BAD Science or BAD Science Journalism? – A Response to Daniel Lakens

Two weeks ago  there was a hot debate among Dutch Tweeps on “bad science, bad science journalism and bad science communication“. This debate was started and fueled by different Dutch blog posts on this topic.[1,4-6]

A controversial post, with both fierce proponents and fierce opposition was the post by Daniel Lakens [1], an assistant professor in Applied Cognitive Psychology.

I was among the opponents. Not because I don’t like a new fresh point of view, but because of a wrong reasoning and because Daniel continuously compares apples and oranges.

Since Twitter debates can’t go in-depth and lack structure and since I cannot comment to his Google sites blog, I pursue my discussion here.

The title of Daniels post is (freely translated, like the rest of his post):

“Is this what one calls good science?” 

In his post he criticizes a Dutch science journalist, Hans van Maanen, and specifically his recent column [2], where Hans discusses a paper published in Pediatrics [3].

This longitudinal study tested the Music Marker theory among 309 Dutch kids. The researchers gathered information about the kids’ favorite types of music and tracked incidents of “minor delinquency”, such as shoplifting or vandalism, from the time they were 12 until they reached age 16 [4]. The researchers conclude that liking music that goes against the mainstream (rock, heavy metal, gothic, punk, African American music, and electronic dance music) at age 12 is a strong predictor of future minor delinquency at 16, in contrast to chart pop, classic music, jazz.

The University press office send out a press release [5 ], which was picked up by news media [4,6] and one of the Dutch authors of this study,  Loes Keijsers,  tweeted enthusiastically: “Want to know whether a 16 year old adult will suffer from delinquency, than look at his music taste at age 12!”

Weten of een jongeren met 16 jaar aan winkeldiefstal doet? Kijk dan naar muziekvoorkeur op 12 jaar! Nieuwe studie @FSW_UU @UniUtrecht

— Loes Keijsers (@LoesKeijsers) January 8, 2013

According to Hans, Loes could have easily broadcasted (more) balanced tweets, like “Music preference doesn’t predict shoplifting” or “12 year olds who like Bach keep quiet about shoplifting when 16.” But even then, Hans argues, the tweets wouldn’t have been scientifically underpinned either.

In column style Hans explains why he thinks that the study isn’t methodologically strong: no absolute numbers are given; 7 out of 11 (!) music styles are positively associated with delinquency, but these correlations are not impressive: the strongest predictor (Gothic music preference) can explain no more than 9%  of the variance in delinquent behaviour, which can include anything from shoplifting, vandalism, fighting, graffiti spraying, switching price tags.  Furthermore the risks of later “delinquent” behavior are small:  on a scale 1 (never) to 4 (4 times or more) the mean risk was 1,12. Hans also wonders whether it is a good idea to monitor kids with a certain music taste.

Thus Hans concludes “this study isn’t good science”. Daniel, however, concludes that Hans’ writing is not good science journalism.

First Daniel recalls he and other PhD’s took a course on how to peer review scientific papers. On basis of their peer review of a (published) article 90% of the students decided to reject it. The two main lessons learned by Daniel were:

• It is easy to critize a scientific paper and grind it down. No single contribution to science (no single article) is perfect.
• New scientific insights, although imperfect, are worth sharing, because they help to evolve science. *¹

According to Daniel science jounalists often make the same mistakes as the peer reviewing PhD-students: critisizing the individuel studies without a “meta-view” on science.

Peer review and journalism however are different things (apples and oranges if you like).

Peer review (with all its imperfections) serves to filter, check and to improve the quality of individual scientific papers (usually) before they are published  [10]. My papers that passed peer review, were generally accepted. Of course there were the negative reviewers, often  the ignorant ones, and the naggers, but many reviewers had critique that helped to improve my paper, sometimes substantially. As a peer reviewer myself I only try to separate the wheat from the chaff and to enhance the quality of the papers that pass.

Science journalism also has a filter function: it filters already peer reviewed scientific papers* for its readership, “the public” by selecting novel relevant science and translating the scientific, jargon-laded language, into language readers can understand and appreciate. Of course science journalists should put the publication into perspective (call it “meta”).

