Impact of Performing Medical Writing/Publishing Workshops: A Systematic Survey and Meta-Analysis.

Objectives: Proficiency in medical writing and publishing is essential for medical researchers. Workshops can play a valuable role in addressing these issues. However, there is a lack of systematic summaries of evidence on the evaluation of their impacts. So, in this systematic review, we aimed to evaluate all articles published on the impact of such workshops worldwide. Methods: We searched Ovid EMBASE, Ovid Medline, ISI Web of Science, ERIC database, and grey literature with no language, time period, or geographical location limitations. Randomized controlled trials, cohort studies, before-after studies, surveys, and program evaluation and development studies were included. We performed a meta-analysis on data related to knowledge increase after the workshops and descriptively reported the evaluation of other articles that did not have sufficient data for a meta-analysis. All analyses were performed using Stata software, version 15.0. Results: Of 23 040 reports, 222 articles underwent full-text review, leading to 45 articles reporting the impacts of workshops. Overall, the reports on the impact of such workshops were incomplete or lacked the necessary precision to draw acceptable conclusions. The workshops were sporadic, and researchers used their own method of assessment. Meta-analyses of the impact on the knowledge showed that workshops could nonsignificantly increase the mean or percentage of participants' knowledge. Conclusion: In the absence of systematic academic courses on medical writing/publishing, workshops are conducted worldwide; however, reports on educational activities during such workshops, the methods of presentations, and their curricula are incomplete and vary. Their impact is not evaluated using standardized methods, and no valid and reliable measurement tools have been employed for these assessments.

Investigating Country-Specific Perceptions of Predatory Journals and Their Impact on Scholarly Integrity: A Systematic Review.

This systematic review aims to identify the countries most active in combatting predatory journals and their definitions of such practices. It also seeks to assess awareness within academic communities, examine the impact of predatory journals on research quality and integrity, and compile existing policies to mitigate their negative effects and strengthen global scholarly integrity. A systematic search was performed in the PubMed, Scopus, and Embase databases on February 7, 2024, in line with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The focus was solely on identifying studies that examined the unique experiences and interventions associated with predatory journals in distinct national contexts. The analysis included a presentation of quantitative results and a thematic examination of qualitative data. A total of 40 articles covering 19 countries were included. Twenty-four countries (60%) were in Asia, 11 (27.5%) in Africa, two (5%) in Europe, and one (2.5%) each in Australia, North America, and South America. Although not all articles cited Beall's list to identify predatory journals, the thematic analysis showed consistent topics across various definitions and Beall's themes. Our analysis identified factors affecting academic publishing perceptions globally, highlighting publication pressure, predatory practices, and policy impacts on ethics and standards. This systematic review examined the literature on predatory publishing and identified the leading countries in the fight against these predatory publications. This analysis underscores a complex interplay of factors affecting academic publishing globally, from the push towards predatory journals as a response to publishing pressures, to the critical role of government and institutional frameworks.

Submitting artificial intelligence in health professions education papers to medical teacher.

As any field evolves, so do journals' expectations from authors. As Artificial Intelligence (AI) usage in Higher Professions Education (HPE) has evolved, Medical Teacher's expectations have changed, and previously-accepted paper types are now routinely rejected. This commentary gives some guidance for authors currently submitting AI in HPE papers to Medical Teacher.

Neuroimaging article reexecution and reproduction assessment system.

The value of research articles is increasingly contingent on complex data analysis results which substantiate their claims. Compared to data production, data analysis more readily lends itself to a higher standard of transparency and repeated operator-independent execution. This higher standard can be approached via fully reexecutable research outputs, which contain the entire instruction set for automatic end-to-end generation of an entire article from the earliest feasible provenance point. In this study, we make use of a peer-reviewed neuroimaging article which provides complete but fragile reexecution instructions, as a starting point to draft a new reexecution system which is both robust and portable. We render this system modular as a core design aspect, so that reexecutable article code, data, and environment specifications could potentially be substituted or adapted. In conjunction with this system, which forms the demonstrative product of this study, we detail the core challenges with full article reexecution and specify a number of best practices which permitted us to mitigate them. We further show how the capabilities of our system can subsequently be used to provide reproducibility assessments, both via simple statistical metrics and by visually highlighting divergent elements for human inspection. We argue that fully reexecutable articles are thus a feasible best practice, which can greatly enhance the understanding of data analysis variability and the trust in results. Lastly, we comment at length on the outlook for reexecutable research outputs and encourage re-use and derivation of the system produced herein.

