3 June 2020
University students maintain social distancing while taking their exams at the Ancienne Belgique concert hall in Brussels, Belgium on 2 June 2020. KENZO TRIBOUILLARD / Contributor via Getty Images
High-speed publishing and more effective online classes are among the changes that could remain after the pandemic, according to a series of Nature reports on how COVID-19 will shape the research sector.
While researchers are embracing the push to share results openly and rapidly, it will take deep structural changes – such as incentivizing the early, open sharing of results – to ensure that they are lasting, reports Ewen Callaway.
The shift to online classes during lockdown has revealed the benefits of the virtual classroom, and some educators expect that the crisis will make tertiary education more accessible for students in developing countries, Alexandra Witze reports.
How COVID-19 publishing compares to previous coronavirus outbreaks
1 June 2020:
In less than five months, COVID-19 studies accounted for almost 70% of all coronavirus studies published in the last 50 years, according an analysis on preprint server, bioRxiv.
Milad Haghani and Michiel Bliemer at the University of Sydney in Australia analysed 19,518 papers on SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. They found that papers on SARS and MERS were largely published in specialist journals, such as the Journal of Virology, while COVID-19 articles appeared in broader publications, including The Lancet and The BMJ.
While papers covering public health concerns and epidemic control were the first studies to emerge during the SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 outbreaks, they received the least number of citations compared to research on the characterization of the viruses and vaccine development in all three cases.
Journals should rethink their publishing processes
26 May 2020:
The pandemic has laid bare the need to update academic publication practices argues an opinion piece in The BMJ.
They authors including The BMJ’s head of research suggest improvements such as sharing peer review comments with authors in real-time, prioritizing papers with openly available data, and the rapid assessment of research methodology before papers are submitted for formal peer review.
The authors contend that making improvements to the current peer review system is a better strategy in the long-run than getting rid of it entirely.
COVID-19 is transforming global teams
26 May 2020:
The United States and China are leading partners in COVID-19 research, according to an analysis of publishing and collaboration patterns before and after the pandemic.
Led by Caroline Fry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, US, the authors found that the two countries are collaborating more with each other since the outbreak, but they are partnering with fewer other countries and working in smaller teams than previously.
The findings, which have yet to be peer-reviewed, were posted as a preprint on SSRN.
The authors note that researchers are opting for efficiency over international teamwork in the race to tackle the crisis, which could shift the direction of global collaborations in the long term.
The role of preprints during the pandemic
23 May 2020:
Roughly 40% of articles on COVID-19 are preprints, according to an analysis of more than 16,000 papers related to the pandemic. On the preprint servers bioRxiv and medRxiv, COVID-19 articles are accessed and downloaded 15 times more often than other articles, the analysis finds.
These preprints are also being shared more widely on Twitter, with the top COVID-19 preprints being tweeted more than 10,000 times, compared to 1,323 tweets for the most popular non-pandemic preprint.
The findings were posted as an unreviewed paper on bioRxiv.
On average, COVID-19 preprints are being published in journals 26 days faster than other preprints. When comparing these preprints with their published versions, roughly 73% had no alterations to the wording or numbers in their abstracts, while graphics and tables had not been changed in just over 60%.
Virtual conferences could be the new normal
18 May 2020:
Giving a conference presentation through a screen may feel awkward, but there’s a lot to love about virtual conferences, reports Chris Woolston for Nature.
For some researchers, the convenience and low expense outweigh the drawbacks of virtual conferences, such as the lack of face-to-face networking. The format also makes international meetings more accessible for junior researchers and those from developing countries.
In an online Nature poll of 485 researchers who have attended virtual conferences, 82% respondents said that they would attend an online conference in future.
Funding worries weigh down early-career researchers
18 May 2020:
Only 10% of early career researchers on contracts that end this year have been offered additional funding due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a survey of 4,800 doctoral students and early-career researchers working at UK universities during lockdown.
As reported by Simon Baker at Times Higher Education, roughly 70% of the survey respondents said that they were worried about their finances, while another two-thirds reported that they were concerned about their future plans.
“These researchers are at critical stages in their careers,” Janet Metcalfe, who heads Vitae, a non-profit professional development organization for researchers, told Times Higher Education. “The restrictions due to COVID-19 are not only having a significant impact on their current research activities, but are likely to have long-term implications for their future careers.”
COVID-19 widens the gender gap in medical research
14 May 2020:
Journal articles that include female authors have fallen by 16% since the coronavirus outbreak, according to an analysis of more than 1,000 medical papers published in 2020.
