Exactly three years ago, armed with a tiny team of passionate writers and a big dream of helping the scholarly community connect better, we published our first post on Editage Insights. Yes, this month marks the third anniversary of Editage Insights, and what an exciting journey it has been! Over these years, we have been able to reach out to readers across the globe and build a strong community of researchers, editors, publishers, medical professionals… just about everyone who loves science.

Let’s together take a look at some of the highlights of what we’ve achieved in these three years:

• We reached about 170,000 readers globally in October 2016.
• We’ve published over 1400 posts and received about 1700 questions and comments from you.
• We’ve more than 50 guest contributors.
• We’ve conducted more than 545 workshops and webinars, reaching over 38500 researchers in more than 40 countries.

We want to take this moment to thank each one of you for your readership, participation, and feedback. You’ve helped us learn and grow and become what we are today. Thank you for being a part of this amazing journey and making this possible. We hope that you continue to support Editage Insights in the years to come.  

Of course, we don’t expect any anniversary gifts from you, but you could send us a sweet wish! We love to hear from you. Leave your messages and musings in the comments section; trust us, you will make our day!  

In this interview, Alvaro E. Migotto, former Director of the Center of Marine Biology (CEBIMar) at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, tells us more about how CEBIMar evolved over the years and reveals some of its unique challenges as a small marine research institution. He emphasizes how CEBIMar, as an ocean-front laboratory, has an edge over similar marine research institutions in Brazil. Also, being a small research institution, has its own advantages, Alvaro reveals, as CEBIMar enjoys greater autonomy and freedom to experiment with its programs and teaching methods. The highlight of the interview is our discussion about CEBIMar’s achievements. Not only has CEBIMar had an impact among the researchers associated with it and has created a dynamic environment conducive to learning and research, it has also managed to bridge the gap between scientific research and the public by popularizing science in unique but effective ways such as photographic exhibitions and online databases of marine images. It is heartening to view such dedicated efforts towards making science more accessible to the non-academic community.

More about CEBIMar: The Center for Marine Biology (CEBIMar) is a specialized institute of the University of São Paulo (USP) devoted to research, teaching, and outreach in this field.

More about Alvaro E. Migotto: After completing a degree in Biological Sciences from the University of São Paulo in 1978, Alvaro obtained a Master's (1984) and Doctoral degree (1993) in Biological Sciences (Zoology) from the University of São Paulo. He is currently Associate Professor at the University of São Paulo. He is mainly interested in Systematics and Cnidaria Biology. He served as the Vice-Director at CEBIMar from 2001-2005, after which he served as Director of the institution until 2009. Alvaro has authored over 70 journal articles, 4 books, over 25 book chapters, and several conference proceedings and magazine articles, in addition to contributing to several bibliographic productions. He also participates in certain aspects of policymaking; teaches at the graduate and postgraduate level; and supervises young researchers in the field.

For how long have you been associated with CEBIMar? Could you tell us about your trajectory at the Center?

I first learned of CEBIMar during my undergraduate studies in Biology at the University of São Paulo (USP). Still during my first year at College, I was lucky to get a spot in one of the introductory courses to Marine Biology offered by CEBIMar. In the following years, I went back a few times to CEBIMar for instructive excursions. But only during my Master’s degree did I start visiting the Center more assiduously. My early interactions and experiences at the Center were always remarkable and reinforced my fascination with the institution and the coastal region of São Sebastião. So I was pleasantly surprised when I learned, in 1981, that there was an opening for a biologist at CEBIMar. Surprisingly, at the time, few people wanted to live outside the city of São Paulo, and I was fortunate to be one of those selected to fill this position. I completed my Master’s and PhD in CEBIMar (as a student of the Zoology Program in the Biosciences Institute of the University of São Paulo, IBUSP) and, in 1996, I joined its faculty. I was Vice-Director and Director of the Center. Over the years, I have been part of the history of CEBIMar and have actively participated in the main stages of its recent evolution.