Surely the PhD-students finger exercise resembles the normal peer review process as much as peer review resembles science journalism.

I understand that pure nitpicking seldom serves a goal, but this rarely occurs in science journalism. The opposite, however, is commonplace.

Daniel disapproves Hans van Maanen’s criticism, because Hans isn’t “meta” enough. Daniel: “Arguing whether an effect size is small or mediocre is nonsense, because no individual study gives a good estimate of the effect size. You need to do more research and combine the results in a meta-analysis”.

Apples and oranges again.

Being “meta” has little to do with meta-analysis. Being meta is … uh … pretty meta. You could think of it as seeing beyond (meta) the findings of one single study*.

A meta-analysis, however, is a statistical technique for combining the findings from independent, but comparable (homogeneous) studies in order to more powerfully estimate the true effect size (pretty exact). This is an important, but difficult methodological task for a scientist, not a journalist. If a meta-analysis on the topic exist, journalists should take this into account, of course (and so should the researchers). If not, they should put the single study in broader perspective (what does the study add to existing knowledge?) and show why this single study is or is not well done?

Daniel takes this further by stating that “One study is no study” and that journalists who simply echo the press releases of a study ànd journalists who just amply criticizes only single publication (like Hans) are clueless about science.

Apples and oranges! How can one lump science communicators (“media releases”), echoing journalists (“the media”) and critical journalists together?

I see more value in a critical analysis than a blind rejoicing of hot air. As long as the criticism guides the reader to appreciate the study.

And if there is just one single novel study, that seems important enough to get media attention, shouldn’t we judge the research on its own merits?

Then Daniel asks himself: “If I do criticize those journalists, shouldn’t I criticize those scientists who published just a single study and wrote a press release about it? “

His conclusion? “No”.

Daniel explains: science never provides absolute certainty, at the most the evidence is strong enough to state what is likely true. This can only be achieved by a lot of research by different investigators. 

Therefore you should believe in your ideas and encourage other scientists to pursue your findings. It doesn’t help when you say that music preference doesn’t predict shoplifting. It does help when you use the media to draw attention to your research. Many researchers are now aware of the “Music Marker Theory”. Thus the press release had its desired effect. By expressing a firm belief in their conclusions, they encourage other scientists to spend their sparse time on this topic. These scientists will try to repeat and falsify the study, an essential step in Cumulative Science. At a time when science is under pressure, scientists shouldn’t stop writing enthusiastic press releases or tweets. 

The latter paragraph is sheer nonsense!

Critical analysis of one study by a journalist isn’t what undermines the  public confidence in science. Rather it’s the media circus, that blows the implications of scientific findings out of proportion.

As exemplified by the hilarious PhD Comic below research results are propagated by PR (science communication), picked up by media, broadcasted, spread via the internet. At the end of the cycle conclusions are reached, that are not backed up by (sufficient) evidence.

PhD Comics – The news Cycle

Daniel is right about some things. First one study is indeed no study, in the sense that concepts are continuously tested and corrected: falsification is a central property of science (Popper). He is also right that science doesn’t offer absolute certainty (an aspect that is often not understood by the public). And yes, researchers should believe in their findings and encourage other scientists to check and repeat their experiments.

Though not primarily via the media. But via the normal scientific route. Good scientists will keep track of new findings in their field anyway. Suppose that only findings that are trumpeted in the media would be pursued by other scientists?

And authors shouldn’t make overstatements. They shouldn’t raise expectations to a level which cannot be met. The Dutch study only shows weak associations. It simply isn’t true that the Dutch study allows us to “predict” at an individual level if a 12 year old will “act out” at 16.

This doesn’t help lay-people to understand the findings and to appreciate science.

The idea that media should just serve to spotlight a paper, seems objectionable to me.

Going back to the meta-level: what about the role of science communicators, media, science journalists and researchers?

