Journalology rebooted
Journalology #125
Hello fellow journalologists,
The Journalology newsletter has been rather quiet in recent months; I had surgery at the start of September, which took some time to recover from.
I’m in the process of migrating the newsletter to Substack, which is designed for writers rather than email marketers. This should help Journalology to reach a wider audience and will allow me to offer a paid subscription option further down the line.
Substack is a social media platform and, like all such platforms, hosts some unsavoury content. However, it also provides a home for excellent writers and thinkers including physician Eric Topol, Science Editor-in-Chief Holden Thorp, and Economist science journalist Natasha Loder.
You don’t need to re-subscribe to the newsletter on Substack. I’ll be importing the email distribution list this week, so please unsubscribe now (using the link at the bottom of this email) if you don’t want to receive Journalology via the new platform.
The newsletter has a new home, which looks more professional than the previous version. You can view it here; it’s a subdomain of journalology.com, which continues to house information about my consulting, coaching and speaking work.
I’ve changed the format of the newsletter slightly to make it easier to skim read. The newsletter starts with the “News headlines”; the rest of the newsletter is divided into thematic sections to help you to find articles in your area of interest.
The goal of these weekly updates is to provide you with a broad overview of recent news in scholarly publishing. In the coming weeks I’ll start to publish essays, sent as separate emails, that analyse the trends and provide insight into how recent developments could affect your journal or portfolio.
News headlines
Cambridge demands radical change in academic publishing
Cambridge University Press has released a report – Publishing futures: Working together to deliver radical change in academic publishing – calling for urgent, collective action to ensure academic publishing becomes more open, equitable and sustainable. The report draws on a global, community-led review and survey of more than 3,000 researchers, publishing partners, funders, librarians and publishers from 120 countries.
JB: CUP showcased the report at the Frankfurt Book Fair. You can read more here (Cambridge at Frankfurt 2025: open research, AI and publishing highlights) and here (Shaping the future of academic publishing: at Frankfurt 2025).
It’s clear we need alternatives or at least ways to improve the situation. So, together with a really special and talented team we worked to develop this idea into “qed” a platform where you can get CONSTRUCTIVE feedback on your own work or CRITICALLY assess other people’s papers. It can be a real difference maker if many of you join us (thousands have tried it already, but today we release a NEW and much stronger version ;) Let’s harness qed to put the power back in the scientists’ hands, to do, to read & to publish science on our own terms.
JB: You can find the q.e.d. platform here. Oded Rechavi, the academic behind q.e.d., has significant reach on social media. This new platform could be one to watch, although they’ll need to improve its precision by hiring a copy editor.
Tasks that once took months of manual work — from curating datasets and checking compliance to creating metadata and publishable outputs — are now completed in minutes by the AI Data Steward, powered by Senscience, the Frontiers venture behind FAIR².
JB: You can view Senscience here. The accompanying YouTube video helps to explain what the product is and the problem it aims to solve. Senscience has a Substack that you may want to subscribe to.
The AI Gateway employs advanced content transformation technology to convert scholarly and expert content into AI-optimized formats while preserving citation integrity, methodological context, and peer-review validation. This sophisticated enrichment process, combined with an endpoint built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), ensures that AI tools can effectively understand, synthesize, and cite research content with the accuracy and reliability that scientific discovery requires.
JB: Sage and the American Society for Microbiology, which use Wiley’s Atypon platform, have both signed up. Will the likes of Elsevier or Springer Nature want to take part? Unlikely.
Other news
Funders and government
Research funders urged to drive culture shift on negative results
Backing from high-profile funders or universities to counter the underreporting of negative research results could help drive a much-needed culture shift, according to the authors of a new paper. Such change could in turn help to increase public trust in research at a time when it is under pressure, said Stephen Curry, senior strategic adviser at the Research on Research Institute in the UK and one of the proponents of the push for change.
Company reports
BMJ Group unveils 2025 impact report, spotlighting global health influence and policy reach
The Office of Health Economics used BMJ Impact Analytics to show that 27% of its research was cited in policy, four times the global average, helping secure funding and demonstrate real world value.