Which have been the main achievements of CEBIMar? What are the unique characteristics of the Center compared to other marine research institutions in Brazil?

CEBIMar is one of the oldest Brazilian institutions that focus exclusively on Marine Biology. At the time, what made the institution unique was its proximity to the sea. Most other marine research labs or institutions in Brazil were located far from the sea and/or did not have the basic infrastructure necessary for conducting fieldwork or maintaining organisms in a laboratory setting. As a result, they faced many challenges. Often, for example, the target organisms of a study did not even survive during their transport from the coast to the laboratories in the city of São Paulo. But since CEBIMar is situated close to the coastal areas and has easy access to a wide variety of marine environments, no such issues occurred. This is why I maintain that CEBIMar’s location is one of its prime strengths. Initially, CEBIMar mainly offered support to other units in the University of São Paulo (USP), but over the past few decades, it gained full autonomy. We also got resident faculty and attracted a substantial number of graduate students, post-doc researchers, and several collaborators who work in different specializations of Marine Biology.

CEBIMar is focused on research and education. Although there are no undergraduate or graduate courses at the Station, how do you train your students academically?

The Center was created in 1955 with the aim of promoting marine research. But Marine Biology teaching was among one of the main concerns since its foundation. So we began with basic courses in Marine Biology for students and biologists, and we continue to run these courses successfully even today. In addition, our faculty are equipped to run several undergraduate and graduate courses on a yearly basis. The content of courses is directly related to the research activity of the station’s researchers, which enables efficient teaching and discussion of fundamental theoretical concepts of scientific practice. In addition, all courses are conducted in condensed and intensive modules, and run for 7 to 15 full days, often relying on the collaboration of visiting professors. We provide accommodation and meals to students and employees, to optimize the time we get during the course. This, and the relative isolation enjoyed by CEBIMar due to its proximity to the edge of the São Sebastião channel and an Atlantic Forest reserve, provide a favorable environment for study and reflection. The result is always very positive: both students and teachers feel that our privileged situation enhances their learning.

An independent and full-fledged graduate course is one of our latest aspirations and we are in the process of making this dream come true. Our biggest challenge is building a strong faculty — we currently have six professors, including me; less than a decade ago, we were only three. However, we recently found a solution to this problem in our proposal for an inter-unities graduate course. With a primary focus on Marine Biodiversity, the program will be held at CEBIMar, in São Sebastião, but will rely on the contribution of Faculty from other USP units, including the Institute of Bioscience (IBUSP), Institute of Chemistry of São Carlos (IQCS/USP), Institute of Biomedical Sciences (ICBUSP), and the Oceanographic Institute (IOUSP). The program will also be supported by a global team of visiting professors who have collaborated with our intern faculty in the past. Our proposal for the course is currently being evaluated at the internal university level, after which it will be forwarded to CAPES. We’re aspiring to launch the graduate course by the end of 2017, or in the first half of 2018. Although the CEBIMar does not offer a graduate course, this does not mean that all my colleagues and me are not qualified to mentor or teach post graduate and doctoral students. We are qualified as supervisors in other USP programs. Thus, despite our limitations in size and structure, we form a dynamic academic community with the students who join our researchers (postdocs as well as technical and undergraduate research fellows).

And what about the research conducted at the Center?

CEBIMar is one of the smallest USP units, both in area and number of employees and professors. However, this does not mean that our scientific and academic production is of low quality. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Our infrastructure and technical and academic services enable us to perform educational and scientific work of high quality. Although we are free to establish and perform our own research programs and projects as well as teaching and extension courses—something we’ve been doing more intensely and with greater independence—our work is also valued by the Board of Directors and all people directly linked to CEBIMar. The advantages of our small-scale infrastructure and institutional design are numerous, from varied opportunities for interactions between interns and outside partners to optimum use of available space, equipment, and services. Because we have been doing this for over 60 years, we’ve ended up creating a very efficient system to manage research projects supported by CEBIMar, which includes managing administration, IT staff, librarians, laboratory technicians, and professors. We also share our laboratories and equipment with external partners, thereby avoiding redundancy of equipment and services. Consequently, the available infrastructure is used optimally and worth our investment. In some respects, a smaller research center allows agility, especially in administration and planning. Therefore, it seems to me that we often use the financial resources we have at our disposal better and more efficiently compared to larger institutions. Yet, we also have expansion plans by improving our facilities and adding more faculty.

