FAST principles for preprint feedback

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.31219/osf.io/9wdcq ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Sandra Franco Iborra ◽

Jessica Polka ◽

Sara Monaco ◽

Sharon Ahmad ◽

Maryrose Franko ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Science Communication ◽

Scholarly Communication ◽

Cultural Barriers ◽

Strong Interest ◽

Public Critique ◽

Senior Colleague

There has been strong interest in preprint commenting and review activities in recent years. Public preprint feedback can bring benefits to authors, readers and others in scholarly communication, however, the level of public commenting on preprints is still low. This is likely due to cultural barriers, such as fear by authors that criticisms on their paper will bias readers, editors and evaluators, and concerns by commenters that posting a public critique on a preprint by a more senior colleague may lead to retribution. In order to help address these cultural barriers and foster positive and constructive participation in public preprint feedback, we have developed a set of 14 principles for creating, responding to, and interpreting preprint feedback. The principles are clustered around four broad themes: Focused, Appropriate, Specific, Transparent (FAST). We describe each of the FAST principles and designate which actors (authors, reviewers and the community) each of the principles applies to. We discuss the possible implementation of the FAST principles by different stakeholders in science communication, and explore what opportunities and challenges lie ahead in the path towards a thriving preprint feedback ecosystem.

Download Full-text

Preprints & Pandemics: Interventions into the Dynamic Scholarly System of Scholarly Communication

10.31222/osf.io/6nzhe ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Micah Altman ◽

Philip N. Cohen ◽

Jessica Polka

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Science Communication ◽

Ad Hoc ◽

Scholarly Communication ◽

External Shocks ◽

Scholarly Communications ◽

History Of ◽

Short And Long Term ◽

The Impact

The COVID-19 pandemic is an exemplar of how scholarly communication can change in response to external shocks, even as the scholarly knowledge ecosystem is evolving rapidly, and many argue that swift and fundamental interventions are needed. However, it is much easier to identify ongoing changes and emerging interventions than to understand their immediate and long term impacts. This is illustrated by comparing the approaches applied by the scientific community to understand public health risks and interventions with those applied by the scholarly communications community to the science of COVID-19. There are substantial disagreements over the short- and long- term benefits of most proposed approaches to changing the practice of science communication, and the lack of systematic, empirically-based research in this area makes these controversies difficult to resolve. We argue that the methodology of analysis and intervention developed within public health can be usefully applied to the science-of-science. Starting with the history of DDT application, we illustrate four ways complex human systems threaten reliable predictions and blunt ad-hoc interventions. We then show how these four threats apply lead to the last major intervention in scholarly publication -- the article publishing charge based open access model -- to yield surprising results. Finally, we outline how these four threats may affect the impact of preprint initiatives, and we identify approaches drawn from public health to mitigate these threats.

Download Full-text

Conflating scholarly and science communication practices: the production of open letters on climate change

Journal of Documentation ◽

10.1108/jd-01-2020-0015 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 76 (6) ◽

pp. 1359-1375

Author(s):

Carin Graminius

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Science Communication ◽

Structural Changes ◽

Scholarly Communication ◽

Professional Community ◽

Working Environment ◽

Academic Science ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Content Type ◽

Communication Practices

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore and analyse interfaces between scholarly and science communication practices by using the production of open letters on climate change as a point of departure. Furthermore, the paper highlights an understudied form of science communication – open letters.Design/methodology/approachThe material consists of nine open letters on climate change, written and signed by academics and published in 2018–2019, as well as 13 semi-structured interviews with the initiators and co-authors of the letters. The interviews were analysed by qualitative thematic analysis and grouped into thematic clusters.FindingsThe study finds that three practices used in scholarly communication – more specifically: peer review, professional community building and, to a certain extent, communication as “merit-making” – are central in the making of the open letters, illustrating an integration of scholarly communication practices in academic science communication activities.Social implicationsThe study suggests that the conflation of communication practices needs to be seen in relation to larger structural changes in the academic working environment, as well as in relation to the specific environment in which communication about climate change occurs.Originality/valueThis study contends that the proposed conflation between scholarly and science communication concerns not only texts and genres but also practices integral to contemporary science, thereby conflating the forms of communication at a practical level.

