Advancing peer review: a Q&A with Adam Etkin of PRE We recently spoke with Adam Etkin,  Founder and Managing Director of PRE, a division of STRIATUS.  Adam is a veteran of the publishing industry and  formed PRE to assist members of the scholarly publishing community who are committed to preserving an ethical, rigorous peer review process. Q. Can you tell us about your background and your…

Understanding the world of statisticsThere is an old joke which asks how many types of statistician are there, and the reply is "Three: those that can count and those that can’t" (this only properly works if the questioner is in fact a statistician). In fact, there are many more types than that and understanding what they do and how…

The top dos and don'ts for your first month of grad school in a research labWell newbie, you’ve found a place to live, and a place to sit. Now what? The Dos 1.  Meet with your advisor Go meet the boss - just be prepared that your advisor may be extremely busy with: finishing up summer projects, post-conference politicking, and/or prepping for the course that starts a week earlier than…

Adapt, reinvent, evolve: a conversation with librarian Elizabeth LorbeerQ. Can you tell us about your background and your current role? A. I have been a practicing biomedical sciences librarian for 19 years, and my expertise is in building library collections.   I am the founding library director of the newest digital medical library in North America at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School…

The transition to Creative Commons 4.0 licensesAuthors wishing to publish their articles on an open access basis in Wiley journals can choose from a range of Creative  Commons licenses, whether they publish in our fully open access journals or select Online Open for our subscription journals. Unless a specific CC license is required under a funder mandate, authors are able to…

How to write a grant applicationMost researchers in health and science come across grant applications at some point in their careers. In fact, many positions depend on them, whether they are doctoral students who require fellowships, postgraduates setting up relatively simple projects as they start employment, ormore senior staff who need to have a steady stream of research projects. Although…

Current Protocols: a tool for consistency and reliability in your researchA major concern of researchers is the reproducibility of experimental results. Earlier this year, Francis Collins and Lawrence Tabak discussed the steps the NIH was considering to address consistency and reproducibility in biomedical research.  They noted that many factors have contributed to this problem, including poor training of researchers in experimental design and limitations in…

Simplification, education, transparency: ISMTE North American Conference 2014"Even Einstein benefited from the peer review process," said Adam Etkin, of PRE (Peer Review Evaluation) and Social Cite, while speaking at this year’s North American conference for the International Association of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE). During his presentation on the systems he has worked hard to develop—PRE-val/PRE-score and Social Cite—he shared an article…

The evolution of author guidelinesThe post below was originally published on the Wiley Open Access website. Congratulations are due to PeerJ for succeeding in bringing into focus an essential publisher service that has been little publicized in the past. The journal opened for submissions on December 3rd ­2012, and many tweets and blogs were spawned by the following passage in…

The power of a hashtag: Twitter tools you need to know aboutIt’s safe to say that the explosion of social media has done the world of research a great service - not least in the way it’s transforming how we discover, digest and collaborate with each other on all things scholarly. Indeed, we’re now at the stage where we could feasibly question just how we ever…