How important is international collaboration for CEBIMar? Do you receive many international visitors?

Are people from CEBIMar encouraged to pursue research abroad? Internationalization of Brazilian science has been acknowledged as virtually indispensable in the achievement of the desired standards of excellence and quality. In recent years, research funding agencies as well as the USP have been aggressively encouraging cooperation and international exchange by various means. These include granting individual scholarships and announcing calls of public cooperation from other funding agencies or foreign universities in scientific and technological research. Professors, students, and postdocs linked to CEBIMar have effectively taken advantage of these opportunities. In recent years, almost all of our masters and doctoral students are developing or have developed part of their masters or doctoral degree to pursue further research abroad, an experience considered indispensable both by students and by their advisors. Basically, in the context of CEBIMar, initiatives favoring internationalization are taken within the research groups that consist of our faculty and international collaborators. Some of our courses are taught with international collaborators, who also supervise some of our graduate students. These initiatives have been effective in helping the Center establish important networks for international scientific cooperation and we may soon establish specific short-term collaborative arrangements at an institutional level. For example, after the establishment of our graduate program in Marine Biodiversity, a natural offshoot of this trend of internationalization will be to establish agreements that help us offer double degrees at the masters and doctoral level.

How are researchers and students affiliated with CEBIMar encouraged to publish their research in international quality journals?

This is largely still restricted to research groups to the domain of the supervisor/student relationship. There has been a clear growth in the scientific output of CEBIMar over the years. Over the past five years, we can see a clear growth in the number of articles published in indexed journals. However, during this period, the impact factor of these articles, which can be considered good, remained more or less stable. The challenge in the coming years is to improve the quality of production. The increasing international cooperation and the functioning of our future Marine Biodiversity graduate program should have a positive impact and help us increase our scientific output.

Does CEBIMar provide other services to the local community of São Sebastião, besides the popular monitored visits? Could you comment on the importance of interacting with the coastal population of the São Paulo State?

CEBIMar has an old history of scientific disclosure and education activities. The northern coast of São Paulo, the region where CEBIMar is located, lacks higher education institutions as well as initiatives to popularize science. The main avenue for ensuring CEBIMar’s interaction with the local population is the Monitored Visits Program, which has existed since mid-1980s. Besides creating informative printed resources and attending and organizing exhibitions, we also create educational content to be made available online as photos, videos, educational texts, news, games, and virtual exhibitions. Primary, high school, and undergraduate students can get their questions answered personally by visiting our library, browsing our institutional website, or via e-mail. Occasionally, our faculty also serve as advisors to environment protection agencies and policymakers. Holding talks is another way to involve the local community. A successful example of interaction with the community is the Science Club, CEBIMar’s partnership with a public school in São Sebastião. The main objective of the Club, which was established in 2013, is to familiarize 8^th and 9^th grade students with scientific thinking and methods, through field and laboratory observations, guided studies, discussions, conversations with researchers linked to CEBIMar, etc. Under the guidance of our facilitators, students develop small research projects in Marine Biology. One of the expected results of this initiative is the selection of candidates for research fellowships, such as the Junior Scientific Initiation Program of the National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq). Besides helping us find young scientists, the Club also has the potential to improve scientific teaching in public schools, because it sort of demystifies the field and indicates new, efficient, and exciting ways for students and for teachers to approach science in class.

