If I were to ask you to name one problem in academic publishing that threatens the integrity of science, what would your answer be? Many of you might say fraud, plagiarism, or unethical publishing practices. But when a group of researchers from Netherlands led by Lex Bouter (Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, VU University Medical Center, Netherlands) surveyed 1353 attendees of international research integrity conferences about the most concerning problems modern research faced, the answers they received were different. Participating researchers rated 60 research misbehaviors based on their frequency of occurrence, preventability, impact on truth, and impact on trust between scientists, and according to most researchers, selective reporting, selective citing, and sloppy methodology are the main evils facing today’s research.

Academic misconduct is widely reported and the stories are picked even by the mainstream media. One of the best instances of this is the STAP case scandal. On the contrary, the more prevalent and damaging problems such as selective reporting and problems with methodology seldom come under the limelight probably because they are not as newsworthy, and they do not lead to retractions or invite institutional or legal action. Nevertheless, these behaviors are detrimental to science because they lead to irreproducible results, unnecessary replication of work, and misleading scientific literature.  

Why do researchers indulge in these behaviors? It is a known fact that the competition in academia is extreme. Thus, many researchers whose career prospects rest on groundbreaking publications attempt to churn out extraordinary results at a rapid pace. However, when encountered with negative findings, they may choose not to publish the findings altogether or publish the findings selectively. What amplifies the problem of selective reporting is that not all journals are keen on accepting papers with negative findings as they are not likely to attract a lot of citations. Thus, scientific reporting is inclined towards positive results, and a large number of negative and null results get shelved. A related problem with the race to publish faster is that researchers sometimes oversee crucial aspects of their study such as handling and storing data and biomaterials with care, or checking for basic principles of quality assurance. Consequently, they are faced with unreliable results.     

Researchers may sometimes be too focused on attaining the immediate goal of increasing their publications, and may fail to perceive the long term consequences of their actions on the quality of research getting published. In the ultimate quest of getting published, it is science that loses. The authors of the study rightly sum up the current publishing landscape when they say that, “A picture emerges not of concern about wholesale fraud but of profound concerns that many scientists may be cutting corners and engage in sloppy science, possibly with a view to get more positive and more spectacular results.” The only way of dealing with the problems plaguing modern science is a combined effort by researchers, editors, and funding bodies to publish all science without bias and improve the quality of research that reaches publication.

Recommended reading:

Is the reproducibility crisis real? An overview of Nature's survey

Irreproducibility: The soft underbelly of science

Irreproducibility: Is the lack of an accepted definition a problem in itself?

The world of academia is competitive, and you need to make sure that you make the most of your potential as well as research output. Gone are the days when you could publish a paper and sit back while the world reads it and appreciates your work. Today, being an academic brings with it the added responsibility of promoting your research in order to generate and demonstrate impact. Distributing your work through various channels can lead to more reads, downloads, and citations of journal articles, which in turn will boost your h-index, improve your reputation and give you more opportunities as a researcher. But often researchers, especially early-career researchers, find it difficult to promote their paper.

The best strategy to get more people interested in your paper is to do excellent research. So don’t treat promotion as a substitute for hard work and high-quality research. But spreading the word certainly helps! In this post, we explain how you could develop a promotional checklist – a series of tasks to grow the reach of your papers online that can correlate with your publishing strategy for 2017 and beyond. We’ll start with one-off tasks to set your strategy in motion, so open a new document to record the notes, ideas, useful links, and login details (keeping them completely secure of course).

1. Stay updated about the best practices for Open Access 
   Open access is in and you need to be on top of the latest information on Open Access publishing so your paper will be found and read by those you promote it to.
    
2. Set up an ORCID iD
   Why do you need an ORCID iD? To make sure that you receive full credit for your work, especially when there might be one or more researchers with the same name. Register with the organization and get an ORCID iD to avoid author name confusion. Add this ID to all of your online and offline profiles (ResearchGate, LinkedIn, Twitter, CV, department website, etc.).
    