Integrity at stake: confronting "publish or perish" in the developing world and emerging economies.

The scientific community faces significant ethical challenges due to the "publish or perish" culture, particularly in developing and emerging economies. This paper explores the widespread unethical practices in scientific publishing, including the sale of authorships, the proliferation of "paper mills," and the misuse of artificial intelligence to produce fraudulent research. These practices undermine the integrity of scientific research, skew publication metrics, and distort academic rankings. This study examines various instances of academic fraud, emphasizing the impact on low-income countries, with specific cases from Latin America. Recommendations include stricter verification of authorship, disciplinary measures for scientific fraud, and policies promoting transparency and accountability in research. Addressing these challenges is crucial for maintaining the integrity and credibility of scientific endeavors globally.

Reproducibility in chemistry research.

Chemistry is a reproducible science whose pillars - synthesis and analysis - actually comprise a huge collection of highly reproducible experimental methods to synthesize and analyze substances. The historical development of chemistry, furthermore, shows that reproducibility of methods has been the companion of novelty and creative innovation. The "publish or perish" principle dominating global academia since over two decades, however, intrinsically contributes to the publication of non-reproducible research outcomes also in chemistry. A study on reproducibility of chemistry research seems therefore timely, especially now that chemists are slowly but inevitably adopting open science and its tools such as the preprint, open access, and data sharing. We conclude presenting three simple guidelines for enhanced publication of research findings in chemistry.

How and why eLife selects papers for peer review.

When deciding which submissions should be peer reviewed, eLife editors consider whether they will be able to find high-quality reviewers, and whether the reviews will be valuable to the scientific community.

The OHStat Guidelines for Reporting Observational Studies and Clinical Trials in Oral Health Research: Manuscript Checklist.

Adequate and transparent reporting is necessary for critically appraising published research. Yet, ample evidence suggests that the design, conduct, analysis, interpretation, and reporting of oral health research could be greatly improved. Accordingly, the Task Force on Design and Analysis in Oral Health Research-statisticians and trialists from academia and industry-identified the minimum information needed to report and evaluate observational studies and clinical trials in oral health: the OHStat Guidelines. Drafts were circulated to the editors of 85 oral health journals and to Task Force members and sponsors and discussed at a December 2020 workshop attended by 49 researchers. The guidelines were subsequently revised by the Task Force's writing group. The guidelines draw heavily from the Consolidated Standards for Reporting Trials (CONSORT), Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE), and CONSORT harms guidelines and incorporate the SAMPL guidelines for reporting statistics, the CLIP principles for documenting images, and the GRADE indicating the quality of evidence. The guidelines also recommend reporting estimates in clinically meaningful units using confidence intervals, rather than relying on P values. In addition, OHStat introduces 7 new guidelines that concern the text itself, such as checking the congruence between abstract and text, structuring the discussion, and listing conclusions to make them more specific. OHStat does not replace other reporting guidelines; it incorporates those most relevant to dental research into a single document. Manuscripts using the OHStat guidelines will provide more information specific to oral health research.

The OHStat Guidelines for Reporting Observational Studies and Clinical Trials in Oral Health Research: Explanation and Elaboration.

Adequate and transparent reporting is necessary for critically appraising research. Yet, evidence suggests that the design, conduct, analysis, interpretation, and reporting of oral health research could be greatly improved. Accordingly, the Task Force on Design and Analysis in Oral Health Research-statisticians and trialists from academia and industry-empaneled a group of authors to develop methodological and statistical reporting guidelines identifying the minimum information needed to document and evaluate observational studies and clinical trials in oral health: the OHstat Guidelines. Drafts were circulated to the editors of 85 oral health journals and to Task Force members and sponsors and discussed at a December 2020 workshop attended by 49 researchers. The final version was subsequently approved by the Task Force in September 2021, submitted for journal review in 2022, and revised in 2023. The checklist consists of 48 guidelines: 5 for introductory information, 17 for methods, 13 for statistical analysis, 6 for results, and 7 for interpretation; 7 are specific to clinical trials. Each of these guidelines identifies relevant information, explains its importance, and often describes best practices. The checklist was published in multiple journals. The article was published simultaneously in JDR Clinical and Translational Research, the Journal of the American Dental Association, and the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. Completed checklists should accompany manuscripts submitted for publication to these and other oral health journals to help authors, journal editors, and reviewers verify that the manuscript provides the information necessary to adequately document and evaluate the research.