You have been involved in science communication initiatives in Marine Biology for a long time. Could you tell us more about this? Did you actually follow a strategy to popularize Marine Biology? Was it successful? Can such a model be implemented by other institutions?

The popularization of science has always interested me. I believe that the dissemination of scientific information and education should be an integral part of any scientific research activity. Although until recently, this work was underrated by the Brazilian academic community, there is increased openness towards initiatives to popularize science among the public.  In fact, the work done by my colleagues and me has always been encouraged by CEBIMar’s Directors (it is worth mentioning that scientific disclosure and environmental education are among the primary aims of the Center). Although in most cases, the financial resources allocated to these initiatives are scarce or even non-existent, my work in CEBIMar has given me many opportunities in this regard. Since my arrival in São Sebastião, I have been involved in many of the scientific communication initiatives promoted by CEBIMar to varying degrees. In addition to the Monitored Visits Program that I helped set up in the 1980s, the photographic and scientific exhibitions held by us over 10 years have become extremely popular among researchers and non-researchers alike. Three of our exhibitions — two photographic and one on life evolution — attracted over 100,000 visitors from across the country and a greater number of virtual visitors who had full access to images and other content through the following websites:

• Ocean, hidden life: http://www.usp.br/cbm/oceano/ 
• Life, the Sea, and Many Stories to be Told–The Origin of Biodiversity in the Oceans: http://www.usp.br/cbm/expovida/?lang=en 
• A photo exhibition commemorating the 60^th anniversary of CEBIMar: http://cebimar.usp.br/expo60/index.php/pt/?view=slider&id=1

I must also mention the website Cifonauta — http://cifonauta.cebimar.usp.br/— a large and free open access database of Marine Biology images, which are a direct product of the scientific research and teaching activities performed by students and researchers linked to CEBIMar. Students, teachers, biologists, oceanographers, artists, and those interested in Marine Biology in general can access hundreds of images of marine environments and organisms, including live images of marine life. Content can be browsed using filters or an advanced search.

Can this content be re-used, shared, or downloaded for free? What are the terms of use?

The Cifonauta content is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license. This license allows sharing and reuse of text and images for non-commercial purposes without prior consent permission from the original author(s), if the source and author(s) are properly cited and redistributed under a compatible license. Authors hold copyright over their images.

Congratulations on your photo exhibition! The marine life images are beautiful and impressive. What message do they convey to the viewers? What do you expect the public to learn from the photographic display?

Among all exhibitions organized by CEBIMar, this event relied on the exhibits to convey a message or a story. While this content is clear to the photographers and exhibition organizers, I believe that each photograph has the potential to go beyond, depending on the perspective and experience of each viewer. For some, the images evoked memories of the past (old caiçaras reminded some of native coastal residents, for example), while for others, they evoked a reflection on the origin of life and the role of humans in nature. Since this exhibition was also able to evoke such a range of responses, I would consider that an achievement. Also, people had the opportunity to see images of unique creatures that are rarely discussed in the media, mainly because the focus is almost always on “charismatic megafauna” such as whales, seals, or colorful marine beings. These animals are fascinating and important creatures, and one of the messages we want to convey through our exhibitions is that the balance and health of our planet, even the survival of the human species, depend on a series of small organisms that are rarely seen or appreciated by non-specialists. “We are here, too!” was the originally chosen title for this commemorative exhibition, because that phrase captures our thoughts effectively.

You have published several papers in the course of your career. Do you have any manuscript preparation or submission tips for young researchers who look to you for advice?