3. Get the title and abstract of your paper right
   What is the first thing people will see when you publish and promote your research paper? The title and abstract! So make sure you create a great title and abstract and make sure you grab people’s attention when they are scanning journals.
    
4. Get the timing right
   It’s a good idea to find out exactly when accepted papers are published in your target journal so that you can time promotional activities to have the biggest effect. Make sure when you do publish that you identify and link to the correct and exact URL when promoting the paper (this may be a hyperlinked DOI, for example).
    
5. Track metrics from the start
   This activity goes beyond journal-level impact factor; it is possible to track a variety of article-level metrics (ALM) on many journals (see how PLOS does it for example, or use tools like Mendeley to track data across publications) as well as alternative metrics that show impact at a personal level. The free tool ImpactStory also provides information on papers, blog posts, social media accounts and other sources of data.
   
   Tracking the right metrics on the successful dissemination of your papers makes it easier to demonstrate and justify your activity. It is also far more motivating to see actual data on increased coverage for your research, and it can help you spot trends and opportunities. Set up tracking early on and it can bring benefits from day one.
    
6. Building and organizing your online presence
   Once tracking is in place, it is time for you to check the consistency of your online profiles. Note down all of the platforms on which people can find details about you and your work, such as: 
   - Personal blogs or websites
   - Institution, society, research group, or project websites
   - Social media accounts used for work purposes, including the highly recommended platforms Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, and the more optional platforms Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest
   - Researcher-focused platforms such as ResearchGate and MyScienceWork
   
   Once you have a complete list (which you can always add to when you create new profiles), make the profiles consistent by using the same headshot, important website links (including all relevant previous work), and biographical information, depending on the length allowed. Include interesting details in your bio that discuss the motivation for your research, the wider context of your work, any prominent achievements, and so on. Remember to include your ORCID iD in all profiles.
    
7. Planning how the websites work
   Alongside platforms for direct sharing of papers, there are plenty of opportunities to create content for websites that can link to them, such as your research group’s website, a general site like ZME Science, or learning portals for authors and researchers. For each paper, you can create several “stories” discussing, for example, how the topic fits in to the work of your research group, represents activity at your institution, and demonstrates the funding organization’s commitment to progress.
   
   For each site you are planning to write on, look at the style of content usually published as well as the target audience – this is who you will need to write for. Note down these details in your preparatory document, along with information on the social media accounts of each organization. Finally, note down exactly how you can get content on each site, e.g., whom you need to send it to  (a name and email address), in what format, how long they would take to publish it, etc.
    
8. Making the most of marketers
   The people in charge of marketing, public relations, and communications at your institution or within your local surroundings can be of great help to you in promoting your paper. As you build your promotional checklist for 2017, now is a great time to get in touch and find how they can help, and what you can do to make this process easier. Also factor in how long it will take them to publish anything so you know how far in advance you will need to provide material.
   
   If they can publish press releases linking to your work, find out the guidelines and key contact to send information to. If they can promote your work on Twitter, find out who is in charge of the account and what Twitter names and hash tags you should include in your tweets (and make sure you follow each other!)

This brings us to the end of part 1. In the next part, I’ll talk about what you need to do before and after publishing your paper in order to create a great promotion plan. In the meanwhile, feel free to share any comments/thought about how researchers can increase the visibility of their work today.

In the previous segment, we discussed how as a researcher you can’t just stop at writing a research paper. In order to be successful you also need to promote it to increase impact and engagement. We also shared a few basic things you need to know about promoting research on social media.

Here, I’ll share a list of things you need to do to start promoting your work. This should help you list all your ideas and channels of promotion in one place so that you’re able to keep track of your activities.

Build the checklist
If you have followed the tips in the previous segment, you should now be in a great position with consistent online profiles, effective tracking, and a good idea of the different promotional opportunities you have available. Now let’s create a clear list of tasks to follow:

Things to do before you submit your paper (or while it is being reviewed):

1. Create any content that will be sent to other websites. Send in any pieces that take some time to get published (explaining that you will need to add the paper’s URL when it becomes available). Remember to check with the editor of your target journal if this is okay. Also, note that you are only promoting your paper, not reproducing parts of it before it is formally published, so rewrite relevant parts of the paper in simple language instead of copying the entire content.
    
