PLOScast

Science is self-correcting in nature, but the mechanism for correcting the literature could be more transparent. In 2010, Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus recognized this transparency issue and launched the blog Retraction Watch to shed light on what happened with these retracted research articles. In this episode of PLOScast, Ivan and Elizabeth Seiver talk about Retraction Watch and how retractions can sometimes provide valuable insight into the scientific process.

Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are leading the way when it comes to challenging traditional approaches to scientific research and publishing, but achieving buy-in from senior investigators and peer scientists isn’t always easy. Jessica Polka would know, as an early career researcher (ECR) and the director of the ASAPbio initiative, her career is devoted to achieving and streamlining the use of preprints in biology.

In episode 26 of PLOScast, I chat with Polka about preprints as a tool for science communication, as well as her career trajectory thus far and how she deals with feelings of imposter syndrome.

How do physicians access medical research at the point of care? Furthermore, how does the general public access and interpret this research, including the use of newspapers and Wikipedia? In this week’s PLOSCast, Elizabeth dives into these questions with Lauren Maggio, Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Good research should be replicable, but there are various issues that can impact reproducibility in science. In this PLOSCast, Elizabeth discusses some of these issues with Michèle Nuijten, a PhD Student at Tilburg University. Her research focuses on meta-science, covering topics such as replication, publication bias, statistical errors, and questionable research practices. She talks about the importance of checking statistics in psychology research, the impact that statistics have on replication, and some tools, like statcheck, that can be used to help with this work.

For more information and related links, please see the blog post: http://blogs.plos.org/plospodcasts/2017/08/07/check-your-stats-an-interview-featuring-michele-nuijten/

How big is Big Data, and how does it apply to the realm of social sciences? In this latest PLOSCast episode, Elizabeth explores that question with Ian Mulvany, the Head of Product Innovation at SAGE Publications. They discuss his journey from astrophysics into scientific publishing, transitioning from editorial into product management. He describes his passion for investigating ways to use technology to improve the research process, and how Big Data can add new instruments to social sciences. Finally, they consider how change is made in scholarly publishing and what that could look like in the future.

Access related links on our blog: http://blogs.plos.org/plospodcasts/2017/07/07/big-data-in-the-social-sciences-an-interview-featuring-ian-mulvany/

In this PLOScast, Elizabeth interviews Bob Kasenchak, the Director of Product Development at Access Innovations, about how taxonomies help organize and find content, in scholarly publishing and beyond.

Sharing research can be challenging. In this episode Erin shares with Elizabeth her journey to Open Access, what the difference is between Open Access and Open Research and explains her Open Research Project.

Communication and critique are important for the public understanding of and progress in science. In this PLOSCast, Elizabeth speaks with Hilda Bastian, an Editor at PubMed Commons. She connects her current work at PubMed Commons and her previous experience as a consumer health advocate in Australia to the importance of communication and critique of science in the public sphere. As she says, “If we want to have scientific communities where [people] have an equal chance of being heard, we have to have a standard of communication that allows people to feel comfortable raising a question and not getting attacked for it.” In the interview, she offers some advice for reporters and advocates for communicating science to the general public and to other scientists.

Read the full show notes and explore related links here: http://blogs.plos.org/plospodcasts/2017/03/28/science-communication-and-critique-an-interview-featuring-hilda-bastian/

How might access to these research articles impact the use of Wikipedia and how might Wikipedia in turn impact science? In this PLOScast, Elizabeth Seiver speaks with Jake Orlowitz, the founder of Wikipedia Library, a program from the Wikimedia Foundation that helps editors access reliable sources to improve Wikipedia.

Read the full show notes and explore related links here: http://blogs.plos.org/plospodcasts/2017/02/22/accessing-academic-sources-on-wikipedia-an-interview-featuring-jake-orlowitz/

In this episode Eamon Duede, the Executive Director of Knowledge Lab at the University of Chicago, speaks with Elizabeth about the latest modeling research using big data to understand behaviors and patterns surrounding manuscript review. This is the second part of a two-part series discussing how the use of large-scale computation helps researchers understand how humans create knowledge.

In this episode they discuss:

- The profile of a reviewer most likely to accept a review

- Who is most likely to provide a quality review

- What aspects of an article make it more likely to be accepted or rejected

- Seven things you should pay attention to in order to improve your manuscript’s acceptance rate

- How bias impacts peer review