The wheat from the chaff - Are we publishing too much? - Spoiler Alert! We Are

There is an overlap between academics who make their research outputs open and those who share it with others. By doing one, it does not exclusively have to happen alongside the other, but it should. Making research outputs and supporting artefacts open has many benefits as well as ticking certain funder, REF and journal policies. More notably it can be useful to interested individuals and groups across the world who may not have had access to such research previously. This may come from For that to happen it requires a few assumptions, that people know where to find these outputs, how to effectively search for them and for them to have been indexed and archived properly. All of that said, it does not hurt to give these outputs a nudge so that they reach the right people. It is increasingly problematic trying to get evidence to those who may make best use of it and that includes local and national government as well as charities and other non-governmental organisations. For those academics actively communicating their findings in an open way it is easier but it all takes time and effort as well as support. Most notably to build the right networks, have courage to share your work and explore different creative mediums in doing so. There is no doubt that the world is a noisy place but by avoiding activities that help get your research to those who might benefit from it you are potentially only doing half a job. It is not easy and does take time, but this talk will explore some of the things you can do to make it easier as part of your open research workflow.

Delivered as part of OpenFest24
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/openresearch/events/openfest-2024-call-proposals

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2. The problem of too many papers

Every publication takes time to publish and academics are often
overworked

¢ The cost - APCs range from 100s to five figures and publishers keep
pushing (special editions)

Peer review - Each paper usually needs two to three peer reviewers The
more we publish the more reviewers we need. Ethical issues around the
reward for peer review are not going to go away

Publish or Perish remains as a unconscious mantra for many academics
and their leaders

Lots of papers are duplicated, tell us nothing useful (and probably
never were going to) or are poor quality (Retraction Watch has 45k
entries)

3. Leading Academic Publisher Statistics
(2023) Closed Access [fj Open Access

800000

Elsevier Springer Science and Nature MDPI Wiley Taylor & Francis

https://wordsrated.com/academic-publishers-statistics/

4. % of papers soley read by

e Author and co-authors

« Journal Editor

Peer Reviewer #1

e Peer Reviewer #2

Copy Editor

Lead author’s spouse or partner

Are 90% of academic papers really never cited? Reviewing the literature on academic citations.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/04/23/academic-papers-citation-rates-remler/

5. Are we looking to solve the right problems?

Researcher
Funder

The public and
local government

Applied

Apply for funding to
solve priority health
inequalities

That's not our health
inequality priority
Pay again to publish the
paper

https://www.know-ph.ac.uk/ Image via Canva

6. 2 (

Ada oe You can publish Open acées§)\but\'big

Aia journals-still actas gatekeepers to
discoverability and impact

https://bit.ly/3AKDPJ8

7. A sample of 133 open-access publications in the NIHR
HTA journal
82 had elements (many like for like) published in such
as The Lancet and BMJ

“Can we conclude that the additional publication of
elements of these trials in subscription journals,
including possibly paying their open access charges,
enhanced their impact?

Well, not really.”

8. A few elephants in the room

Not all research needs to be published (it might just be a blog)
Publishing more to get your Age-mdex H Index higher is plain
wrong and not a sign of quality

Handing over 9k for to host a formatted PDF on the web is
immoral.

Most research is not going to make it into the REF (but a good research
publication track record will help with tenure, promotion, job
prospects, bids etc)

Money is getting tighter - budgets are stretched
+ When was the last time you read a paper

(out of interest and to not write another paper?)

9. The
Sorcerer's
Apprentice

https://reeserichardson.blog/2024/07/18/enginee
ring-the-worlds-highest-cited-cat-larry/

Engineering the world’s
highest cited cat, Larry

Published by Reese Richardson on July 18, 2024

Googl
cel | IE

WE HELP YOU TO BOOST
YOUR CITATIONS
TATIONS TELLS YOUR

Before we get to the adventures of Felis domesticus scholasticus promised
by the title, some important background.

A couple of weeks ago, Nick Wise showed me an advertisement from a
paper mill offering to boost the buyers citation count and h-index on their

Google Scholar profile.

10. Nature's OA fee seems outrageously
high - but many will pay it

Academics remain wedded to prestige indicators, but peer reviewers
may conclude that the journal is profiteering, says Dorothy Bishop

December 1, 2020

November, Twitter exploded with
outrage at the announcement that the

publisher Sprit ture plans to

introdut ccess (OA) option for
ts Natur
processing charge (APC) of a w
€9,500 (£8,290 or $11,390).

an ope
research journals, with an arti

hopping

as thinking maybe eleven thousand
dollar:

11. We are all entitled to have a laugh but does
it need to come through peer review?

1.A mountable toilet system for personalized health monitoring via the analysis
of excreta

2. A multidisciplinary approach to ritual enema scenes on ancient Maya pottery

3. Obesity of politicians and corruption in post-Soviet countries

4. National income inequality predicts cultural variation in mouth to mouth
kissing

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-020-0534-9
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0378874186900917
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecot.12259
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-43267-7

12. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Will Al help free up time to do the things academics often
want to do but can’t?

Or will it just mean more publications, more reviews, more
errors, more retractions, more APCs, more profit, more
predatory papers, and much less time to read the actual
papers and instead lead to more ‘eventually Tom's
perusing’ not just on ResearchGate and Google Scholar?

13. Articles

Any time
Since 2024
Since 2023
‘Since 2020
(Custom range

Sort by relevance
Sort by date

Any type
Review arices

include patents
Y include cations

© Create alert

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