On September 12, 2023, Crossref, a not-for-profit membership organization aiming to make research easy to find, cite, link, assess, and reuse, formally acquired the Retraction Watch database, a comprehensive database of retractions. Retraction Watch began in 2010 as a journalism blog that aspired to “examine whether scientific correction mechanisms were robust” (Oransky, 2023). In 2018, with financial support from the MacArthur Foundation, the Arnold Foundation (now Arnold Ventures), and the Helmsley Trust, the Retraction Watch Database in its current form was officially launched.
The database was licensed to organizations to help researchers stay informed about current retractions. With Crossref’s purchase of the Retraction Watch Database, the database will now be completely open and freely available. According to a Crossref blog post, this agreement “will allow Retraction Watch to keep the data populated on an ongoing basis and always open, alongside publishers registering their retraction notices directly with Crossref” (Hendricks, et al., 2023). This agreement only pertains to the Retraction Watch Database - the Retraction Watch blog continues to be separate from Crossref, and will continue to independently investigate retractions and related topics. Crossref will remain a “neutral facilitator in efforts to assess the quality of scientific works” (Hendricks, et al., 2023).
So why does all of this matter? The volume of journal articles being published continues to grow. With so many articles being published, it’s difficult to keep track of articles that are later retracted. Researchers who want to avoid citing a retracted article in their papers have to put in a lot of time and effort into checking each reference on publisher sites for retractions, and it’s incredibly difficult to catch all retractions (Oransky & Lammey, 2023). It’s even more difficult for readers to know if a work they are reading is citing retracted articles. According to Hendricks et al., “combining efforts to create the largest single open-source database of retractions reduces duplication, making it more efficient, transparent, and accessible for all” (Hendricks et al., 2023).
Interested in learning more? Watch a discussion about this new collaboration:
Did you recently present at a conference or during a workshop? Would you like to share your conference poster with other scholars? Are you interested in archiving your research in a central location? The Health Sciences Research Commons (HSRC) is Himmelfarb Library’s online institutional repository and allows researchers to store their research in a reliable location so it may be accessed by other researchers.
Here are a few benefits to storing your research in the HSRC:
Your conference poster will be placed in a permanent collection with a consistent link. This link may be embedded in your resume/CV or on your researcher’s website. It may also be shared with your peers and connect them with your conference poster.
Your work is archived according to your departmental affiliation, so your work is situated among the collective output of your colleagues.
Your research is discoverable via search engines such as Google Scholar, thus allowing your work to reach a broader audience.
Lastly, you can measure the impact and reach of your research through PlumX metrics and Altmetrics data.
Archiving your poster in the HSRC is a reliable alternative to conference websites which may not be maintained once the conference ends. The HSRC is able to accept most file formats and you may upload a full image of your poster. Library staff members maintain the repository and will archive your research for you. Send an email hsrc@gwu.edu and a Himmelfarb Library staff member will respond to collect more information.
Are you interested in a preview of how your poster will appear in the institutional repository? Visit the 2023 Research Days Posters collection or any of the other collections in the repository.
Fall means more than pumpkin spice. Fall grant application season is also here with October submission deadlines for both NIH and NSF. Both organizations have modified the grant application process and here’s what you need to know:
NIH: NIH has rescinded the single budget line item requirement for data management and sharing costs.
Applications with a due date of October 5, 2023, or later will not be required to include a single line item for Data Management and Sharing Plan activities in the budget. These costs should be placed in other appropriate categories, such as personnel, equipment, supplies, and other expenses. Read the full announcement on the NIH website.
NSF: NSF now requires the use of the SciENcv or the Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae for biographical information.
The mandate to use SciENcv only for preparation of the biographical sketch and current and pending (other) support will go into effect for new proposals submitted or due on or after October 23, 2023. Read more on the NSF website.
Need additional resources to help you with the grant application process?
The GW Office of Sponsored Projects can assist with the full project lifecycle ranging from the initial concept to the management of the award.
For the 2023 NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy, Himmelfarb maintains a related DMSP research guide and created a brief video tutorial highlighting important resources.