An important tip is that you must never be satisfied with the first or the first versions of your text, be it a report, a thesis, or an article. Writing a scientific text requires a lot of time and reflection. It is common for students to not understand the importance of revising and refining what they write. Scientific writing is one of the most important, if not the most important, stages of the scientific process. And when students’ lack of understanding about its significance is coupled with poor written communication skills, the situation worsens. I must add that poor written communication skills can usually be attributed to a lack of basic school education and the habit of fast and uncritical writing used in electronic media. By uncritical writing, I refer to output that has not been critiqued or reviewed by students or their peers. Fortunately, in recent years, manuscript writing and preparation have gained a lot of importance in academia and are being talked about through specialized books or the Internet. Thus, resources on these critical aspects of scientific research are more easily accessible and more and more people are aware of their importance. However, I feel (and so do my teaching colleagues) that despite the availability of such resources, students still need guidance when writing and preparing manuscripts for submission and the simple tips I shared above continue to be useful.

Thank you, Eduardo!

Note: This interview was conducted by Jayashree Rajagopalan and Karin Hoch Fehlauer Ale.

Case: An author received a letter from a journal inviting a submission. Soon after the author submitted her paper, the editor sent an email saying her paper will be published in the next issue. The editor also requested the author to sign the copyright transfer forms, pay an article processing fee (APC), and upload the final manuscript. Since the author needed an accepted paper for her graduation, she was elated at the prospect and followed the instructions. There was no further communication from the journal for several weeks. Meanwhile the author wrote to the journal requesting a formal acceptance letter, but the journal replied saying it was not needed because publication was assured. However, when the next issue of the journal was published, the author was shocked to see that her paper had not been included in it. She tried to contact the editor but received no response. She was furious and approached Editage Insights for advice.

Action: On learning that the journal had promised to publish the paper directly, and had charged an APC at the time of submission, our publication experts were suspicious of the journal’s quality. A close scrutiny of the journal website indicated that it was a questionable journal that published low-quality articles. We informed the author that the journal seemed to be predatory or questionable, and she had evidently become a victim. We explained that the money she had paid as APC would most likely be forfeited, but advised her to withdraw her paper from the journal immediately as publishing in such a journal could hamper her reputation. She sent a withdrawal request, but received no response from the journal. We clarified to the author that she would not be able to submit the paper to another journal unless she received a confirmation of withdrawal; else, it would be considered a case of duplicate submission. However, when the author’s repeated attempts at contacting the journal failed, she wrote to them as per our advice mentioning a specific deadline, after which she would consider the paper withdrawn. She did not receive any response by the specified deadline, and submitted her manuscript to another journal, informing the editor about her experience with the previous journal. The editor asked for evidence of the author’s efforts to contact the journal, which the author readily provided. The editor was finally convinced and agreed to proceed with the evaluation process.

Summary: Predatory journals often lure authors with false promises. The most gullible authors are young researchers who are new to academic publishing and do not have a clear understanding of how the system works. These researchers are also most often among those who are under immense pressure to publish. Predatory publishers make money by charging high APCs and indulging in deceptive practices. They do not have a proper peer review system. Publishing in such dubious journals can be damaging for a researcher’s career as it can give the impression that the author is using a quick and easy route to get published.

Authors should beware bogus publishers and check the journal website carefully before submission to ascertain its credibility. In addition, they should speak to professors or senior colleagues to find out which are the reputable journals in the field. Authors should also be wary of any journal that makes promises of publication and keep in mind that reputable journals do not ask for APCs at the time of submission. APCs are charged only after the completion of peer review and an official letter of acceptance from the journal.

Have you ever been approached by a dubious or questionable journal? If you have, please share your experience so that other researchers can be cautious and avoid falling into a similar trap.

Recommended reading:

• Saving oneself from the clutches of a predatory journal: A case study

• Simple steps authors can follow to protect their research from predatory publishers

• U.S. agency charges a publisher for deceiving academicians

November was an eventful month for researchers and non-researchers alike as Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential elections was the hottest topic of discussion globally. Some other issues in academic publishing that received much attention include the proposal of a novel technique that prohibits people from copying the content on a web page, a review of the scalability of the peer review system, and a poll on the challenges faced by researchers. As always, we make sure that you stay updated with all the action and happenings that are related to science and scientific publishing. That is why we’ve curated this reading list for you. Happy reading!