Led by Jens Peter Andersen, who studies bibliometrics at Aarhus University in Denmark, the study found that female first authors have published 23% fewer COVID-19 papers compared to all medical articles published in the same journals in 2019. Articles with female last authors have also dropped by 16%.
The analysis, posted as an unreviewed preprint on arXiv, is one of a growing number of studies revealing how the pandemic is negatively impacting women’s productivity.
Wikipedia favours peer-reviewed research
2 May 2020:
Editors of Wikipedia’s COVID-19 content are largely relying on research that is peer-reviewed, highly cited, and widely shared online, according to a new analysis.
Giovanni Colavizza, a bibliometrics researcher at the University of Amsterdam, analyzed the citations and Altmetrics data of 64,040 papers related to COVID-19 and other coronaviruses.
Colavizza found that highly cited papers and those frequently mentioned on social media were more likely to be among the 3.4% of those that were referenced in Wikipedia’s 4,500 pages of COVID-19 content. The findings, which have yet to be peer-reviewed, were posted on bioRxiv.
COVID-19-related pages on Wikipedia have attracted almost 250 million pageviews since the beginning of April 2020. – Gemma Conroy
Australian researchers face job cuts due to coronavirus shut-down
12 May 2020:
Some 7,000 researchers working at Australian universities could lose their jobs within the next six months as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new report.
The report predicts that Australian universities could lose at least AU$3 billion (US$1.9 billion) in revenue this year due to travel bans and visa restrictions faced by international students. International student fees make up around one-quarter of universities’ revenue, covering staff salaries, research facilities, and other research expenses, Nature reports.
“We’re seeing a significant impact on our capacity to support high-quality research teams,” Susan Dodds, the deputy vice-chancellor of research and industry engagement at La Trobe University in Melbourne, told Nature.
It is estimated that over 9,000 international PhD students will have to postpone or abandon their projects this year due to travel bans. – Gemma Conroy
How could coronavirus change academic careers?
12 May 2020:
Online teaching could become the new essential skill for academics in a post-pandemic job market, reports Times Higher Education.
“Being seen as an online enthusiast, innovator or expert will be both more important and more demanding for interviewees,” said Robin Grimes, a material physicist at Imperial College London, UK.
The COVID-19 crisis could also result in a greater push towards virtual conferences and meetings, which are more inclusive, “especially to those who lack the financial support to go to increasingly expensive meetings”, Grimes told Times Higher Education.
Grimes also pointed out that online conferences could urge universities to consider job candidates from other countries, a move that could make the hiring process “less unfair by levelling the playing field”.
While such changes are a welcome silver lining of the pandemic, Rebecca Jarrett, head of resources at Cranfield University, said it could take time to see results in a slow academic job market.
“We know the impact on student recruitment, so people will be reluctant to move roles, particularly if they have a permanent post,” Jarret told Times Higher Education. – Gemma Conroy
Preprint servers enhance screening to tackle false coronavirus claims
7 May 2020:
Preprint repositories are tightening their screening procedures to slow the spread of questionable COVID-19 findings, reports Nature.
BioRxiv and medRxiv have enlisted outbreak specialists to scrutinise papers more closely for claims that could cause harm, contradict public health advice, or fuel conspiracy theories. BioRxiv is also no longer accepting papers predicting treatments using computational modelling alone.
“We can’t check the side effects of all the drugs and we’re not going to peer review to work out whether the modelling they’re using has any basis,” Richard Sever, co-founder of bioRxiv and medRxiv, told Nature. “There are some things that should go through peer review, rather than being immediately disseminated as preprints.”
The stricter screening measures were put in place after bioRxiv posted a controversial paper reporting similarities between HIV and SARS-CoV-2. The study was withdrawn after scientists widely criticised it as poorly conducted.
As of May 7, bioRxiv and medRxiv have posted almost 3,000 coronavirus-related papers. – Gemma Conroy
Journals change their practices
7th May 2020:
Fast-tracked peer review, acceleration of the drive to open access, AI discovery engines, preprints as a priority, video calls with authors – journals and researchers are rapidly adapting their publishing practices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Turn-around times have shortened. A recent analysis of 669 articles published in 14 medical journals found that COVID-19 articles published since January 2020 are taking 57 fewer days on average from submission to publication compared to non-pandemic articles published before October 2019.
A separate analysis of 11,686 articles found that roughly 68% of COVID-19 papers are now freely available online. For comparison, it’s estimated that approximately 28% of scientific papers across all disciplines are open access.