Information on how to update your Biosketch is also available via a brief video tutorial from Himmelfarb.
For additional information reach out to Sara Hoover, Metadata and Scholarly Communications Librarian at shoover@gwu.edu or Himmelfarb at himmelfarb@gwu.edu.
Image by Rafabollas, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Open access is the emerging standard for how scientific literature is published and shared. An open access publication is digital, has no fees required for access, and has no copyright or licensing restrictions. The idea is to make scientific findings accessible to all who would benefit. This is a noble goal, but the practicalities of its application can be confusing. There are a number of ways that authors and publishers can make published studies available open access. Some put the burden of payment on the author or institution that produced the research, some on the publisher, and an emerging model puts it on libraries who enter agreements with publishers for subscriptions with open access benefits for researchers at their institution.
The three most common models are green, gold, and diamond/platinum open access. Here’s a quick breakdown of each:
Green OA - A publisher allows the author(s) to self-archive an open access copy of the article being published in one of its journals. This is generally allowed for a preprint version of the article. The author can opt to self-archive to a subject-based archive like PubMed Central, or in an institutional repository, like Himmelfarb’s Health Sciences Research Commons. To find out if a journal allows Green OA and what the specific terms are, Sherpa/Romeo is a free tool to check publisher open access policies. Learn more about how to deposit your research in an institutional repository in our video tutorial, Archiving Scholarship in an Institutional Repository.
Gold OA - The authors (or their affiliated institution) pay the publisher to allow open access to the content with an Article Processing Charge (APC). In this model, the author frequently retains copyright. The downside is the typically high expense to publish gold OA in reputable journals. Note that vanity presses and some predatory publications will fall into the gold category. Learn more about how to identify a predatory journal in our video tutorial, How to Spot a Predatory Journal.
Diamond or Platinum OA - Also known as cooperative or non-commercial open access, in this model neither the author nor the reader pays. Typically this model is used by not-for-profit publishing venues like University presses or scholarly society publications. A 2021 study estimated that there are 29,000 diamond OA journals, but only 10,000 of them are included in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and many are not indexed to make their contents findable in databases. Only about half of diamond OA journal articles have a DOI which jeopardizes future access.
The Venn diagram below developed by Jamie Farquarhson illustrates what each of the three levels means for both authors and readers.
As Gold OA becomes more common, some institutions are creating funds that their researchers can use to pay for APCs. Researchers are also including these expenses in grant applications, especially for those like NIH grants that require depositing research findings and associated data in freely accessible archives. Learn more about how to include article processing charges into grants in our video tutorial, How to Include Article Processing Charges (APCs) in Funding Proposals.
As mentioned earlier in this article, libraries are starting to take on some of the burden of APCs. In what’s known as a transformative agreement, the fees paid to a publisher are transitioning from subscription access for library users to open access publishing by the institution’s researchers and authors. The library pays for both users to read for free and for the institution's authors to publish open access in the publisher’s journals. There may be limits on how many articles can be published or other price caps built in. Usually, these agreements are cost neutral meaning that the library is not saving on subscription fees. Currently, GW has transformative agreements in place with Cambridge Journals and The Company of Biologists (Development, Journal of Cell Science, and the Journal of Experimental Biology). GW has explored transitioning to transformative agreements with other publishers.
Himmelfarb Library’s Scholarly Communications Committee produces short tutorial videos on scholarly publishing and communications topics for SMHS, GWSPH, and GW School of Nursing students, faculty, and staff. Five new videos are now available on our YouTube channel and Scholarly Publishing Research Guide!
2023 NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy Resources by Sara Hoover - Sara is our resident expert on data management policy and resources. She provides an overview of the NIH policy, the essential elements of a data management and sharing plan, and highlights GW and non-GW resources that can aid you in putting together a data management and sharing plan. The video is 10 minutes in length.
Animal Research Alternatives by Paul Levett - Paul demonstrates how to conduct 3Rs alternatives literature searches for animal research protocols. He defines the 3Rs and explains how to report the search in the GW Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) application form. Paul is currently a member of the GW IACUC. The video is 13 minutes long.