According to Maarten Keulemans, journalist, we should just get rid of all science communicators as a layer between scientists and journalists [7]. But Michel van Baal [9] and Roy Meijer[8] have a point when they say that  journalists do a lot PR-ing too and they should do better than to rehash news releases.*²

Now what about Daniel criticism of van Maanen? In my opinion, van Maanen is one of those rare critical journalists who serve as an antidote against uncritical media diarrhea (see Fig above). Comparable to another lone voice in the media: Ben Goldacre. It didn’t surprise me that Daniel didn’t approve of him (and his book Bad Science) either [11]. 

Does this mean that I find Hans van Maanen a terrific science journalist? No, not really. I often agree with him (i.e. see this post [12]). He is one of those rare journalists who has real expertise in research methodology . However, his columns don’t seem to be written for a large audience: they seem too complex for most lay people. One thing I learned during a scientific journalism course, is that one should explain all jargon to one’s audience.

Personally I find this critical Dutch blog post[13] about the Music Marker Theory far more balanced. After a clear description of the study, Linda Duits concludes that the results of the study are pretty obvious, but that the the mini-hype surrounding this research is caused by the positive tone of the press release. She stresses that prediction is not predetermination and that the musical genres are not important: hiphop doesn’t lead to criminal activity and metal not to vandalism.

And this critical piece in Jezebel [14],  reaches far more people by talking in plain, colourful language, hilarious at times.

It also a swell title: “Delinquents Have the Best Taste in Music”. Now that is an apt conclusion!

———————-

*¹ Since Daniel doesn’t refer to  open (trial) data access nor the fact that peer review may , I ignore these aspects for the sake of the discussion.

*² Coincidence? Keulemans has covered  the music marker study quite uncritically (positive).

Photo Credits

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174

References

1. Daniel Lakens: Is dit nou goede Wetenschap? – Jan 24, 2013 (sites.google.com/site/lakens2/blog)
2. Hans van Maanen: De smaak van boefjes in de dop,De Volkskrant, Jan 12, 2013 (vanmaanen.org/hans/columns/)
3. ter Bogt, T., Keijsers, L., & Meeus, W. (2013). Early Adolescent Music Preferences and Minor Delinquency PEDIATRICS DOI: 10.1542/peds.2012-0708
4. Lindsay Abrams: Kids Who Like ‘Unconventional Music’ More Likely to Become Delinquent, the Atlantic, Jan 18, 2013
5. Muziekvoorkeur belangrijke voorspeller voor kleine criminaliteit. Jan 8, 2013 (pers.uu.nl)
6. Maarten Keulemans: Muziek is goede graadmeter voor puberaal wangedrag – De Volkskrant, 12 januari 2013  (volkskrant.nl)
7. Maarten Keulemans: Als we nou eens alle wetenschapscommunicatie afschaffen? – Jan 23, 2013 (denieuwereporter.nl)
8. Roy Meijer: Wetenschapscommunicatie afschaffen, en dan? – Jan 24, 2013 (denieuwereporter.nl)
9. Michel van Baal. Wetenschapsjournalisten doen ook aan PR – Jan 25, 2013 ((denieuwereporter.nl)
10. What peer review means for science (guardian.co.uk)
11. Daniel Lakens. Waarom raadde Maarten Keulemans me Bad Science van Goldacre aan? Oct 25, 2012
12. Why Publishing in the NEJM is not the Best Guarantee that Something is True: a Response to Katan – Sept 27, 2012 (laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com)
13. Linda Duits: Debunk: worden pubers crimineel van muziek? (dieponderzoek.nl)
14. Lindy west: Science: “Delinquents Have the Best Taste in Music” (jezebel.com)

Related articles

• Sceptical humility and peer review in science (openparachute.wordpress.com)
• Putting science journalism under the microscope (crikey.com.au)
• Peer review matters to the public (eurekalert.org)

Jeffrey Beall’s List of Predatory, Open-Access Publishers, 2012 Edition

Perhaps you remember that I previously wrote [1] about  non-existing and/or low quality scammy open access journals. I specifically wrote about Medical Science Journals of  the http://www.sciencejournals.cc/ series, which comprises 45 titles, none of which having published any article yet.

Another blogger, David M [2] also had negative experiences with fake peer review invitations from sciencejournals. He even noticed plagiarism.

