scientific discipline (exceeding the 95th percentile of publication bias). Study-level measures ("statistical significance" with a point estimate in the expected direction and point estimate size) did not indicate more publication bias in higher-tier versus lower-tier journals, nor in the earliest studies published on a topic versus later studies. Overall, we conclude that the mere act of performing a meta-analysis with a large number of studies (at least 40) and that includes non-headline results may largely mitigate publication bias in meta-analyses, suggesting optimism about the validity of meta-analytic results.
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| S-EPMC7595936 | biostudies-literature
Project description:PurposeThere is a general inquisition regarding the monetary value of a research output, as a substantial amount of funding in modern academia is essentially awarded to good research presented in the form of journal articles, conferences papers, performances, compositions, exhibitions, books and book chapters etc., which, eventually leads to another question if the value varies across different disciplines. Answers to these questions will not only assist academics and researchers, but will also help higher education institutions (HEIs) make informed decisions in their administrative and research policies.Design and methodologyTo examine both the questions, we applied the United Kingdom's recently concluded national research assessment exercise known as the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 as a case study. All the data for this study is sourced from the openly available publications which arose from the digital repositories of REF's results and HEFCE's funding allocations.FindingsA world leading output earns between £7504 and £14,639 per year within the REF cycle, whereas an internationally excellent output earns between £1876 and £3659, varying according to their area of research. Secondly, an investigation into the impact rating of 25315 journal articles submitted in five areas of research by UK HEIs and their awarded funding revealed a linear relationship between the percentage of quartile-one journal publications and percentage of 4* outputs in Clinical Medicine, Physics and Psychology/Psychiatry/Neuroscience UoAs, and no relationship was found in the Classics and Anthropology/Development Studies UoAs, due to the fact that most publications in the latter two disciplines are not journal articles.Practical implicationsThe findings provide an indication of the monetary value of a research output, from the perspectives of government funding for research, and also what makes a good output, i.e. whether a relationship exists between good quality output and the source of its publication. The findings may also influence future REF submission strategies in HEIs and ascertain that the impact rating of the journals is not necessarily a reflection of the quality of research in every discipline, and this may have a significant influence on the future of scholarly communications in general.OriginalityAccording to the author's knowledge, this is the first time an investigation has estimated the monetary value of a good research output.
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