2. Prepare emails for people who will be interested either in your paper, or in one of the pieces of content you have created (again, add the URLs once available). These may be for co-authors and collaborators (whom you may wish to share this article with!), funders and sponsors, previous colleagues, experts in the field, notable industry figures, and so on – anyone with an interest in your area and with who you have a relationship. This is also a great relationship building and networking exercise!
    
3. Draft the information that PR and marketing support needs to be able to disseminate your work.

Things to do after the paper is published (and you have the link):

1. Update and send all of the emails and content prepared above.
    
2. Share the paper on all of the platforms that you can access directly.
    
3. Monitor social media accounts of the organizations, groups, offices, and people to whom you sent content, and retweet, like, and share any mentions they make.
    
4. As they get published, record and cross-promote the pieces of content that discuss your work.
    
5. Get started on your next piece of research!

An ongoing challenge

How well you plan and execute your promotional checklist will contribute to each paper’s success. But the size of the audiences and following you are able to build on different platforms will also have an impact. This is why promotion never really stops; so add to your network by following contacts on several platforms, share useful insights and resources regularly on social media (including previous papers and articles), and follow up with opportunities to create content on websites that can eventually link to your work.

A promotional checklist can, and should, be refined over time. Not every technique suits every researcher, and different topics will be suitable for different target websites. But the work you do to organize resources and build a strategy around each paper will help you be more efficient and effective in your promotion, every time.

Good luck with promoting your paper!

Read part 1 of the series: 8 Tips to increase the reach of your research in 2017

Do you have any tips of your own? Share them in the comments section below.

As a graduate student, I was quite fortunate to attend several conferences. Initially, their purpose was limited to attending talks, grabbing free food, and catching up with long-distance friends. Occasionally, someone would mention the dreaded word: networking. Networking is pivotal in building and strengthening symbiotic relationships in academia and industry. However, early career researchers avoid networking with the usual fear — how can I interact with highly experienced scientists as a measly student? Here are a few tips to successfully navigate through a conference.

Don’t be shy

Approaching senior researchers is the biggest challenge that one faces as a student. You have to push yourself to do it, even when the mere idea seems intimidating. My confidence-boost came from the first time I mustered up the courage to compliment a professor on his talk. His friendly response brought forth the obvious, yet forgotten, perspective: professors are only humans. In my opinion, the best way to have a decent chat with the most-sought-but-often-busy professors is to briefly introduce yourself and invite them to your poster/talk. This way, they can get acquainted with your work without you encroaching on their time. Even a brief chat will help you transition from a stranger to an acquaintance, opening doors for future follow-up lab visits.

Names matter

When Shakespeare wrote “What's in a name…”, he forgot to mention certain exceptions. Knowing names is helpful, if not essential, at networking events. It would be ironic to dine across influential people from your field and miss out on a golden networking opportunity, being clueless of their identity. I recall an embarrassing situation when my mentor introduced me to a researcher, adding that I am surely familiar with her work. I most certainly was (I found out later), but having known only her last name, I was embarrassingly at a loss of words at that moment. Thereafter, I got into a habit of pre-conference preparation: researching names of potentially interesting speakers or attendees. This small change was remarkably effective in narrowing down my potential targets from a crowd of attendees.

Poster session: a topic based sorting hat

I find that poster sessions are highly underrated. They are the water cooler equivalent of offices; this is where science is freely discussed, where the 'what did not work' information behind papers is out in the open. What turned out to be perhaps one of the most important suggestions during my PhD came from a poster-visitor at my first conference. He pointed out an important flaw in my experiments that I had missed, saving me from a future disaster. I pondered over the horrible consequences had he not luckily stopped by, and started using poster sessions to actively gather as much information as possible regarding my topic. I usually researched the attendees in related fields and went armed with their name, poster number, and specific questions to discuss with them. Try this, and you will find that most fellow researchers are helpful and even open to follow-up discussions.