Later I occasionally found other posts about open access spam, like the post of Per Ola Kristensson [3] (specifically about Bentham, Hindawi and InTech OA publishers), of Peter Murray-Rust [4] ,a chemist interested in OA (about spam journals and conferences, specifically about Scientific Research Publishing) and of Alan Dove PhD [5] (specifically about The Journal of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Research (JCBBR) published by Academic Journals).

But now it appears that there is an entire list of “Predatory, Open-Access Publishers”. This list was created by Jeffrey Beall, academic librarian at the University of Colorado Denver. He just updated the list for 2012 here (PDF-format).

According to Jeffrey predatory, open-access publishers

are those that unprofessionally exploit the author-pays model of open-access publishing (Gold OA) for their own profit. Typically, these publishers spam professional email lists, broadly soliciting article submissions for the clear purpose of gaining additional income. Operating essentially as vanity presses, these publishers typically have a low article acceptance threshold, with a false-front or non-existent peer review process. Unlike professional publishing operations, whether subscription-based or ethically-sound open access, these predatory publishers add little value to scholarship, pay little attention to digital preservation, and operate using fly-by-night, unsustainable business models.

Jeffrey recommends not to do business with the following (illegitimate) publishers, including submitting article manuscripts, serving on editorial boards, buying advertising, etc. According to Jeffrey, “there are numerous traditional, legitimate journals that will publish your quality work for free, including many legitimate, open-access publishers”.

(For sake of conciseness, I only describe the main characteristics, not always using the same wording; please see the entire list for the full descriptions.)

• Academic Journals  bogus, Nigeria-based publisher
• Academic Journals, Inc. One of several Pakistan-based publishers
• Academic Research Publishing Agency* Full of contradictions. Subscription fee $400/yr
• ANSINetwork Another of the Pakistan-based brands
• Bentham Open continues to expand its fleet of journals, now >230
• Center for Promoting Ideas* list scholars on editorial boards without their permission
• David Publishing*
• Dove Press demands a very high author fee for publishing articles.
• GlobalOpenJournals.org* currently has nine titles, .. all remain devoid of content
• Insight Knowledge really is a storefront type operation based out of Pakistan
• Institute of Advanced Scientific Research* Few of the titles have any content, registering required
• InTech Open Access Publisher* Croatia-based, vanity press
• International Digital Organization for Scientific Information* charges (for authors) aren’t listed
• International Research Journals journal covers from pirated photographs
• Internet Scientific Publications makes money from click-through ads
• Knowledgia Scientific (~ Review) (some) titles have very little content
• Libertas Academia  Based in New Zealand, .. Author fees are high
• Medwell Journals Another Pakistan-based outfit
• OMICS Publishing Group about 200 journal titles, many lacking any articles…falsely claims an association with certain  publishers/organizations
• ScienceHuβ * likely yet another Nigeria scam
• Science Publications Contact us” page is merely a web form
• ScienceDomain International* short acceptance period, indicating bogus
• Scientific Journals International a one-man operation, many non-standard practices
• Scientific Research Publishing  over 100 journal titles, most started in 2009

Watchlist: Publishers, that may show some characteristics of  predatory, open-access publisher

• Hindawi Way too many journals than can be properly handled by one publisher
• MedKnow Publications vague business model. It charges for the PDF version
• PAGEPress many dead links, a prominent link to PayPal
• Versita Open paid subscription for print form. ..unclear business model

An asterisk (*) indicates that the publisher is appearing on this list for the first time.

How complete and reliable is this list?

Clearly, this list is quite exhaustive. Jeffrey did a great job listing  many dodgy OA journals. We should watch (many) of these OA publishers with caution. Another good thing is that the list is updated annually.

(http://www.sciencejournals.cc/ described in my previous post is not (yet) on the list 😉  but I will inform Jeffrey).

Personally, I would have preferred a distinction between real bogus or spammy journals and journals that seem to have “too many journals to properly handle” or that ask (too much ) money for subscription/from the author. The scientific content may still be good (enough).

