[open-science] Fame, glory and neglect in meta-analyses

Tue Aug 16 09:07:20 UTC 2011

Hi Ross!

> Is this within the remit / related to Open Science? I hope so...

As Peter says, it definitely ties into open data. People are more
likely to publish their data if they know they'll receive credit upon
reuse, which under the current reward system usually means a citation.

> Is there anything that can be done from the publisher side of things?

BioMedCentral are putting together a set of guidelines for additional
supplementary files which we can feed this into. This is following on
from an Open Data workshop with representatives from many other
publishers (BMJ, NPG, PLoS and more) so hopefully will be taken notice
of! http://blogs.openaccesscentral.com/blogs/bmcblog/entry/report_from_the_publishing_open

>From Iain's email to the list
http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-science/2011-August/000933.html
2. The creation of some basic guidelines on preparing/publishing
additional (supplementary) files. Comprehensive information on "what do
we mean by data?" wasn't deemed necessary (or possible) but some basic
principles might be useful e.g. supplementary tables should not be
provided as PDF files.

> It seems like this paper is perhaps unfairly putting the burden of
> responsibility on the authors of meta-analyses, rather than on
> publishers who I imagine could easily (surely?) let ISI count ESM/SI
> citations. Why does this issue even exist in 2011 (the Digitial
> Age)!?!?

One would think so - are there any publishers on the list who wouldn't
mind giving their perspective or explaining the challenges?

Jenny