It is not the first time a disease outbreaks has been the catalyst for innovations in publishing.
Living systematic reviews, for example, whereby the systematic review article format is continually updated with new evidence as it becomes available, were first adopted by researchers studying the 2015-16 Zika virus epidemic to keep pace with the deluge of published findings.
They have since been used to consolidate research on topics such as delayed antibiotic prescriptions for respiratory infections and the use of anticoagulants in cancer patients.
Three changes that journals have made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic with potentially lasting effects on the research publishing industry are listed here:
1. Open access and sharing of data, protocols, and standards
In January 2020, the Wellcome Trust in London released a statement calling researchers, journals, and funders to share their COVID-19 findings and data “rapidly and openly”.
To date, 145 journals, publishers, and institutions have agreed to make their coronavirus research and data freely available, and researchers and journals have been sharing both interim and final research data related to COVID-19 with the World Health Organization (WHO).
Several prominent journals, including Nature, Science, and PNAS, have brought down paywalls on their COVID-19 articles, at least for the duration of the outbreak.
Researchers have also been sharing the data-collection protocols and standards with the WHO.
Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Nature (published by Springer Nature, which also publishes the Nature Index) says the pandemic could facilitate a further push towards open science.
“We certainly hope that the willingness to collaborate and share information and data pre- as well as post-publication will continue beyond the current pandemic,” says Skipper.
In April, the European Commission launched the COVID-19 Data Portal, where researchers can upload, access, and analyze genetic sequences, protein structures, and data on how the SARS-CoV-2 virus impacts gene expression.
Bernd Pulverer, chief editor of The EMBO Journal, says the outbreak has highlighted a greater need for data-searching tools, such as AI discovery engines and data-directed searches.
“Such technology exists, but needs to be embraced by the community,” he says.
2. Uploading papers to preprints
Many journals, including Cell and the Journal of Experimental Medicine, are encouraging authors to upload their COVID-19 papers to preprint repositories medRxiv and bioRxiv before publication.
This practice has become the default for all submissions at the open access life sciences journal, eLife. To prevent authors from “feeling pressure to post their papers prematurely”, eLife and the EMBO journals have extended their ‘scoop protection’ policy to preprints, meaning they will not decline a preprint (or paper) if similar findings are published elsewhere while it is under review.
3. Speeding up peer review
In March, Nature issued a call-out to researchers who can review COVID-19 manuscripts over short timeframes, and eLife has encouraged early-career researchers to take part in the reviewing process.
Royal Society Open Science is also accelerating its Registered Report review process, with authors receiving their initial reviews within one week of submission.
For a speedier revision process, EMBO editors are consulting with authors through video calls and have allowed referees to comment on each other’s work to help editors reach a decision, says Pulverer.
“COVID-19 may help make these ideas standard,” says Pulverer. “I hope journals will have more focus on essential experiments rather than far-flung and endless revision cycles that damage the current system.” – Gemma Conroy
John Ioannidis hits back at critics
5 May 2020:
In April, Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis posted a preprint on medRxiv suggesting that the fatality rate for COVID-19 is likely on par with the seasonal flu, a claim that seemed to support his argument that global lockdown measures are a “once-in-a-century evidence fiasco”.
The controversial paper caused an uproar in the scientific community with some researchers pointing to statistical errors, questionable sampling techniques, and potential problems with the COVID-19 testing kit the team used. In The draft paper has since been revised, and as Undark reports, “acknowledges more uncertainty about the true number of infections”.
“The revised version has tried to address all the major concerns. I think the results are still very robust,” Ioannidis told Undark. “But it’s a single study. You can never say that a single study is the end of the story.”
Ioannidis also addressed the backlash he received after discussing the findings of the original study on Fox News, saying that it “was not possible to just hide it under the carpet.”
“It was a major finding, and I worried that it would be misinterpreted in different ways,” said Ioannidis. “I’m just a scientist. I have no political party affiliation and absolutely no interest to turn this into a political debate, or to have a political agenda supported.”- Gemma Conroy
See the full article here .
five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
Please help promote STEM in your local schools.
What is the Nature Index?
The Nature Index is a database of author affiliation information collated from research articles published in an independently selected group of 68 high-quality science journals. The database is compiled by Nature Research. The Nature Index provides a close to real-time proxy for high-quality research output at the institutional, national and regional level.
The Nature Index is updated monthly, and a 12-month rolling window (1 February 2016 – 31 January 2017) of data is openly available at http://www.natureindex.com under a Creative Commons non-commercial license.
sciencesprings 