Furthermore, I would rather see a neutral description of what is exactly wrong about a journal. Especially because “Beall’s list” is a list and not a blog post (or is it?). Sometimes the description doesn’t convince me that the journal is really bogus or predatory.

Examples of subjective portrayals:

• Dove Press:  This New Zealand-based medical publisher boasts high-quality appearing journals and articles, yet it demands a very high author fee for publishing articles. Its fleet of journals is large, bringing into question how it can properly fulfill its promise to quickly deliver an acceptance decision on submitted articles.
• Libertas Academia “The tag line under the name on this publisher’s page is “Freedom to research.” It might better say “Freedom to be ripped off.” 
• Hindawi  .. This publisher has way too many journals than can be properly handled by one publisher, I think (…)

I do like funny posts, but only if it is clear that the post is intended to be funny. Like the one by Alan Dove PhD about JCBBR.

JCBBR is dedicated to increasing the depth of research across all areas of this subject.

Translation: we’re launching a new journal for research that can’t get published anyplace else.

The journal welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence in this subject area.

We’ll take pretty much any crap you excrete.

Hattip: Catherine Arnott Smith, PhD at the MedLib-L list.

References & related articles

1. I Got the Wrong Request from the Wrong Journal to Review the Wrong Piece. The Wrong kind of Open Access Apparently, Something Wrong with this Inherently… (laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com)
2. A peer-review phishing scam (blog.pita.si)
3. Academic Spam and Open Access Publishing (blog.pokristensson.com)
4. What’s wrong with Scholarly Publishing? New Journal Spam and “Open Access” (blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk)
5. From the Inbox: Journal Spam (alandove.com)
6. Beall’s List of Predatory, Open-Access Publishers. 2012 Edition (http://metadata.posterous.com)
7. Silly Sunday #42 Open Access Week around the Globe (laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com)

I Got the Wrong Request from the Wrong Journal to Review the Wrong Piece. The Wrong kind of Open Access Apparently, Something Wrong with this Inherently…

Meanwhile you might want to listen to “Wrong” (Depeche Mode)

Yesterday I screened my spam-folder. Between all male enhancement and lottery winner announcements, and phishing mails for my bank account, there was an invitation to peer review a paper in “SCIENCE JOURNAL OF PATHOLOGY”.

Such an invitation doesn’t belong in the spam folder, doesn’t it? Thus I had a closer look and quickly screened the letter.

I don’t know what alarmed me first. The odd hard returns, the journal using a Gmail address, an invitation for a topic (autism) I knew nothing about, an abstract that didn’t make sense and has nothing to do with Pathology, the odd style of the letter: the informal, but impersonal introduction (How are you? I am sure you are busy with many activities right now) combined with a turgid style (the paper addresses issues of value to our broad-based audience, and that it cuts through the thick layers of theory and verbosity for them and makes sense of it all in a clean, cohesive manner) and some misspellings. And then I never had an invitation from an editor, starting with the impersonal “Colleagues”… 

But still it was odd. Why would someone take the trouble of writing such an invitation letter? For what purpose? And apparently the person did know that I was a scientist, who does -or is able to- peer review medical scientific papers. Since the mail was send to my Laika Gmail account, the most likely source for my contact info must have been my pseudonymous blog. I seldom use this mail account for scientific purposes.

What triggered my caution flag the most, was the topic: autism. I immediately linked this to the anti-vaccination quackery movement, that’s trying to give skeptic bloggers a hard time and fights a personal, not a scientific battle. I also linked it to #epigate, that was exposed at Liz Ditz I Speak of Dreams, a blog with autism as a niche topic.

#Epigate is the story of René Najeraby aka @EpiRen, a popular epidemiologist blogger who was asked to stop engaging in social media by his employers, after a series of complaints by a Mr X, who also threatened other pseudonymous commenters/bloggers criticizing his actions. According to Mr. X no one will be safe, because “all i have to do is file a john doe – or hire a cyber investigator. these courses of action cost less than $10,000 each; which means every person who is afraid of the light can be exposed”  In another comment at Liz Ditz’ he actually says he will go after a specific individual: “Anarchic Teapot”.