Leave behind more than just a good impression

Imagine that the stars line up and everything goes smoothly — you research Mr. X, muster courage to approach him, and discuss your captivating work with him. Then what? I have often scribbled my contact information on random scraps of paper, then worried if it was a lost cause. Don't take that chance! Keep some business cards ready to circumvent such situations. As a student, my personal issue against having a card was not feeling accomplished enough. It was only when free 'networking cards' were handed out at a conference one time that I witnessed their effectiveness firsthand. My advice to young researchers: business cards should be treated as simply a smart provision to give out contact information, not like a degree.

Post PhD, I transitioned from research into a career in science writing and communication. Even though I hung up my lab boots, the importance of networking in my life has not changed. In fact, having moved to a new country with virtually no professional contacts beforehand, I regularly attend networking events, niche group meetings, and volunteer workshops, where my networking experience helps me confidently break into a crowded room.    

This article is partly based on Ms. Prabhune's write-up Networking: a dark science for young researchers.

Yateendra Joshi has been editing technical documents for over 25 years, a career change he made after working for a decade as a scientist with the Indian council of Agricultural Research (1978–88). He was with TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) in New Delhi for 15 years, moved to Pune to work with WISE (World Institute of Sustainable Energy in 2005, and has been on his own since 2007, dividing his time between working for WISE and Editage, freelance copy-editing, and teaching.

He has copy-edited more than 250 manuscripts in the past few years for an international agency. He is an accredited editor with Diplomate status certified by the Board of Editors in Life Sciences. Diplomate status is awarded only to those who demonstrate exceptional editorial proficiency (currently, only 30 editors worldwide have the diplomate status, and Yateendra is the only one in India.

Yateendra has participated in several international conferences of EASE, the European Association of Science Editors: Oxford, Helsinki, Tours (France), and Tallinn (Estonia). He is a Member of the Editing Office, Atomium Culture, Brussels, and a Member of the Editorial Board, Information Design Journal.

His book, titled Communicating in Style, was favorably reviewed in a dozen international periodicals.

He has taught one-semester courses on communication skills at TERI University, NCL (National Chemical Laboratory), and IISER (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research); currently, he conducts a block course at TERI University twice a year. In addition to this, he has conducted shorter programs and lectures at many institutions. He was also a member of the committee of experts constituted by IGNOU, the Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, to advise IGNOU on the diploma course in publishing.

David Kipler is a specialist in biomedical communications for pharmaceutical companies, journals, and authors. His enduring professional focus is helping researchers whose first language is not English to reach a larger audience.

After receiving a BA in history from the State University of New York at Buffalo, David traveled to Japan and has been working with biomedical researchers there and in other countries for more than 20 years. David obtained his certification as an Editor in the Life Sciences in 2005. In addition, he has acquired extensive experience as an instructor in English reading and writing and English for Medical Purposes: he was a member of the Toho University Faculty of Medicine for 14 years and has held faculty appointments at top universities in Japan, including The University of Tokyo, Meiji University, and Niigata University. In April 2017, he will be offering classes in medical communication at Keio University School of Medicine. David has long been involved in biomedical publishing and has served as language editor for several journals in Japan, including the Journal of Epidemiology.

David has written and presented on English education in Japanese medical universities, medical terminology, and professional development for biomedical communicators and is coauthor of the Medical English Listening Course for ALC NetAcademy. He is a member of the American Medical Writers Association, the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences, and the Japan Society for Medical English Education.

In my 30 years of working in the field of analytical chemistry, I have reviewed many manuscripts for a variety of journals. Most of the manuscripts contained little or no analytical method validation, which means they lacked evidence of repeatability, reproducibility, robustness, ruggedness and/or most of the other requirements to demonstrate method validation. Surprisingly, most of these papers were submitted to analytically oriented journals, as opposed to biological ones, such as Science, Nature, Cell, or BioTechniques. Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that the existing and recent literature lacks reproducibility and other aspects of analytical method validation.