Artificial Intelligence Tools and Citations by Brittany Smith - As a Library Science graduate student, Brittany has an interest in how AI is impacting the student experience. She discusses how tools like Chat GPT can assist with your research, the GW policy on AI, and how to create citations for these resources. The video is 6.5 minutes in length.
UN Sustainable Development Goals: Finding Publications by Stacy Brody - Stacy addresses why the goals were developed, what they hope to achieve, and shows ways to find related publications in Scopus. The video is 5 minutes long.
Updating Your Biosketch via SciEncv by Tom Harrod - Tom talks about the differences between NIH’s SciEncv and Biosketch and demonstrates how to use SciEncv to populate a Biosketch profile. Tom advises GW SMHS, School of Nursing, and GWSPH researchers on creating and maintaining research profiles and he and Sara provide research profile audit services. The video is 5 minutes long.
Open access (OA) journals make content available to anyone free of charge. While traditional publishing models require readers or institutions to purchase subscriptions to gain access to published content, users attempting to access this content without a subscription will find the content hidden behind a paywall. OA articles, on the other hand, can be accessed and read by anyone without payment or a subscription.
The two most common OA publishing models are Gold OA and Hybrid OA. Gold OA journals make all published articles available to readers free of charge. Hybrid OA journals publish OA articles that are free to all readers, as well as traditional articles that can only be accessed and read by subscribers who pay for that content. Hybrid OA journals let authors choose whether or not to make their research available as open access or to restrict access via the traditional paywall model.
Article Processing Charges (APCs)
While publishing your research as OA makes your work more widely accessible, it does come at a cost to the author. OA journals transfer the cost of publication from the reader to the author by charging authors Article Processing Charges, also known as APCs. The cost of APCs varies by journal, but the cost range from $2,000 to $5,000 for health sciences journals.
If you’d like to publish your research as OA, it’s important to consider how you will pay for APCs early in your research process. We recommend that you request funding for APCs in grant and funding proposals. Building these costs into your funding proposals will ensure that you have the necessary funds needed to cover APCs when you’re ready to publish. NIH grants and NSF grants allow for publication costs to be included in grant applications - so be sure to secure funding from the start of the research process!
GW currently has active “transformative agreements” with two publishers: Cambridge University Press, and The Company of Biologists. These agreements allow GW authors to publish their research as open access at no cost to authors - APCs are waived! The Cambridge University Press agreement covers nearly 50 medicine and health sciences journals. The Company of Biologist agreement waives APCs for GW authors in the following three hybrid journals:
It’s important to note that these agreements do not guarantee acceptance for publication in these journals. Manuscripts must meet the journal’s acceptance criteria. Authors must also use GW as their primary affiliation upon manuscript submission. Authors who claim another organization (such as the MFA, GW Hospital, CNHS, or the VA) are not covered under these agreements. For more information about GW’s Read and Publish agreements with Cambridge University Press and The Company of Biologist, contact Ruth Bueter at rbueter@gwu.edu.
Hindawi, an Open Access journal publisher once identified by Jeffrey Beall as a potentially predatory publisher and later labeled as a “borderline case” by Beall, has made great efforts to transform its reputation into that of a reputable, scholarly publisher. The publisher was purchased by Wiley in January 2021, and many hoped that the purchase would add a layer of trustworthiness and legitimacy to the once-questionable publisher’s practices. Recent developments have proved that the path toward implementing scholarly publishing best practices is a long, uphill struggle for Hindawi and Wiley.
In late March 2023, Clarivate removed 19 Hindawi journals from Web of Science when they released the monthly update of their Master Journal List. These 19 journals published 50% of articles published in Hindawi journals in 2022 (Petrou, 2023). The removal of these journals from Web of Science comes after Wiley disclosed they were suspending the publication of special issues due to “compromised articles” (Kincaid, 2023).