Ok, I admit that the two issues might be totally coincidental, and they probably are, but I’m hypersensitive for people trying to silence me via my employers (because that did happen to me in the past). Anyway,asking a pseudonymous blogger to peer-review might be a way to hack the real identity of such a blogger. Perhaps far-fetched, I know.

But what would the “editor” do if I replied and said “yes”?

I became curious. Does The Science Journal of Pathology even exist?

Not in PubMed!!

But the Journal “Science Journal of Pathology” does exist on the Internet…. and John Morrison is the editor. But he is the only one. As a matter of fact he is the entire staff…. There are “search”, “current” and “archives” tabs, but the latter two are EMPTY.

So I would have the dubious honor of reviewing the first paper for this journal?…. 😉

Strikingly, the journal “provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge”.

And It has an impressive editorial publishing scheme depicted in a picture…

….that is apparently copied from an out-of-date figure that refers to an out-of-date web address (http://pkp.ubc.ca, see legends) instead of the current address http://pkp.sfu.ca/.

PKP stands for Public Knowledge Project. The Science Journal of Pathology uses the open source journal management and publishing software developed, supported, and freely distributed by PKP.

Instant Scam Publishing made easy, but is PKP aware?

In order to be an author or reviewer, you have to login and thus have to register for the journal. This requires filling in a form, which asks for quite some details, like Date of Birth, Affiliation (department), Biostatement (rank).

The Science Journal of Pathology belongs to the Medical Science Journals of  the http://www.sciencejournals.cc/ series, which comprises 45 titles (!!). None of the  Medical Science Journals has published any article yet…. I didn’t bother to look at all the non-medical journals.

After I shared my experience on Twitter, drVes replied that he had received several invitations from the “African Journal of Microbiology”, “African Journal of Epidemiology” etc. which have a similar appearance.

However these journals might just use the same open publishing software. At least, these journals contain what can be considered articles. Although I didn’t bother to look at the quality…

Next, I went Googling  for “John Morrison” and “phishing” and I found a revealing blog post written by David Modic* at Glasovi z onostranstva (a blog that is now off the air **). 

In short, David is a Graduate  Psychology Student, who was born in Slovenia but is now studying in Exeter. His thesis title is “Deciding to be scammed: how trying to be smart leaves us stupid” and he is running a survey online about this issue here (still open!).

But recently David fell into the phishing trap himself*, when he received an invitation  to peer review a paper from another sciencejournals.cc journal, the Science Journal of Economics. David thought the journal web page seemed OK, although a little sparsely populated with articles… He then consulted a senior scientist who gave him the green light, because it is good for a PhD to do some peer review….

Thus David accepted and received the reviewers form which he found quite elaborate. The manuscript itself was crap and the authors apparently didn’t adhere to the journal’s referencing style in “any way, shape or form” (much too long, inconsistent style, no method, results and discussion sections).

But then David finds out the paper has already been published at a semi-academic website (contact address in Bucharest). Thus this is plain plagiarism as well.

He also finds out  via  http://www.whois.net/ that the domain sciencejournals.cc is registered in Africa for only a year.

Please read his interesting post here: http://blog.pita.si/2011/07/01/a-peer-review-phishing-scam-2/

Like me, David has no clue what exactly is the endgame of sciencejournals.cc.

Here I summarize some possibilities:

1. (First assumption – David) – High school kids are looking for someone to peer review (and thus improve) their essays to get better grades.
   (me: school kids could also be replaced by “non-successful or starting scientists”)
2. (Second assumption – David) Perhaps they are only looking to fill out their sucker lists. If you’ve done a bad review, they may blackmail you in other to keep it quiet.
3. (me) – The journal site might be a cover up for anything (still no clue what).
4. (me) – The site might get a touch of credibility if the (upcoming) articles are stamped with : “peer-reviewed by…”
5. (David & me) the scammers target PhD’s or people who the “editors” think have little experience in peer reviewing and/or consider it a honor to do so.
6. (David & me) It is phishing scam.You have to register on the journal’s website in order to be able to review or submit. So they get your credentials. My intuition was that they might just try to track down the real name, address and department of a pseudonymous blogger, but I think that David’s assumption is more plausible. David thinks that a couple of people in Nigeria is just after your password for your mail, amazon, PayPal etc for “the vast majority of people uses the same password for all logins, which is terribly bad practice, but they don’t want to forget it.”