Download Full-text

The value of the scholarly-led, non-profit business model to achieve Open Access and scholarly publishing beyond APC

Septentrio Conference Series ◽

10.7557/5.4964 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Arianna Becerril-García

Keyword(s):

Open Access ◽

Latin American ◽

Science Communication ◽

Scholarly Communication ◽

Research Community ◽

Public Institutions ◽

Non Profit ◽

Keynote Presentation ◽

Latin American Region ◽

Scholarly Communications

Keynote presentation. The prevailing science communication system has showed little success in making science a global, participatory and equitable conversation. At the same time, a very robust ecosystem of science communication has been built in the Latin-American region, one that is intrinsically open, non-commercial and academy-owned. However, this “regional” approach has remained outside the legitimated channels of scholarly communication. In Latin America, more than 2000 universities are publishing journals under the principle of science as a common and public good. Around half of them are public institutions which means that public budget is being heavily invested in sustaining non-commercial Open Access. AmeliCA, a multi-institutional community-driven initiative supported by UNESCO and led by Redalyc and CLACSO, seeks a cooperative, sustainable, protected and non-commercial solution for Open Knowledge. AmeliCA is taking the 16-year experience and technological resources from Redalyc to strengthen non-profit publishing beyond the region. AmeliCA’s and Redalyc’s approach is based on the fact that scholarly communication in control of the academy is a strategy much healthier and sustainable for the development of science and society. Why is it that commercial publishers are a pivotal actor in science communication – in many parts of the world – if the biggest part of activities concerning the generation of knowledge is in the academy? Academy owned publishing seems not to exist in the mainstream databases (Web of Science and Scopus). So, it is strategic for the research community and libraries to join forces, as well as share and connect individual efforts to build a cooperative infrastructure, in order to guarantee that publishing is led by the scholarly community and that its openness is sustainable. The research community and libraries should also work together in the reshaping of how research is assessed, in order to give the non-profit academy-owned scholarly communications their place. All must be leveraged with technology to find more effective methods of communication and deployment of the knowledge generated by different regions, disciplinary fields or languages.

Download Full-text

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION IN CENTRAL ASIA

Central Asian Journal of Medical Hypotheses and Ethics ◽

10.47316/cajmhe.2020.1.2.09 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 152-157

Author(s):

Prithvi Sanjeevkumar Gaur ◽

Latika Gupta

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Central Asia ◽

Academic Engagement ◽

Scholarly Communication ◽

Scientific Communication ◽

Cultural Barriers ◽

Central Asian ◽

Academic Partnerships ◽

Social Media Platforms

Social Media Platforms (SMPs) have emerged as the new frontiers for academic engagement, more so during the pandemic. Cultural barriers, close censorship, and language restrictions may limit the participation of Central Asian scholars in the global scientific communication. This article explores the patterns of Social Media (SoMe) use in Central Asia and outlines probable deterrents of academic engagement in the region. Some suggestions are formulated to offer digital and socio-cultural solutions aimed to improve Central Asian scholars’ activities on SoMe platforms and bridge the divide for fruitful academic partnerships.

Download Full-text

The different audiences of science communication: A segmentation analysis of the Swiss population’s perceptions of science and their information and media use patterns

Public Understanding of Science ◽

10.1177/0963662517752886 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 27 (7) ◽

pp. 836-856 ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

Mike S. Schäfer ◽

Tobias Füchslin ◽

Julia Metag ◽

Silje Kristiansen ◽

Adrian Rauchfleisch

Keyword(s):

Latent Class Analysis ◽

Survey Data ◽

Science Communication ◽

Latent Class ◽

Media Use ◽

Information Use ◽

Representative Survey ◽

Use Patterns ◽

Strong Interest ◽

Segmentation Analysis

Few studies have assessed whether populations can be divided into segments with different perceptions of science. We provide such an analysis and assess whether these segments exhibit specific patterns of media and information use. Based on representative survey data from Switzerland, we use latent class analysis to reconstruct four segments: the “Sciencephiles,” with strong interest for science, extensive knowledge, and a pronounced belief in its potential, who use a variety of sources intensively; the “Critically Interested,” also with strong interest and support for science but with less trust in it, who use similar sources but are more cautious toward them; the “Passive Supporters” with moderate levels of interest, trust, and knowledge and tempered perceptions of science, who use fewer sources; and the “Disengaged,” who are not interested in science, do not know much about it, harbor critical views toward it, and encounter it—if at all—mostly through television.

Download Full-text