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Press ReleaseHow to read a news release:  Tips from the editors of JAMA

Two recent opinion pieces in JAMA address the issue of evaluating and communicating scientific information in the constantly changing era of Covid-19.  Journal editors need to maintain standards of scientific integrity as they rapidly process high numbers of time-critical articles.  Readers are faced with a deluge of additional information in the form of news releases, pre-prints, and blog posts – most disseminated with little review.

How should a reader approach news releases?  Unlike peer reviewed articles, news releases are short and designed to grab attention.  They often lack the details to conduct a traditional critical appraisal.  Readers therefore might want to ask the following questions to make a quick assessment of the information reported in a news release:

  • Does the news release report on a single study? 
  • Are main outcomes, absolute risks and patient population reported?
  • How does the information reported relate to other studies?
  • What is the context of the news release? (i.e. from a federal agency or a pharmaceutical company, designed to influence public opinion or report to stockholders)
  • Are the opinions of any independent experts included?
  • Have study results been reported elsewhere? (i.e. preprint, journals)

To learn more about critically reading a news release, check out the 10 review criteria for news stories listed at HealthNewsReview.org.

 

Saitz R, Schwitzer G. Communicating Science in the Time of a Pandemic. JAMA. Published online July 13, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.12535

Bauchner H, Fontanarosa PB, Golub RM. Editorial Evaluation and Peer Review During a Pandemic: How Journals Maintain Standards. JAMA. Published online June 26, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.11764

HealthNewsReview.org (n.d.) Our Review Criteria. https://www.healthnewsreview.org/about-us/review-criteria

Image: Youngson, N. (no date). Press Release.  Retrieved from: https://www.thebluediamondgallery.com/typewriter/p/press-release.html

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Do you want to utilize a diagram from a published article in your own publication, but are unsure whether you should do so? Do you have questions about fair use? Himmelfarb Library has developed a short webinar that explores many of the most common questions authors have while writing an article for publication. 

 

 

In the Copyright for Authors webinar, Anne Linton, Himmelfarb Library Director, and Sara Hoover, Metadata and Scholarly Publishing Librarian discuss tools that can help you determine whether something can be utilized under the fair use doctrine and how to approach items with various creative commons licenses. How to clear rights and respond to publisher questions related to rights are also covered.

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Health Sciences Research CommonsWhile Covid-19 has upended many industries around the globe, faculty, staff, and students at The George Washington University have persisted in doing what they do best--researching, learning about, and compiling publications about some of the most pressing healthcare issues of our time. Since the start of the pandemic, researchers and students associated with the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, the Milken Institute School of Public Health, and the School of Nursing have published over fifty peer-reviewed articles related to Covid-19. The Himmelfarb Library has compiled a collection of these publications within our institutional repository, Health Sciences Research Commons. The Covid-19 Publications by GWU Authors collection highlights research by students, faculty, and staff and will be updated on a regular basis. Have a publication that needs to be added? Simply email hsrc@gwu.edu with a link to your publication and we will be happy to include your research. 

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The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has presented numerous, extraordinary challenges which have greatly altered our everyday lives.  This public health crisis has led to a demand for information as there is a universal desire for solutions to the problems of protecting ourselves from the virus and curing those who have been infected.  As research efforts have accelerated to meet these demands there has been a growing tension as the desire for quick, potentially lifesaving information has led to the spread of inaccurate or misunderstood reports which have been seized upon by large portions of the lay public.  This tension within the scientific world between speed and certainty is not new, but the current pandemic has made it more obvious to all.

The world of scientific publishing is notoriously slow and deliberate, as processes like peer-review have long provided a check on the flow of scientific information to ensure quality before the results of research are disseminated to the wider scientific community and ultimately to the public.  However during this ongoing crisis, there has been a rise in the publication of pre-prints (i.e., manuscripts which have not undergone formal peer review) as researchers try to get their potentially life-saving information into the hands of clinicians and policy makers as soon as possible.  Pre-print services, such as ArXiv in the physics community, have existed for a long time, but they are now receiving more attention than ever.

Rapid Reviews COVID-19In an effort to add a gate-keeper function to the growing world of COVID-19 related pre-prints, MIT Press and the University of California have developed Rapid Reviews: COVID-19, a so-called “overlay journal”, whose function is to sift through the most popular COVID-19 related pre-prints and provide a form of peer-review.   This differs from the traditional publishing model as the pre-prints will be selected by editors of the journal as opposed to being directly submitted by the authors themselves.  In fact, though authors will be informed that their work has been selected for review by the journal, they will not have a say in whether their pre-print is reviewed or not.  Additionally this journal will differ from others in that the identities of the reviewers will be made known, which will hopefully encourage thoughtful and careful reviews.

It is hoped that this effort will provide some of the benefits of the traditional peer-review process without significantly slowing the dissemination of important, life-saving information during this time of crisis.  It will be interesting to see if efforts like this can lead to more long-lasting changes in the world of scholarly communication when our current time of crisis has passed.

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As COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the rise in many US states, here are some trusted sources for tracking the situation in the DMV.

Departments of Public Health:

DC Coronavirus Data - Includes daily numbers tested, positives, and lives lost. Scroll down for the DC Re-Opening Tracker and data by ward, neighborhood, and demographic break outs. Tables include data for cases, quarantine and deaths of public safety personnel. Check the Press Releases area on the home page for a detailed daily summary of Coronavirus Data including trends graphs for transmission and positivity rates, and contact tracing data. Total Positives Map by Ward image for Washington DC

DC Hospital Status Data - Includes daily ICU, ventilator, and bed capacity, COVID hospitalization counts and total patient counts.