With David, I would like to warn you for this “very interesting phishing scheme”, which aims at academics and especially PhD’s. We have no clue as to their real intentions, but it looks scammy.

Besides that the scam may affect you personally, such non-existing and/or low quality open access journals do a bad service to the existing, high quality open access journals.

There should be ways to remove such scam websites from the net.

Notes

* I assume David is ok and didn’t set this all up himself to help him get some material to write his thesis, which is after all about stupid people falling for scam.

** David’s site is now down (Aug 27th) David informed me that this is just coincidental. If still down, you can follow any of these links to assess the post of July 1th (27th: 21.00 pm West-European time: the site is up again)

• http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://blog.pita.si/
• the scamvictimsunited forum (also from July 1th), this links to a website for scam victims:  http://scamvictimsunited.wordpress.com/
• http://blog.scamresearch.info/

*** I just found a tweet of @nicalbee mentioning a similar scam 5 days ago:

“Academic scams – my wife just received a version of this for an Autism article, PhD/DPhil/Masters students beware that mentions a receipt of a similar autism”

Related articles

• A peer review phishing scam (blog.pita.si : 2011/07/01)
• Peer review at medical journals, from a former JAMA editor (kevinmd.com)
• Questionable Peer Reviews (dcrblogs.com)
• Peer-review ‘needs improvements’ (bbc.co.uk)
• To Retract or Not to Retract… That’s the Question (laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com)
• EpiGate: when blogging under one’s own name can be used against you (leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk)
• The consequences of blogging under one’s own name (scienceblogs.com)

Webicina Presents: PeRSSonalized Medical Librarianship: Selected Blogs, News, Journals and More

One and a half-year ago I wrote about PeRSSonalized Medicine, developed by Bertalan Mesko or Berci. It is part of Webicina, which “aims to help physicians and other healthcare people to enter the web 2.0 era with quality medical information and selected online medical resources”.

The RSS in PeRSSonalized Medicine stands for Real Simple Syndication, which is a format for delivering regularly changing web content, i.e. from Journals. However, if you use PeRSSonalized Medicine, you don’t need to have a clue what RSS is all about. It is easy to use and you can personalize it (hence the name)

In the previous post I discussed several alternatives of PeRSSonalized Medicine. You can never tell how a new idea, or project or a new business will develop. We have seen Clinical Reader come and disappear. PeRSSonalized Medicine however really boomed. Why? Because it is free, because it has an altruistic goal (facilitate instead of earning money), because users are involved in the development and because it keeps evolving on basis of feedback.

PeRSSonalized Medicine develops fast. There is not a week that I don’t see a new section: Nephrology, Genetics, Diabetes whatever.

And this week tada tada tada … it is the turn of the Medical Librarianship, with Journals, Blogs, News and Web 2.0 tools. Please have a look yourself. You can personalize it at wish, and if you miss something, please mail to Webicina.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Medical Librarianship: Selected blogs, news, journals and more (scienceroll.com)
• MedLibs Round 2.6 (laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com)
• PeRSSonalized Medicine in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy (scienceroll.com)

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Twitter Lists of Medical and other Scientific Journals

In the previous two posts (“Biomedical Journals on Twitter” and List(s) of Tweeting Journals: Your Votes Please!) I introduced the Google-spreadsheet of (Bio-)medical Journals, manually compiled by the concerted effort of many people on Twitter. At a certain point other non-biomedical scientific journals were added, which made the list more complete, but less useful for most health care people, for whom the list was designed. In the last post I therefore asked people whether they preferred one complete list (as it was), one lists with different tabs for each discipline or different spreadsheets.

The results of the poll:

Twenty-seven people responded. Although this is a small sample, it is clear that people either preferred one separate medical or biomedical list (30% and 26%) or one spreadsheet with all types of journals on separate tabs (33%). There was little or no interest in separate lists or all journals on one lists (without separation in tabs).