JB: I read a lot of annual reports, which generally include an introduction from the organisation’s leader; unusually, this report doesn’t have any copy from the BMJ’s CEO. Furthermore, the report was originally press released in September, but the announcement appeared again on the corporate website, with a new date, last week.
This struck me as a bit odd, so I visited the masthead on the BMJ website. Sure enough, the BMJ Group currently has an interim CEO. When a non-executive director steps in to captain the ship it normally means that the CEO’s exit was unplanned. The previous incumbent departed suddenly too, I seem to recall. To lose one CEO may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.
2024 Annual Report - Digital Science
The report highlights our achievements in advancing open research practices, supporting the academic community, fostering research integrity, and championing sustainability.
JB: Daniel Hook, the CEO, wrote an introduction. Phew.
MDPI’s Newly Launched Journals in September 2025
Nine new journals covering a range of subjects launched their inaugural issues in September 2025. We are excited to be able to share with you the newest research rooted in the value of open access.
JB: MDPI publishes 480 peer-reviewed journals, and 9 conference journals, so these 9 new journals won’t make an immediate impact. You may remember that at the end of July MDPI announced that it had hired 2000 extra staff in the first 7 months of 2025, bringing the total to 8000 people.
Open access and open research
Enhancing Data Transparency: New Features for Confident Analysis
For any meaningful data analysis, context is everything. A consistent theme in the feedback from our user community has been the need for greater clarity around a chart’s source, scope, and methodology. We agree that without this crucial context, building trust and deriving deep insights can be a significant challenge.
Diamond Dreams, Unequal Realities: The Promise and Pitfalls of No-APC Open Access
The “no-fee” model often conceals significant costs. Editorial labor, copyediting, typesetting, hosting, preservation — none of these are free. When no revenue is collected from subscriptions or APCs, someone must absorb the expense. Often, that “someone” is a small editorial team working unpaid, a university department stretching its limited budget, or a scholarly society relying on volunteer time.
JB: This is a balanced overview of the challenges of Diamond OA journals.
Stop treating code like an afterthought: record, share and value it
As researchers and engineers with expertise in software development in various scientific domains — ranging from computer science to neuroscience, physics and chemistry — we have recently proposed an approach called ‘CODE beyond FAIR’ that outlines how software can be better handled, shared and maintained.
Publishing integrity
Sleuth loses paper for duplicate publication after flagging hundreds of untrustworthy articles
A sleuth who has identified several hundred articles describing clinical women’s health research with untrustworthy data, leading to nearly 300 retractions, has now lost one of his own papers for duplicate publication.
Controversial Paxil “Study 329” earns expression of concern after critic sues publisher
Despite these actions and other calls for retraction, the paper received its first mark this September, shortly after a lawsuit was filed against the journal’s owner, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Elsevier, which publishes the title.
Iraqi university forcing students to cite its journals to graduate
To earn their degrees, graduate students at the University of Technology in Baghdad not only must publish research in indexed journals. They also are required to cite articles in their school’s own publications, a document obtained by Retraction Watch shows.
New and updated guidelines for post-publication review (Committee on Publication Ethics)
Our hope with the guidance on retractions and expressions of concern is that they enable editors and publishers to navigate the complexities of post-publication amendment and have confidence to decide when a given amendment is necessary and what form it should take.
Signals Manuscript Checks now spot image integrity issues with Imagetwin partnership.
We’re pleased to announce a new partnership between Signals and Imagetwin that brings industry-leading image analysis into Signals Manuscript Checks. Alongside Signals analysis and Sleuth AI, publishers can now detect image duplications, manipulations, and AI-generated images, automatically within the Signals interface.
Peer review
Now you can review datasets on PREreview.org
Since April, we’ve been working with community members to develop the first of our new review workflows dedicated to open peer review of modular research outputs. These outputs include objects such as datasets, dynamic figures, and computational notebooks—research outcomes that sometimes stand alone, although they are also often and increasingly part of dynamic, web-first publications such as those on Curvenote.
Social media
Podcasts now count towards research impact in world first for Altmetric
In a major step forward for tracking the real-world impact of research, Digital Science today announces that Altmetric has added a new attention source: Podcasts. Altmetric is the first in the world to include podcasts among its measures of research impact.