1. Reactions of academics on Donald Trump’s victory: Perhaps, the news that shook the global academic community was the result of the presidential elections in the U.S. Soon as Donald Trump was declared the next President of the U.S., countless discussions ensued about how this would affect science and research. According to this article, many immigrant and minority researchers are feeling insecure. A few researchers have reportedly faced harassment and racism. Some researchers are reconsidering their decision of moving to the U.S. in search of better opportunities, while others are skeptical of even attending conferences in the U.S. due to the volatile post-election atmosphere. A survey of biologists and physicists in the country revealed that about 2% of researchers in the U.S. are Muslim immigrants and 64% of them have been discriminated on the basis of their religion. However, a small section of these researchers continues to feel safe and is hopeful of a better and safe atmosphere to continue their work in. It is probably too soon to predict how science will fare under Trump's governance.

2. Is the peer review system sustainable? As per a study published in PLOS ONE by Michail Kovanis and his colleagues, the peer review system is sustainable in terms of volume; however, there is a gross imbalance in the distribution of peer review effort. Analyzing the papers published in biomedicine from various sources in the domain, they found that in 2015, the supply of reviewers exceeded the demand for reviewers and reviews by 15% to 249%. However, highlighting the imbalance in the number of reviewers who actually reviewed the papers, they found that 20% of the researchers performed 69% to 94% of the reviews. Moreover, researchers from the U.S. have the highest share of reviews, while those from China review the least. In 2015, 63.4 million hours were spent on reviews, of which 18.9 million hours were dedicated by a mere 5% of reviewers. Thus, it is clear that while peer review is sustainable, editors should expand their pool of reviewers and persuade more researchers to take on reviewing. This would ensure a fairer distribution of peer review work.

3. What are researchers most stressed about?Nature conducted an online poll to know more about the pressures and challenges researchers experience at the start of their academic career and received 12,000 responses. A whopping 65% of the respondents said that they had contemplated quitting research, while 16% stated that they actually quit. The biggest challenges that researchers said they faced were getting funding (44%), maintaining a work-life balance (19%), and being judged based on their publication record (19%). Additionally, most participants said that they worked for long hours. Around 30% worked for 50-60 hours while around 20% put in 60-70 hours. This emphasizes the need for the major stakeholders of science to refocus on the quality of research as against the quantity as well as ensure better working conditions for researchers.    

4. Problems in scientific research in Argentina: Science in Argentina is facing financial woes as President Mauricio Macri’s government is contemplating a cut on science spending in 2017 to help the nation’s economy recover from debt. The government has indicated a cut of 6%, which amounts to nearly 32 billion pesos (US$2 billion). The National Agency for the Promotion of Science and Technology, which funds both basic and applied research, was set for a 60% real-terms budget drop. Argentinean academics are worried that this could lead to brain drain and stall many important research projects. Concerned researchers staged protests on the streets against this move, and around 33,000 researchers and university teachers signed a petition in an attempt to change the government’s proposal. This prompted the government to revise the budget and declare an addition of 1.3 billion pesos. However, researchers have expressed disappointment over the marginally revised figures and are hopeful that the government would increase the budget further before finalizing the numbers.

5. A way to prevent users from copying online content: Often during their online research/surfing, researchers/students copy parts they find interesting onto their computers with the intention of using it as reference material in their research papers. However, the problem arises when they fail to credit the original source. A group of researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences has reported“a new light-based technique” (they refer to it as single-shot ptychography encoding or SPE) which makes it "more practical to create secure, invisible watermarks that can be used to detect and prosecute counterfeiting.” According to Yishi Shi, one of the authors of the paper, “The successful implementation of SPE will be a big breakthrough for optical security and could bring SPE-based optical watermarking and encryption closer to commercial application.” This would also make it difficult for people to directly copy content from a website, thus encouraging them to cite the original source and paraphrase.