Web of Science dropped 50 journals from its index in March for failure to meet 24 of the quality criteria required to be included in Web of Science. Common quality violations included: adequate peer review, appropriate citations, and content that was irrelevant to the scope of the journal. The 19 Hindawi journals removed from Web of Science accounted for 38% of the total 50 journals removed from the index! Health sciences titles published by Hindawi that were removed from Web of Science include:
Biomed Research International
Disease Markers
Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Journal of Environmental and Public Health
Journal of Healthcare Engineering
Journal of Oncology
Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity
The potential impact of this decision could be significant for authors. When a journal is no longer included in Web of Science, Clarivate no longer indexes the papers published in the journal, no longer counts citations from papers published in the journal, and no longer calculates an impact factor for the journal (Kincaid, 2023). Authors who publish in these journals will be negatively impacted as many universities factor in these types of metrics into promotion and tenure decisions (Kincaid, 2023).
This is just one of the more recent examples of the struggles Hindawi and Wiley have grappled with since Wiley purchased Hindawi in 2021. Last year, Wiley announced the retraction of more than 500 Hindawi papers that had been linked to peer review rings. Hindawi has also been involved in paper mill activity, publishing articles coming out of paper mills in at least nine of the journals that were delisted. Paper mills are “unethical outsourcing agencies proficient in fabricating fraudulent manuscripts submitted to scholarly journals” (Pérez-Neri et al., 2022).
In the early days of paper mills, plagiarism was the biggest concern. However, paper mills have become more sophisticated and are now capable of fabricating data, and images, and producing fake study results (Pérez-Neri et al., 2022). Pérez-Neri et al. reviewed 325 retracted articles with suspected paper mill involvement from 31 journals and found that these retracted articles produced 3,708 citations (Pérez-Neri et al., 2022). The study also found a marked increase in retracted paper mill articles with the number of paper mill articles increasing from nine articles in 2016, to 44 articles in 2017, 88 articles in 2018, and 109 articles in 2019 (Pérez-Neri et al., 2022). Nearly half of the analyzed retracted papers (45%) were from the health sciences fields (Pérez-Neri et al., 2022). In a pre-print analysis of Hindawi’s paper mill activity, Dorothy Bishop found that paper mills target journals “precisely because they are included in WoS [Web of Science], which gives them kudos and means that any citations count towards indicators such as H-index, which is used by many institutions in hiring and promotion” (Bishop, 2023).
Another model that has become popular among questionable journals is the “guest editor” model, in which a journal invites a scholar or group of scholars to serve as guest editors for a specific issue of papers on the same topic or theme. MDPI is another publisher once identified by Jeffrey Beall as potentially predatory and has made efforts to turn around its reputation and become known as a reputable scholarly publisher. MDPI has used the guest editor model to help grow its business. In a recent post in The Scholarly Kitchen, Christos Petrou wrote that “the Guest Editor model fueled MDPI’s rise, yet it pushed Hindawi off a cliff” (Petrou, 2023). According to Petrou, the guest editor model accounts for at least 60% of MDPI’s papers. Hindawi has also embraced this model in recent years increasing the number of papers published under the guest editor model from 17% of papers in 2019 to 53% of papers published in 2022 (Petrou, 2023). Hindawi’s use of the guest editor model contributed to its exploitation by paper mills, which lead to more than 500 retractions between November 2022 and March 2023 (Petrou, 2023).
MDPI was not left unscathed by Clarivate’s decision to delist 50 journals from Web of Science. MDPI’s largest journal, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH), which had an Impact Factor above 4.0, was among the titles delisted in March. IJERPH was delisted for publishing content that was not relevant to the journal’s scope. Petrou argued that while this is likely a problem for hundreds of other journals, Web of Science “sent a message by going after the largest journal of MDPI” (Petrou, 2023).
The guest editor model is no longer used exclusively by questionable publishers and has slowly been embraced by traditional scholarly publishers. Petrou encourages publishers interested in the guest editor model to implement transparent safeguards into this model to uphold editorial integrity. While the scholarly publishing landscape continues to evolve and formerly questionable publishers attempt to gain legitimacy and stabilize their reputations, we must remain vigilant in evaluating the journals in which we choose to publish. Likewise, scholarly publishers must address the research integrity of the articles they publish by ensuring safeguards are in place to prevent the proliferation of paper mill-produced papers from making it through the peer review and screening process and ending up as published papers in trusted journals, only to be retracted once they have been exposed as fraudulent.