Perhaps the essence of good scientific research and publications is that the work, when successfully completed and published, will be reproducible in the hands of others, similarly trained, prepared, and equipped in their own laboratories. The authors should, at the very least, ensure that their research is repeatable in their own lab and reproducible in other labs, before it is submitted for publication. If this crucial element is not met, then the findings should never be published. The original work should follow scientific protocols, such as using good laboratory practices (GLP), and ideally be conducted in a GLP facility with quality control and quality assurance. And, there must be sufficient hard data (numbers) with at least three repeats for each and every measurement, all of which is statistically treated and tabulated.

Why is this so important? More and more manuscripts are rejected because they do not contain elements of repeatability or reproducibility, and such papers will only add to the existing literature that is irreproducible. If my own experience is relatable to others reviewing the current, analytically oriented literature, then it is clear that more demands must be placed on the authors by the journals and editors when the manuscript is being evaluated. The manuscript should include evidence of repeatability, reproducibility, robustness, ruggedness and other aspects of true and complete, analytical method validation. And, if these things are not evident, then such work is likely to fail when published; other researchers will not be able to reproduce these findings, and we will continue to face the situation we are now facing: a generic lack of past/present reproducibility for many, or most, scientific publications.

Most of the analytical manuscripts I receive contain either partial or no analytical method validation. This means they lack robustness, ruggedness, repeatability, reproducibility, limits of detection, limits of quantitation, calibration plots for linearity of quantitation, statistical treatment of data where the number of repeats, n, must be at least three or more, stability of reagents, quality control, quality assurance, good laboratory practices, and so forth. And, a majority of the papers that lack elements of reproducibility come from academia, as compared to those from industrial or government labs, pertaining to fields such as analytical instrumentation, pharmaceuticals, biopharmaceuticals, and others. Labs/firms must meet relevant regulatory requirements laid down by U.S. Food & Drug Administration, European Medicines Agency, and Japan Pharmaceutical Association, which means high quality method validation evidence – something that academia is even now not forced or required to pursue by most journals or editors. Most academics prefer to save the time, money, and effort in pursuing any aspects of analytical method validation, which if they had followed all along might have avoided the current crisis of irreproducibility.

Considering the above arguments, how can science rectify these issues and produce literature in the future that will be fully reproducible? Does the fault reside with authors, reviewers, editors, journal publishers, funding agencies, or somewhere else? It is the authors who are ultimately responsible for submitting valid, repeatable, reproducible, and honest results/data. For their part, reviewers must be more rigorous while evaluating submissions that do not contain elements of repeatability, reproducibility, method validation, and such other criteria that give credibility to the work. Some journals provide guidance and instructions online on their website to reviewers, so that only the best papers reach publication. Editors should consider reviewers’ comments and recommendations before arriving at a decision. Perhaps they should not forward to reviewers the manuscripts that have no evidence of repeatability or reproducibility. Finally, it is the publishers who must change their policies about what must be contained in all submissions to better ensure their validity, repeatability, and reproducibility once published.

Therefore, journals have been approaching the problem of irreproducibility and retraction (which usually follows) in ways that would prevent such instances. Some journals such as Nature, BioTechniques, and The Analyst request authors to indicate in the research description certain initial goals, such as evidence of repeatability and reproducibility, as well as the number of repeats for each experiment. Some of these guidelines discuss analytical method validation criteria that should be provided in the body of the paper. Perhaps, journals editors and reviewers need to be more circumspect in what they are approving for final publication, especially when there is little to no evidence of any analytical method validation, as it can lead to failed attempts at repeating and reproducing the studies. The overall goal should be to ensure that the final manuscript will contain enough data, details, and method validation to ensure it will be reproducible in the hands of its readers after publication.

A lack of reproducibility and replicability affects the pace at which science progresses. Apart from this, it can have an adverse impact on funding patterns, as irreproducible research is a major burden on science spending. Such research can also put health care policies in jeopardy and even lead people not to trust science. Therefore, publishing good, high quality science should be a priority for the major stakeholders of science. 