6. Fraudulent supervisors can harm young researchers’ careers: In this interesting post, Ivan Oransky (Vice President and Global Editorial Director, MedPage Today) and Adam Marcus (Managing Editor, Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News and Anesthesiology News) talk about how a supervisor’s act of academic and research misconduct could damage a young researcher’s career. Due to the hierarchical structure of academia, graduate students and post docs are frequently the scapegoats in cases of fraud by unscrupulous supervisors, and there is very little in the way of protection or recourse for them in the current system. Apart from proposing organized labor unions and anonymous evaluation of supervisors as possible solutions, they also call for a more transparent and prompt retraction system that would prevent senior faculty who have committed misconduct from using vague misleading language in retraction notices to shift or spread blame.

7. Institutional repositories in Latin America have poor visibility:This post talks about institutional repositories in the context of Latin American countries. While comparing the visibility of research published by South American countries with that in the North American region on Google Scholar, Enrique Orduña-Malea and Emilio Delgado-López-Cózar found that the low discoverability of Latin American institutional repositories could affect their use. They argue that the scholarly output of regions like Latin America needs greater visibility because it is not written in English, the language that has maximum global outreach. Institutional repositories could play an important role in increasing the visibility of research that is published in languages other than English. They say that Latin American universities need to remember that an institutional repository is after all a website, and therefore, the focus should be on factors such as usability, website structure, ease of navigation, and search engine optimization. Essentially, the duo argues for better systemic changes to the manner in which institutional repositories are set up and managed so as to allow maximum global visibility.

That was a varied reading list indeed! What do you think of some of these issues? For example, do you have a view on how Donald Trump’s presidency might affect scientific research in the U.S.? Or, are you a researcher from Argentina and have something to say about the current situation in the country? Tell us what you think. We love hearing your views!

This post was created for the Wolters-Kluwer author newsletter Author Resource Review and has been reproduced with permission.

It has been co-authored by Jeff MacGregor, the Chief Marketing Officer at Meta Science, and Irena Radovanovic, PhD, a Scientist and Product Manager at Meta Science.

Every 20 seconds, a new scholarly article is published in biomedicine. Over the course of a year, that number swells to more than 1.5 million. While this surge in research is exciting, it comes with a price. The pace of global research output has become too great to keep up with using the products and tools that have historically been available to the research community.

Now more than ever, new classes of tools are needed to enable true literature discovery. That means having access to intelligent engines that will keep you on the leading edge of your field of research. It means being able to collaborate and quickly share your discoveries. And it means allowing for serendipity to once again play a meaningful role in the process of scientific discovery.

These are exactly the challenges that Meta Science was created to solve.

Meta Science is a free artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled literature discovery engine that lets you follow your entire world of research in real-time, discover landmark papers from over 200 years of science, and share papers with your colleagues. Designed to help streamline researcher workflow systems and accelerate scientific discovery, Meta Science lets you follow science and walk through history in ways that have never been possible before now.

This article will explore five of the most popular tools that researchers are leveraging within Meta Science to stay on top of their research, collaborate with their peers, and enrich the quality of their papers. It will also provide a step-by-step guide to help new Meta Science users take advantage of these same tools.

1. Never miss another important paper again

To stay on the leading edge, Meta Science lets you follow any subject in a powerful, specialized Focus Feed, which acts as a personalized research timeline. Papers are pushed to this feed the moment they are published, so you will never miss another paper related to your research. For this reason, your Focus Feed should contain only narrow concepts within your primary area of research, along with the people and journals for which you would want to see every single paper that gets published.

How to set up your Focus Feed

• Search any concept, researcher or journal related to your research (e.g., Brca1 protein)
• Click Add to Feed
• Select Add to Focus Feed

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2. Follow expansive areas of science

If you want to follow huge swaths of science, Meta’s Broad Feeds intelligently rank papers the moment they are published. This is based on hundreds of factors that work together to bring to your attention the very best science published that day, from around the world. The top papers are intelligently pushed to the top of your feed, making it easy to skim through the most important discoveries of the 14, 30, or 90 days, in one convenient place. With Broad Feeds, the bigger the area of science that you follow, the better your papers will be.

