A central online news resource for professionals involved in the development of medical publications and involved in publication planning and medical writing.
An editorial in the BMJ this week discusses some of the harms associated with selective clinical trial reporting… specifically relating to trials of cardiovascular devices. To support the points made … Continue Reading BMJ Editorial: “Selective clinical trial reporting: betraying trial participants, harming patients”
A study at the University of Montreal shows that the market share of the five largest research publishing houses reached 50% in 2006, rising, thanks to mergers and acquisitions, from … Continue Reading Five companies control more than half of academic publishing
John Hopkins University are running a free online course (via Coursera) on systematic reviews and meta-analyses. The free course will introduce methods to perform systematic reviews and meta-analysis of clinical … Continue Reading Free online course: “Introduction to Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis”
The 4th World Conference on Research Integrity recently took place in Rio de Janeiro (from 31 May-3 June). The main theme for the conference was “How to improve the research … Continue Reading Presentations now available from the 4th World Conference on Research Integrity
A recent commentary in JAMA Dermatology highlights the problems associated with unpublished trials. It looks at the case of imiquimod, widely considered beneficial for treating children with molluscum contagiosum (a … Continue Reading Imiquimod story highlights the issues associated with unpublished trials
An article in the Guardian newspaper last week starts: “Scientists are meant to be scrupulously honest and objective. Acting unethically or misrepresenting information could spell the end of a career. … Continue Reading “We need to transform the academic system so that integrity and honesty are the norm in terms of authorship as well as data and results”
A series of articles in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) recently questioned whether the conflict of interest movement has gone too far in its campaign to stop the … Continue Reading Justifying conflicts of interest in medical journals: a very bad idea
Some of the educational presentations are now available to download from the recent “An Update: Publications in Practice” meeting. These presentations cover subjects such as the impact of the Sunshine … Continue Reading Presentations available from the meeting: “An Update: Publications in Practice”
A study published in PLOS ONE last week attempted to characterise the reasons why trials (listed on www.clinicaltrials.gov) were terminated, and also examined the availability of results from these trials. … Continue Reading Terminated trials in the ClinicalTrials.gov results database: reasons for termination and availability of results
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the formation of the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP). To mark this occasion, ISMPP have developed a presentation that provides an … Continue Reading The International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP): a decade of achievements
Following a recent series of articles and an accompanying editorial in the NEJM on conflict of interest, the journal is now running a reader poll on this issue. The poll … Continue Reading Poll from the New England Journal of Medicine on conflicts of interest
A blog by Altmetric published yesterday, attempts to answer questions from researchers about Altmetrics, why the scores are useful, how the score is calculated and weighted, and also what is … Continue Reading Numbers behind numbers: The Altmetric Score and sources explained
A blog by Elsevier published in the past week authored by Dr. Filipe Branco dos Santos, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, argues that we could … Continue Reading It’s time for academic writing to evolve – “Science is exciting, so why do we write about it in such a dull way?”
An article in PeerJ this week provides an overview and analysis of the currently available Mega Journals – including PLOS ONE, BMJ Open, PeerJ and others. The article summarises the … Continue Reading Overview of currently available mega-journals: have they reached their limits to growth?