References:
Bishop, D. V. M. (2023, February 6). Red flags for paper mills need to go beyond the level of individual articles: a case study of Hindawi special issues. PsyArXiv Preprints. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/6mbgv
Pérez-Neri, I., Pineda, C., & Sandoval, H. (2022). Threats to scholarly research integrity arising from paper mills: A rapid scoping review. Clinical Rheumatology, 41(7), 2241-2248. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10067-022-06198-9
The Recommendation on Open Science includes a definition of open science:
Open science is … an inclusive construct that combines various movements and practices aiming to make multilingual scientific knowledge openly available, accessible and reusable for everyone, to increase scientific collaborations and sharing of information for the benefits of science and society, and to open the processes of scientific knowledge creation, evaluation and communication to societal actors beyond the traditional scientific community. It comprises all scientific disciplines and aspects of scholarly practices, including basic and applied sciences, natural and social sciences and the humanities, and it builds on the following key pillars: open scientific knowledge, open science infrastructures, science communication, open engagement of societal actors and open dialogue with other knowledge systems.
Platforms that support the sharing and dissemination of research findings and their underlying data are becoming available. The Open Science Framework (OSF) is a “free, open platform to support your research and enable collaboration”. It provides tools to design a study, collect and analyze data, and publish and share results. OSF was designed and is maintained by the non-profit Center for Open Science.
A helpful feature of OSF is the ability to generate a unique, persistent URL (uniform resource locator) for a project for sharing and attribution. There is also built-in version control and collaborators can be assigned a hierarchical level of permissions for data and document management. Researchers can decide to make all or parts of a project public and searchable and add licensing. Public projects can be searched on the OSF site. Registering a project creates a timestamped version for preservation. Pre-prints can also be hosted and made available for searching.
OSF has integrations with a number of useful tools including storage add-ons like Amazon S3, Google Drive, DropBox and figshare. Zotero and Mendeley can be integrated for citation management and GitHub can be used for managing software and code.
Institutions can set up a custom landing page for OSF and build user communities to promote sharing and collaboration within the institution and beyond. Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and NYU are among the many research universities that are using OSF in this way.
Last month Nature and Code Ocean announced a partnership to launch and curate Open Science Library. The Open Science Library contains research software used in Nature journal articles. “Compute capsules” which include the code, data, and computing environment will allow researchers to reproduce results, re-use the code, and collaborate. As open science becomes the norm, more multifunction platforms that enhance sharing and reproducibility while preserving work and ensuring attribution will continue to emerge.
Foster, E. D., & Deardorff, A. (2017). Open Science Framework (OSF). Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA, 105(2), 203–206. https://doi.org/10.5195/jmla.2017.88
OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research and development company, released the latest version of their generative text chatbot program, ChatGPT, near the end of 2022. The program provides responses based on prompts from users. Since its release universities, research institutions, publishers and other educators worry that ChatGPT and similar products will radically change the current education system. Some institutions have taken action to limit or ban the use of AI generated text. Others argue that ChatGPT and similar products may be the perfect opportunity to reimagine education and scholarly publishing. There is a lot to learn about AI and its impact on research and publishing. This article aims to serve as an introduction to this rapidly evolving technology.
In a Nature article, Chris Stokel-Walker described ChatGPT as “a large language model (LLM), which generates convincing sentences by mimicking the statistical patterns of language in a huge database of text collated from the Internet.” (Stokel-Walker, 2023, para. 3) OpenAI’s website says “The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.” (OpenAI, n.d., para. 1) ChatGPT may be used to answer simple and complex questions and may provide long-form responses based on the prompt. In recent months, students and researchers have used the chatbot to perform simple research tasks or develop and draft manuscripts. By automating certain tasks, ChatGPT and other AI technologies may provide people with the opportunity to focus on other aspects of the research or learning process.
There are benefits and limitations to AI technology and many people agree that guidelines must be in place before ChatGPT and similar models are fully integrated into the classroom or laboratory.