How to set up your Broad Feed

• Search any big concept you are interested in following (e.g, Breast Cancer)
• Click Add to Feed
• Under Broad Feeds, select the existing feed that best represents the topic in question, or create a new one

3. Keep your research organized

Meta Science gives you the ability to quickly “star” important papers that surface in your feed. This is especially useful when checking your feed while in transit or on a bench break. Many researchers use this feature to earmark papers for a more appropriate time when they can deep dive into the subject matter.

How to “star” a paper

• Click the Star icon on any paper in your feed
• Open your library tab
• All starred papers will appear in the first folder

Once starred papers have been read, they can be categorized into appropriate libraries. Libraries are folders that only you can see and are a great way to organize research when crafting an article. Meta Science users will often assign clusters of papers to specific libraries that represent different parts of their paper. For example, one library might be used to track research associated with a set of protocols or discussions, while another might house papers that either support or contradict your overall thesis.

How to organize starred papers into libraries

• In your starred folder, select a paper, then click Save to Library
• Choose the library for which you wish to move the paper
• You can create new libraries directly from the dropdown menu

4. Exchange ideas (and sometimes mice)

With Meta Science, collaborating with other researchers is easy. A private message feature allows you to share notes and important papers with colleagues and labmates from anywhere in the world. Once shared, those papers can be quickly added into the recipient’s library.

How to send a paper privately

• Click Send on the paper you wish to share
• Enter the recipient’s username; to add more people, separate the names with a comma
• Write your private message in the space provided

Collaborations on Meta Science are not just limited to sharing papers. For example, suppose a new article was published in which the authors used a very specific and unique mouse model. A Meta Science user doing similar research would easily be able to identify the paper’s authors, reach out to them through the platform, and initiate a conversation to facilitate the exchange of the mouse models. Collaborations such as this are both easy to initiate, and can save you a tremendous amount of time.

5. Improve your citation list

Meta Science has dedicated pages for virtually every concept, author, paper and journal ever published in the history of biomedicine—over 42 million pages in all. Within each of those pages are powerful recommendations at both the paper and entity level that can bring to your attention unexpected and important connections you might not have known about. These connections are one of the best ways to augment your citation list with important references that can greatly improve the quality of your paper.

How to leverage Meta’s recommendation engine

• From any page within Meta Science, click on any related author, journal, concept or paper
• Sort through your results by Most Recent or Most Impactful
• Save your discoveries in a dedicated library

Summary

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The John Maddox Prize is a joint initiative of the science journal Nature, the Kohn Foundation, and the charity Sense About Science to recognize individuals who have displayed courage in promoting science and evidence for public benefit. This year, the prestigious prize has been conferred upon leading cognitive psychologist Professor Elizabeth Loftus at the University of California, Irvine, whose research on human memory provided evidence that people can develop vivid memories of events that never occurred. “Her findings have altered the course of legal history,” states the announcement post.

Through her research, Loftus proved that memory can be unreliable and inaccurate. Not stopping at that, she went on to become a consultant in court cases and acted as an eye witness expert to help the wrongfully accused. Her demonstration of how hypnosis and therapy can be used to implant false memories created a stir as many victimized people took legal action against their doctors and family members. As a result, she had to endure death threats, lawsuits, and several attempts to get her fired from her position in the university. Despite this, she continued with her research and being involved in court cases. Sir Colin Blakemore, a Maddox Prize judge and a neuroscientist, adds that, “What makes her such a worthy winner of the John Maddox Prize is her determination to use the lessons from her research to challenge courtroom procedures and the unjustified claims of some psychotherapists.” Loftus will be felicitated in a ceremony and will be awarded a prize of £2000.

Congratulations to Professor Loftus!