Latest content

An Unnecessary evil

By Bertil F. Dorch og Charlotte Wien

The purpose of the peer review is to ensure that nothing that does not have sufficient scientific quality finds its way into the columns of the scientific journals. The peer review process found this form around 1950, and so far only a single of Albert Einstein's more than 300 scientific works underwent peer review (which made him complain to the editor)[In danish] … Continue reading Continue reading →

Comments on “Factors affecting global flow of scientific knowledge in environmental sciences” by Sonne et al.

By Bertil F Dorch, Charlotte Wien, Jonathan P Tennant, Olivier Pourret, Dasapta Erwin Irawan, Jonathan P Tennant

There are major challenges that need to be addressed in the world of scholarly communication, especially in the field of environmental studies and in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Recently, Sonne et al. (2020) published an article in Science of the Total Environment discussing some of these challenges. However, we feel that many of the arguments misrepresent critical elements of Open Access (OA), Plan S, and broader issues in scholarly publishing. … Continue reading Continue reading →

Effective publication strategies in Clinical Research

By Bertil F. Dorch, Charlotte Wien, Daniella Bayle Deutz*, Dorte Drongstrup, Evgenios Vlachos

Researchers are increasingly being assessed by the height of their h-index, h. To guide researchers on the publication strategies most likely to lead to an improvement in h, we analyzed the research output of the Department of Clinical Research at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU). Our aim is to investigate the importance of the following seven variables in their academic careers: h-index, number of publications, number of citations, international collaborations, local collaborations, field specific journal publishing and high journal impact factor journal publishing. … Continue reading Continue reading →

Poisonous books

By Jakob Povl Holck, Bertil F. Dorch,, Bjarke Jørgensen, Alexandra Alvis, Vanessa Haight Smith, Gwenaelle M. Kavich, Kimberly A Harmon, Thomas Delbey, Kaare Lund Rasmussen

Efforts to read medieval manuscript waste recycled as bookbinding material in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have resulted in the chemical analysis of four books housed at the University Library of Southern Denmark and the Smithsonian Libraries in Washington DC. Four green coloured book bindings have been investigated by optical microscopy, micro X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy, and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. … Continue reading Continue reading →

Old Book Covers and their Stories: The medieval parchments on two Tycho Brahe First-Editions

By Jakob Povl Holck og Steffen Hope

The authors of the article analyze two medieval manuscript fragments, attached to the binding of Tycho Brahe’s Epistolarum astronomicarum libri (1596, Rara L 31, University Library of Southern Denmark) and De nova stella (1573, J.1, Karen Brahes Bibliotek, Roskilde Kloster/Roskilde Bibliotekerne) respectively. [In danish] … Continue reading Continue reading →

Access for all

By Charlotte Wien & Asger Væring Larsen

Our peer reviewer was thrilled. He called our article 'excellent' and gave it top marks for originality, described it as 'a significant contribution to the field of research', praised it for its clarity and for the deep insight into the research field that the text reflected. However, one cannot fully understand the reviewer's enthusiasm when considering the content the article. [In danish] … Continue reading Continue reading →

A shift of paradigm much needed in Academia

By Charlotte Wien & Bertil F. Dorch

The Danish Research and Education Libraries pay each year, in the nearly 40.000.000 Euro to what one could call a "para-academic industry" for access to the scientific literature and for data on research production. Our mother institutions - the universities – probably pays even more to these companies: First, they pay the salaries and operating expenses for the researchers enabling them to produce scientific literature, which they then give free of charge to the scientific publishers. [In danish] … Continue reading Continue reading →