Van Dis et al. notes that “Conversational AI is likely to revolutionize research practices and publishing, creating both opportunities and concerns. It might accelerate the innovation process, shorten time-to-publication, and by helping people to write fluently, make science more equitable and increase the diversity of scientific perspectives.” (van Dis et. al., 2023, para. 4) Researchers who have limited or no English language proficiency would benefit from using ChatGPT to develop their manuscript for publication. The current version of ChatGPT is free to use making it accessible to anyone with internet access and a computer. This may make scholarly publishing more equitable, though there is a version of the program that is only available with a monthly subscription fee. If future AI technologies require fees, this will create additional access and equity issues.
While ChatGPT can produce long-form, seemingly thoughtful responses there are concerns about its ability to accurately cite information. OpenAI states that “ChatGPT sometimes writes plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers.” (OpenAI, n.d., para. 7) There is a potential for AI generated text to spread misleading information. Scholars who have tested ChatGPT also note that the AI will create references that do not exist. Researchers must fact-check the sources pulled by the AI to ensure that their work adheres to current integrity standards. There are also concerns about ChatGPT’s relationship to properly citing original sources. “And because this technology typically reproduces text without reliably citing the original sources or authors, researchers using it are at risk of not giving credit to earlier work, unwittingly plagiarizing a multitude of unknown texts and perhaps even giving away their own ideas.” (van Dis et al, 2023, para. 10)
Students and researchers interested in using AI generated text should be aware of current policies and restrictions. Many academic journals, universities and colleges have updated their policies to either limit the use or institute a complete ban of AI in research. Other institutions are actively discussing their plans for this new technology and may implement new policies in the future. At the time of writing, GWU has not shared policies to address AI usage in the classroom. If you’re interested in using AI generated text in your research papers or projects, be sure to closely read submission guidelines or university policies.
ChatGPT and other AI text generators are having profound impacts and as the technology continues to improve, it will become increasingly difficult distinguishing work written without the aid of an AI and work co-authored with an AI. The long term impacts of AI in the classroom have yet to be fully understood. Many institutions are moving to address this new technology. As we continue to learn about ChatGPT’s benefits and limitations, it is important to remain aware of your institution’s policies on using AI in research. To learn more about ChatGPT, please read any of the sources listed below! Himmelfarb Library will continue to discuss AI technology and its impact on research as more information is made available.
Stokel-Walker, C. (2023). ChatGPT listed as author on research papers: many scientists disapprove. Nature (London), 613(7945), 620–621. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00107-z
Stokel-Walker, C. & Van Noorden, R. (2023). What ChatGPT and generative AI means for science. Nature (London), 614(7947), 214-216. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00340-6
Thorp, H.H. (2023). ChatGPT is fun, but not an author. Science(American Association for the Advancement of Science), 379(6630), 313. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adg7879
van Dis, E. A. M., Bollen, J., Zuidema, W., van Rooij, R., & Bockting, C. L. (2023). ChatGPT: five priorities for research. Nature, 614(7947), 224–226. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00288-7
Stokel-Walker, C. (2023). ChatGPT listed as author on research papers: many scientists disapprove. Nature (London), 613(7945), 620–621. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00107-z
van Dis, E. A. M., Bollen, J., Zuidema, W., van Rooij, R., & Bockting, C. L. (2023). ChatGPT: five priorities for research. Nature, 614(7947), 224–226. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00288-7
GW Medical Student Research Day is scheduled for Wednesday, April 26, 2023 as a live in-person event at the University Student Center. There will be a plenary speaker and students will have an opportunity to share their research projects with a poster and oral presentation. Videos of past poster presentations are available on our Research Guide and YouTube channel.
Poster abstracts for Medical Student Research Day 2023 will be due on March 1st, a week from today! If you’re just starting to put an abstract together, or putting on the finishing touches, Himmelfarb Library has resources to help.
You can find much of what you need on our Research Day Resources: Writing Abstracts page. The guide outlines the basic components of a scientific abstract and provides both recommendations and examples for producing a quality abstract.
If your poster abstract is accepted, congratulations! Come back to our GW Research Day Resources Research Guide for valuable information and tips for designing a winning poster and presenting it effectively.
