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The last bite was deadly--about responsibility in scientific publishing
Dragan Pavlovic1, Taras I Usichenko2, Christian Lehmann3
1Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universität, Greifswald, Germany.
Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation
|March 6, 2014
Summary
The study investigating open access journals
Area of Science:
- Bibliometrics
- Scientific Publishing
- Scholarly Communication
Background:
- Concerns exist regarding the impact of open access journals on the reputation of scientific publications.
- A previous study by Bohannon aimed to assess the quality and acceptance rates of open access versus traditional journals.
Purpose of the Study:
- To critically re-evaluate Bohannon's study on open access journals.
- To demonstrate flaws in the methodology and conclusions of the original study.
- To provide a more accurate assessment of pseudoscience acceptance rates in different journal types.
Main Methods:
- Re-analysis of the data presented in Bohannon's study.
- Comparison of acceptance rates for a "bait" paper in open access and non-open access journals.
- Critique of the experimental design and ethical considerations of the original study.
Main Results:
- The original study's methodology was flawed, leading to inconclusive results.
- Re-analysis suggests non-open access journals, including Science, accepted the "bait" paper at a higher rate (100%) than open access journals (approx. 60%).
- The original study's conclusions regarding open access journals were not supported by the data.
Conclusions:
- Bohannon's study was poorly conducted and ethically questionable.
- The publication of the study in Science was unwarranted due to its inconclusive and flawed nature.
- The methods used in the study were inappropriate for assessing scientific publishing quality.
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