Category Archives: science publishing

#Evol2013: Home from Snowbird

On balance, Snowbird, Utah was a pretty great place to hang out with a whole bunch of biologists for five days. This was my sixth Evolution meeting, and I think it was the first one where I’d just about entirely … Continue reading

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2012 Impact Factors – Mol Ecol does well, ME Resources blows the roof off

When ME Resources switched to publishing Primer Notes in a summary article back in 2009, I had a strong hunch that our 2012 Impact Factor could go up quite a bit – this is the first year that the IF … Continue reading

Posted in Impact Factors, Molecular Ecology, the journal, peer review, science publishing | 2 Comments

Well, at least we've got the President on our side

Follow-up about yesterday’s fretting about Congresspeople wanting to interfere with peer review at the National Science Foundation: President Obama was asked about this yesterday at an event celebrating the 150th anniversary of the National Academy of Sciences—and he looks to … Continue reading

Posted in peer review, politics, United States | Tagged | 1 Comment

A tale of two Dryad submissions

As it happens, the last two scientific papers I’ve had accepted for publication are also the first two papers for which my first-authorial duties included some substantial journal-mandated archiving of supporting data (beyond uploading a handful of DNA sequences to … Continue reading

Posted in data archiving, peer review | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Mol Ecol's best reviewers

A healthy peer review system is essential for the integrity of science, but the anonymity of the process means that good reviewers seldom get recognition from the broader community. This is particularly a problem for junior researchers trying to get … Continue reading

Posted in community, science publishing | Tagged | 6 Comments

Best Practices for Scientific Computing…And Molecular Ecology?

Source: http://xkcd.com/292 *Update* Best Practices in Computing has now been published in PLoS Biology! Computers and computational techniques have significantly advanced the molecular ecologist’s toolbox for answering interesting and complex questions about a range of biological systems,  model or otherwise. Imagine, … Continue reading

Posted in bioinformatics, data archiving, population genetics, science publishing, software | Tagged | 1 Comment

Let's push things forward

We at Molecular Ecology think archiving data at publication is really important, chiefly because it means that all these amazing datasets are preserved for future generations of researchers. Who knows what questions they’ll be asking fifty years from now? (That, … Continue reading

Posted in data archiving, science publishing | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Do famous researchers have biased perceptions of peer review?

I thought some of you would be interested in this: http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/02/01/the-famous-grouse-do-prominent-scientists-have-biased-perceptions-of-peer-review/…

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When should you make a complaint?

I’m writing this post with some trepidation, as dealing with complaints is the most difficult part of being an editor. However, I think there is much to be gained from bringing some clarity to the process and by giving a … Continue reading

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Some overdue thoughts on impact factors

OK, I know this is late (they were released in July!), but the recent editorial board meeting in Tübingen forced me to put the vague thoughts I had about the 2010 impact factors into actual words and pictures: Molecular Ecology … Continue reading

Posted in science publishing | 3 Comments