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(http://tinyurl.com/4c9nj2) Podcasting holds huge potential for visually impaired people and others; listening to scientific articles read aloud could increase readers’ concentration and absorption of information. Several newspapers and magazines are offered in podcast form, but the scientific press is lagging behind. Frank DN. Don’t release other people’s data without their consent. Nature 2008:455:589. (http://tinyurl.com/4o4t62) Letter commenting on Nature’s report that data photographed during a conference publication were later published without the presenter’s consent. The issue is whether the data are released in a fair and representative manner. Biology operates under the implicit, or often explicit, ethic that data presented at meetings are personal communications - publication of which requires formal approval by the originating researchers. Anyway, what is the purpose of reporting incompletely vetted and possibly erroneous experimental results? Gorman GE. The plague of plagiarism in an online world. Online Information Review 2008;32(3):297–301. (http://tinyurl.com/48w9pn) Plagiarism is a long standing, but increasingly problematic, occurrence in academic writing and publishing and is now easier thanks to the internet technologies. The paper suggests the creation of clearly and fully articulated protocols regarding the nature, context, and penalty for plagiarism. Gwynne P. Scientist to appeal misconduct charge. Physics World 2008;21(8):11. (http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/35112) Reports that lawyers for Rusi Taleyarkhan are preparing to appeal the findings of a panel set up by Purdue University that found him guilty of two charges of scientific misconduct: citing a paper by researchers in his own lab as if it were an independent confirmation of his alleged discovery of bubble fusion in 2002, and adding a student who had not contributed to that paper as an author. Modi P, Hassan A, Teng CJ, Chitwood WRJ. How many cardiac surgeons does it take to write a research article? Seventy years of authorship proliferation and internationalization in the cardiothoracic surgical literature. Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery 2008;136:4–6. (doi:10.1016/j.jtcvs.2007.12.057) In a sample of 3669 articles published between 1936 and 2006, the mean number of authors per article increased in the three journals surveyed and overall is now about six. Less than 5% of articles have one or two authors; 74% have six or more. Multinational articles made up 12%, having been 0% as recently as 1976. These trends are similar to those in plastic surgery and neurosurgery. In four prestigious American medical journals, mean number of authors increased from 4.5 in 1980 to 6.9 in 2000; in radiology it increased from 2.2 in 1966 to 4.4 in 1991. “Various support personnel, might now be awarded authorship, whereas once they might have been simply acknowledged [and] ‘guest’ or ‘gift’ authorship might be an important contributory factor. Authorship criteria must be respected to maintain ethical standards.” Noonan BM, Parrish D. Expressions of concern and their uses. Learned Publishing 2008;21:209–213. (doi:10.1087/095315108X 288857) How should editors communicate with their readers after an allegation of research misconduct has been made about a published article? Some use an “expression of concern” to inform readers of a potential problem. This is a tool for ensuring the integrity of the research record during what may be a long misconduct investigation; policies regarding its use are needed. Schwitzer G. How do US journalists cover treatments, tests, products, and procedures? An evaluation of 500 stories.PLoS Medicine 2008;5(5):e95. (doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050095) Starting from the premise that the daily delivery of news stories about new treatments, tests, products, and procedures may have a profound, and perhaps harmful, impact on health care consumers, a new US project, HealthNewsReview.org, modeled after similar efforts in Australia and Canada, has been created to evaluate and grade health news coverage, notifying journalists of their grades. After its first 22 months and 500 health news stories, the project hopes that the evaluation of health news will lead news organizations and all who engage in the dissemination of health news and information to reevaluate their practices to better serve a more informed health care consumer population. Unruh WG. Physicists and copyright: how to give away your birthright for what? APS News 2008;17(6):8. Some journals’ copyright transfer agreements mean that “derivative works” which “depend on” the original need the permission of the copyright holders. This article urges authors to scrutinize such agreements before signing and not to sign those that do not specifically allow the authors to make derivative works, in any context, commerical or non-commercial. Representatives of the American Physical Society reply, setting out the society’s position and saying why the current policy is defensible. They also refer to a list of “frequently answered questions” on their website: http://forms.aps,org/author/copyfaq.html. © Copyright 2009 by European Association of Science Editors Top of Page |
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