Discussion about the design of the spreadsheet has become somewhat superfluous by the recent roll out of Twitter Lists. The Twitter List feature is designed to make following and suggesting groups of tweeters easier. Everyone on Twitter can make up 20 lists of maximal 500 Twitter/people each. On the web you can easily add each account you like to your lists.

I have created 3 Twitter Journal List. In line with the outcome of the poll, I made  completely overlapping sets, where the Medical journal set is part of the Biomedical journal set, which belongs to the All/Science set.

If you’re on Twitter you can follow these three journal lists:

• A (All) = http://twitter.com/laikas/scientific-journals-all : 90
• B (Biomedical) = http://twitter.com/laikas/biomedical-journals: 68
• M (Medical) = http://twitter.com/laikas/medical-journals: 48

The spreadsheet still forms the basis. You can make adjustments here and if you mark them (color) or let me know, I will include them in the Twitter lists.
Found any new journals/magazines? Please feel free to add them.

If you’re interested in following (bio-)medical and/or scientific journals you can follow the list(s) you want, or your own selection from the journals in the lists.

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List(s) of Tweeting Journals: Your Votes Please!

In the previous post “Biomedical Journals on Twitter” I showed a spreadsheet of biomedical Journals

This list was made on request of and for doctors, hence the original list name: Medical Journals.

As this Google-spreadsheet serves as a wiki, anyone (having g-mail) can edit the list. This was quite successful, as there were many additions made.

However, some of the journal titles I would not regard as biomedical. For instance purely (analytical) chemistry, physics, social sciences or history Journals. To me, Medical Biology is Medicine, Biology and disciplines on the interface (histology, anatomy, etc).

But let’s not discuss semantics and be practical. How would you like to see it?

Just like it is (see here) , with all disciplines mixed, all disciplines in a different spreadsheet or one spreadsheet with different tabs (per discipline).
In case of the latter two options, we could also add humanities/social sciences, such as suggested by Dean Giustini

I made a (non-editable)* sample of a spreadsheet with different tabs per discipline to see what it looks like: see here
Below is only a Figure (showing the Medical Tab). Click to enlarge.

The choice is yours.

*The alternative spreadsheet is not editable, because it is not manageable to have two spreadsheets. Data might get lost.

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• List of biomedical journals on Twitter (casesblog.blogspot.com)

Biomedical Journals on Twitter

Because of my vacation I was unable to publish about the list of Medical Journals on Twitter that I had initiated in the form of a spreadsheet.

Meanwhile this list has been widely covered in the medical blogosphere, i.e. here, here (nature blogs, yeah), here, here and here, (without -correct- attribution) and here (Ves Dimov) and here (Andrew Spong) (with attribution). And possibly many more.

Do I have anything to add? No not really.

Nevertheless, I would like to point my readers who may not be yet aware of this list. It is open to anybody to edit. Thus if you know of a medical journal on Twitter that is not included, then please feel free to add it to the spreadsheet (if you have Google mail) or ask me to do it for you.

For those who are not used to editing Google spreadsheets, please follow the detailed description of Andrew Spong at his blog.

The reason why I started this spreadsheet was that Walter van den Broek (drshock) asked me “how to find which medical journals on Twitter (see part of the Twitter discussion rescued from Friendfeed (tweets get lost after a few days).

I made a spreadsheet, and asked input from the twitterverse: the easiest and most efficient way to compile a list. There were many initial suggestions of @artadobbs: (see @UCONNHealthLib). She already followed many e-resources updates, as a service for UCONN Health Library users. Ves Dimov (@drves) also had great input. The other editors have added their names on the spreadsheet (and I have added mine too now ;)). Thanks to all! With Ves I’m truly impressed of how well Google Spreadsheets work as a structured wiki.

Here is a Figure of part of the list (click to enlarge), the actual spreadsheet can be found here.

Yesterday drshock asked me “Any pharmaceutical drug companies using twitter?” so the Medical Journal spreadsheet may not be my last one. 😉

Twitter discussion. Read from down up