Maryland Coronavirus Disease 2019 Outbreak and Data Dashboard - Cases and testing by county, ICU and Acute bed capacities, percentage positive rates and testing volume 7 day averages since March 2020. Cases and deaths by age, gender, race and ethnicity.

Maryland COVID-19 in Congregate Facility Settings (Nursing Homes) - Staff and resident cases and deaths reported by county and facilities.

Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 Dashboard - Includes total counts and graphic representations of cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Demographics tab provides breakouts by age, sex, race and ethnicity. Interactive localities tab provides options for counts or rates, and bar chart generation by health district and locality. Outbreaks tab shows outbreak data by setting/facility type, including long term care and correctional facilities. MIS-C tab tracks cases of Multisymptom Inflammatory Syndrome in Children by health district.

Virginia Department of Health Data Insights - Includes case and testing data by zip code, COVID-like illness visits to EDs by health regions, and modeling data from the UVA COVID-19 Model.  

Other Sources:

COVID-19 Watcher (Cincinnati Children's & University of Cincinnati) - Tool merges county-level COVID-19 data from The New York Times with sources from the U.S. Census Bureau, mapping the data by metropolitan area.

COVID Community Vulnerability Map -  Drill down into communities by zipcode or manipulate the map to view populations most vulnerable for severe outcomes if infected with a COVID-like virus and the socioeconomic factors driving that risk.

Virginia Hospital COVID-19 Dashboard - Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association provides counts of confirmed cases and pui currently hospitalized, ICU beds and ventilators in use, and hospitals with supply shortages.

State Health Workforce Estimator - From the Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity at GW, it provides state-level data for considering different strategic approaches to ensure sufficient heath workforce for COVID-19. A Contact Tracing Workforce Estimator is also available.

Washington Post Known Coronavirus Deaths and Cases in DC, Maryland and Virginia - Deaths, cases, daily and cumulative counts for each state, daily deaths per 100,000 residents, deaths by county and city, and hospitalizations by state.

Additional monitoring sites, data dashboards and calculators are available on the COVID-19 Research Guide Epidemiology page. The Health Care Resources page includes capacity calculators and models for hospital utilization. Check the Literature, Database, and Data Resources page for open data sets.

New to Himmelfarb: Reserve Any Study Room!

image of room capacity signFor your convenience and safety, Himmelfarb Library has transitioned away from first-come, first-served study room use. All study rooms are now available via advance online reservation! Because of reduced seating capacity in all our study rooms, you can guarantee that you will have a place to study before venturing over to Himmelfarb by reserving a study room.

To comply with social distancing requirements, most study rooms only accommodate one user. Several rooms can accommodate 2 people, and one allows for 4 occupants at a time.

Signs near the room entrances remind you of the occupancy limits, and floor decals in the study rooms will indicate where you should sit.

Currently, seating at study tables, computer labs, and individual carrels remain available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Please stop by the Circulation Desk, or call (202) 994-2962, if you have any questions or issues.

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As Himmelfarb Library begins the transition into Our New Normal, you may have questions about where to access certain services and resources we provide. Here’s a guide on what you’ll find available online and in-person.

Online

All of our e-journals, e-databases, and e-books remain available online. We also provide our Documents2Go service entirely online, where you can request articles unavailable in our collection.

We offer instructions on downloading and installing our mobile apps to your device.

There is a host of information available on our Research Guides, everything from question banks to anatomy images, and much more!

Himmelfarb’s Reference team is also available online. Our chat service is monitored by reference staff 8:30AM-8PM EST Monday through Thursday and 8:30AM-5PM EST Friday. Have a question a little too involved for chat? We can also schedule individual meetings with a reference librarian via WebEx. Email us at himmelfarb@gwu.edu to start the process!

In-Person

In addition to our print collection available in our book stacks, you can also find our multimedia collection, audiovisual collection, and software resources on the third floor, in the Bloedorn Technology Center.

Our special collections, the Humanities & Health collection, Historical collection, and Healthy Living collection, are all accessible in-person.

Some of our older journals are kept in on-site storage as bound volumes. You can request a specific volume for perusal by following the instructions on our Borrowing and Requesting page.

Anatomy models are available in various places throughout the library. Our skeletal models and bone boxes are up on the third floor. Heart and brain models can be checked out at the Circulation desk.

If you have any questions about access as we move forward with Our New Normal, reach out to us at himmelfarb@gwu.edu or call the Circulation Desk at 202-994-2962.

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Do you struggle with keeping your citations organized for papers or articles that you are writing? One of the most challenging aspects of the publication process can be documenting and organizing references and citations. Himmelfarb Library has a short webinar that can help you choose the right citation management tool.

In this Citation Organization for Beginners webinar, Reference and Instruction Librarian Paul Levett, explores how bibliographic management tools can simplify the process of documenting and organizing references and citations. These tools also ensure that you adhere to formatting styles such as APA or AMA. Paul examines bibliographic management tools such as RefWorks, EndNote and more to show you how to use these resources quickly and effectively. This webinar compares the features of bibliographic management tools, and provides considerations to think about when deciding which tool is best suited to your needs.

Check out all eight sessions of Himmelfarb’s Get Yourself Published, Promote Your Research series to learn more about a range of scholarly communication topics!

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