Platforms and technology
From Prototypes to Production: How Silverchair’s AI Lab Became a Client Innovation Engine
The Playground made these successes possible. Rather than building AI solutions in isolation, we created hands-on sandbox environments where publishing teams could test multiple models, tune parameters, and simulate real-world workflows before committing to production.
Research4Life and CLOCKSS partner to link access with preservation
CLOCKSS is now extending its preservation service to the Research4Life Connector countries, with work already underway in the initial selected countries. The process begins by identifying aligned local publishers from these locations and collaborating with them to ensure the long-term preservation of their publications.
ARVO Selects KGL PubFactory for Journal Hosting and Publishing Platform
The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) has chosen KGL PubFactory, the online hosting division of KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. (KGL) as the new digital publishing platform and host for its portfolio of journals.
CACTUS partners with Emerald Publishing to enable seamless infographic purchases through ChronosHub
This collaboration expands the support available to authors publishing with Emerald by offering seamless access to infographic services that enhance research impact. As part of this partnership, authors will now have the option to see the price and purchase professionally designed infographics within the ChronosHub’s payment workflow.
GetFTR and the Web of Science Partner to Streamline Research Discovery and Access
As a result of this integration, GetFTR’s real-time entitlement checks enable the Web of Science to add full-text indicators, and smart links will be available within the Web of Science platform, helping researchers discover and access trusted full-text content more efficiently. The partnership also reflects the growing recognition of GetFTR’s role in the scholarly research ecosystem.
IEEE and Enago partner to provide bespoke technology for manuscript checking
Enago has entered an agreement with IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) to provide submission-checking technology using the Enago Reports platform. The first phase of the project will leverage the Language Quality Checks within Enago Reports to provide authors with customized guidance on improving the language of their manuscript.
Crossref as a source of open bibliographic metadata for preprints
Crossref is a crucial source of open bibliographic metadata for articles published in scientific journals. Importantly, however, Crossref can also serve as a source of bibliographic metadata for preprints. In this post, Van Eck and Waltman analyze the completeness of Crossref’s preprint metadata.
Artificial intelligence
AI bots wrote and reviewed all papers at this conference
Next week will see a first in computer science, with the launch of a scientific conference in which all of the papers — and all of the reviews — have been produced by machines. At the event known as Agents4Science 2025, to be held online on 22 October, the attendees will still be humans. It will feature presentations of the submitted papers — given either by the artificial intelligence (AI) agents themselves or by the humans who ran the experiments — and panel discussions by academics.
Three Years After the Launch of ChatGPT, Do We Know Where This Is Heading?
There were, and still are, strong concerns around attribution, the risk to copyright, hallucinations, low-quality content overload (aka slop); some even saw it as an existential threat to creativity itself. I acknowledge these risks, but I’m not overly concerned. Fear of risk shouldn’t prevent us from experimenting and innovating, instead they should be carefully monitored and mitigated.
JB: I’m overly concerned.
Are we teaching students AI competence or dependence?
Universities have rushed to embrace AI with workshops on prompt engineering and guidelines for “responsible use.” Yet we’ve overlooked a fundamental question: are these initiatives developing intellectual competence, or simply creating elaborate performances of learning? The evidence points strongly toward the latter.
Why AI transparency is not enough
One of the justifications given for GAIDeT [(Generative Artificial Intelligence Delegation Taxonomy] is that it does not burden researchers. However, by outsourcing brainstorming, drafting, writing, reading, translating, copyediting, etc., we deliberately deskill ourselves, harm our metacognitive abilities, and devalue essential competencies of academic research.
JB: Hear, hear!
The ever-changing communication of scientific discovery
In this view, it is easy to imagine that the future of the scientific article will be for papers to be written by machines to be read by machines. In such a case, one could imagine that the conventional storytelling that makes articles pleasurable to peruse could be bypassed in favour of clear and concise presentation of specific technical details.
Ian Mulvany spills the beans on where he is with AI right now – Genies, Bottles, and Capex
I’m convinced that these technologies are going to radically transform processes around the creation of knowledge, and in particular, academic papers. That will impact the industry that I work in. Much of the cost and infrastructure that scholarly publishing companies bear will need to shift to other ways of supporting the value chain.