Scholarly Open Access, a popular blog that listed questionable journals and publishers, has recently been taken down. The blog was maintained since 2008 by Jeffrey Beall who is an academic librarian at the University of Colorado in Denver. Incidentally, his faculty page too is no longer available. While the exact reasons behind this decision remain unclear, according to a UC Denver spokesperson, it was Beall’s personal decision to take this step and added that, “Professor Beall remains on the faculty at the university and will be pursuing new areas of research.” Lacey Earle, Vice President of Business Development at Cabell’s International, tweeted that “threats & politics” forced Beall to shut down the site.

Beall’s blog that listed more than 1000 “potential, possible or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers” now stands blank, and it is not known whether this closure is permanent. While his efforts at exposing fraudulent publishers were applauded by many academics, his list – popularly known as “Beall’s list” – had been a source of controversy as some open access advocates believed that he was negative toward the model. He also received flak from some publishers and journals that objected to being included in his list. One such publisher is OMICS Publishing Group that threatened to sue Beall with a $1 billion lawsuit for defaming the company.

Cabell’s International, a publishing services company, had announced that it has been working with Beall since 2015 to develop a blacklist of publishers. Hence, there has been some speculation as to whether this was the reason behind pulling down of Beall’s blog. However, the company publicly stated that it is not involved with this incident. The shutdown of Beall’s blog is perceived by many as a loss to academia. Though it received considerable criticism for being overly biased, it was unique in the industry and many researchers considered it to be a valuable resource. It remains to be seen what effect the closedown of this blog has on academic publishing. 

References:

Mystery as controversial list of predatory publishers disappears

Why did Beall’s List of potential predatory publishers go dark?

No More 'Beall's List'

The Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology has made available the results of the first five studies it attempted to replicate, and their report has taken the world of biology by storm. The findings published in eLife journal state that out of the five studies, only two were successfully repeated, while one failed replication and the remaining two concluded in “uninterpretable results.”  

The Reproducibility Project is not the first attempt to repeat published results. In 2012, a biotechnology firm, Amgen, had published a report stating that the company’s researchers had failed to replicate 47 of 53 groundbreaking cancer studies. Inspired by this, the Reproducibility Project was launched as a collaborated effort by Science Exchange and the Center for Open Science to replicate 29 high-profile cancer studies published from 2010 to 2012 that are in preclinical stage. However, unlike Amgen’s project, the process and findings of the Reproducibility Project will be made freely available.

These are the details of the studies that were reproduced as part of the Reproducibility Project:

• Of the five studies, the two reproducible studies were: a study led by Stanford computational biologist Atul Butte titled Discovery and preclinical validation of drug indications using compendia of public gene expression data and a study led by Constantine Mitsiades titled BET Bromodomain inhibition as a therapeutic strategy to target c-Myc while at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
• The studies that ended in uninterpretable results were Melanoma genome sequencing reveals frequent PREX2 mutations led by Petar Stojanov of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and The CD47-signal regulatory protein alpha (SIRPa) interaction is a therapeutic target for human solid tumors led by Stanford stem cell biologist Irving Weissman.   
• The only study that was declared as irreproducible was the one led by Erkki Ruoslahti, a cancer biologist at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in California, titled Coadministration of a tumor-penetrating peptide enhances the efficacy of cancer drugs.

Many academics, particularly biologists, have expressed their support to the project as it exposes the lack of methodology details in published literature, and encourages researchers not to take results at face value. However, others have highlighted the fact that replicating biological studies is extremely difficult as there are several layers of complexity involved. Therefore, they advise against interpreting a failed replication as a permanent ruling on a study. However, John Ioannidis, epidemiologist of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California and an advisor to the project, summed up the project’s findings as: “The composite picture is, there is a reproducibility problem.”

References:      

Rigorous replication effort succeeds for just two of five cancer papers

Cancer reproducibility project releases first results

Hani Jieun Kim is a BELS- and AMWA-certified editor with a master’s degree in biological sciences. Her early experiences in manuscript preparation began as a molecular biologist at Seoul National University, where she published a number of papers in STM journals.