OPEN SCIENCE
Open Science, Open Data, and Open Scholarship: European Policies to Make Science Fit for the Twenty-First Century. A comment in Frontiers in Big Data by Jean-Claude Burgelman and co-authors from the European Commission. They call for a transition to open science, also by others: “The European Commission has taken various steps in initiating this transition, but all stakeholders must get on board to take mutually reinforcing steps to advance open science policy and its implementation (Euroscientist, 2015). After all, the EC is, rightfully so, not even competent on many domains where open science policies should be developed (e.g., rewards and incentives).”
The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is consulting for their policy around the use of persistent identifiers.
PUBLISHING
Announcing a new diversity commitment for Springer Nature’s research publishing. The publisher is setting a much needed and necessary standard by committing to diversity in editorial choices and to diverse representations at its conferences.
What defines a predatory journal? A group of scholars has provided a list of fairly broad criteria. These are: False or misleading information, Deviation from best editorial and publication practices, Lack of transparency, Aggressive, indiscriminate solicitation. Published in Nature.
Review Commons is now live. The trial of independent peer review before journal submission (mentioned in issue 37) has launched for 17 participating journals, including five PLOS journals.
Elsevier deal with France disappoints open-access advocates, writes Tania Rabesandratana in Science.
Nature Human Behaviour is the latest journal implementing transparent peer review, where authors can opt to have the peer review history published. Bravo!
RESEARCH
A dating app based on genetic profiles. There has been a lot of criticism on the back of this George Church interview, which has been summarized by the MIT Technology Review. Eradicating diseases is a good intention, but where does this type of profiling lead to? What about future products that screen by other traits, or by populations? Where does it stop?
EVENTS
OASPA 2020 has been announced for 22 – 24 September, 2020, in Warsaw, Poland.