DEIA
Despite an increase in recent decades, women are still underrepresented as authors in academic anesthesiology, particularly in leading authorship positions. While relevant differences between countries exist, strategies addressing this gender gap at a country-specific level are needed to promote female authorship in academic anesthesiology.
How journals can break down barriers for Latin American scientists
As a scientist and a woman born, educated and based in Latin America, I propose some steps that editors and publishers — the gatekeepers of publications, who are often scientists from the global north and haven’t experienced some of these barriers — can take to level the playing field.
Content sales and partnerships
Wolters Kluwer and Vanderbilt University collaborate on transformative medical research agreement
This collaboration gives Vanderbilt researchers seamless access to trusted, high-impact medical journals within the Lippincott portfolio while simplifying the path to open access publishing. Wolters Kluwer is committed to building a sustainable model that adapts to Vanderbilt’s evolving needs, supports both researchers and library priorities, and amplifies the global reach of their work. (Wolters Kluwer)
This collaboration includes all 13 JAMA Network journals, including JAMA, the world’s most widely circulated general medical journal. By leveraging Journal Home, the JAMA Network will expand international visibility and readership for its peer-reviewed titles and position its journals as a destination for high-impact articles from the global research community.
Careers
STM is hiring for two positions
(1) Manager / Director of Communications & Marketing – Lead STM’s communications and media strategy. (2) Manager / Senior Manager, Public Affairs (EU) – Represent STM in Brussels, engage with EU institutions, and help shape policy for research and innovation.
ALPSP International Mentorship Scheme awarded Mentorloop Impact Award 2025
We are delighted to announce that the ALPSP International Mentorship Scheme, sponsored by PLS, has received the prestigious Mentorloop Impact Award for the second consecutive year.
People
Drummond Rennie, who pioneered the scholarly examination of scientific publication and structured reporting, published his own “auto-obituary”—structured, of course—in The Lancet 29 years ago. Had he known about this tribute, he would surely have railed against redundant publication. An influential medical editor, Rennie served as President of both the World Association of Medical Editors and the Council of Scientific Editors, founded the International Congresses on Peer Review and Scientific Publication, and was a recipient of the AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility. Over decades he improved the integrity of biomedical research and the standards for peer review and publication, including reporting guidelines.
JB: Drummond was one of my editorial heroes. His famous 1986 quote seems more relevant now than ever:
There are scarcely any bars to eventual publication. There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature citation too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.
Geoffrey’s impact at Crossref is difficult to overstate. He brought a level of foresight and conceptual clarity that elevated the organization from infrastructure provider to trusted steward of the scholarly record. He understood that trust in scholarship depends not just on access, but on durable, transparent systems. He knew how to link metadata with meaning, and how to build infrastructure that signals credibility, supports researcher identity, and facilitates verification and discovery.
JB: This quote comes from Amy Brand, the Director and Publisher of MIT Press. Last week she announced that Geoffrey is leaving Crossref to join MIT Press. His contribution to our community has been immense over the years.
Videos and podcasts
Abhi Arun — Midnight at the Casablanca
Abhi Arun took over as the CEO of the publishing services company TNQ in 2016 and led the company to a successful exit in 2014. Following the sale, Abhi took on a new role as CEO of Enago as well as its parent company Crimson Interactive.
Miscellaneous
Senior editors Phil B Fontanarosa, Annette Flanagin, and Philip Greenland and 21 other contributors with extensive biomedical publication and editorial experience offer a glimpse into the mind of an editor, providing practical insights into the writing and publication process. The book aims to help authors, novice or expert, navigate the scientific publication process and improve their writing and manuscript preparation skills.
And finally…
I’ve always wanted this newsletter to be more than a broadcast. You can now leave a comment (or ‘like’ or ‘restack’) on this issue of the newsletter. You can also read the Notes I write (which are a bit like tweets) or ask a question in the Journalology Chat.
Until next time,
James
This is awesome, James! Congratulations on the migration. Finally the world feels right again with Journalology in my inbox (and now my SubStack)!