NEWS
Penelope wins Digital Science grant
Digital Science has awarded a ‘Catalyst Grant’ to Penelope, an ‘automated manuscript scrutiniser’ that ensures the drafts that authors submit to their publishers are perfect. The Catalyst Grant programme helps incubator companies or individuals with an innovative idea to support scientific research to develop their initiative, by awarding a monetary grant. Apart from the financial backing, Digital Science will provide a home for Penelope’s staff at its base in London’s King’s Cross and the expertise needed to bring the product to market. The programme, founded and run by Digital Science, a business division of
Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and a leading technology incubator focused on jumpstarting innovation in the research community, aims to support and invest in early stage, innovative scientific software ideas with an award of up to £15,000 each to the most promising ideas for novel uses of information technology in science. It has awarded more than £65,000 in grants to date. Penelope’s aim is to improve scientific research by providing a commercially viable way for journals to enforce good scientific practice and adhere to mandates set by funders. The automated tool screens manuscripts for common reporting errors and helps researchers improve their work before submitting it to a journal. It suggests improvements, tells authors why they are important and shares links to further resources.
Publons deal gives peer review credit on MDPI journals
Publons, the peer review recognition platform, and open- access publisher Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) have entered into a partnership to give credit to peer reviewers for 55 MDPI journals. Peer reviewers at participating MDPI journals now have the option to automatically receive recognition for their peer review contributions on the Publons platform.
Publons works with peer reviewers, editors, and academic journals to motivate reviewers by giving credit for peer review. Established in 2013, the company provides a way for peer reviewers to get credit for their contributions (without breaking reviewer anonymity) in a format they can include in employment
and funding applications. MDPI AG is an open-access publisher established in 1996. It publishes more than 120 peer- reviewed academic journals, and are members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM), and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA).
Martyn Rittman of MDPI said of the partnership: ‘MDPI is delighted to be working with Publons to recognise the hard work of our reviewers. Reviewing is often done behind closed doors and is an under-appreciated part of the editorial process. However, the comments of the many volunteer reviewers we work with
is vital for ensuring the quality of research published in MDPI journals. ‘We believe that Publons offers the right balance between recognition and confidentiality, and we hope that this step will go a small way towards giving something back to our hard- working reviewers.’ Publons CEO Andrew Preston added: ‘We’re excited to partner with MDPI to provide MDPI reviewers with greater recognition for their peer review and bring greater transparency to the peer review process (without breaking reviewer anonymity). The expectation is that giving credit for peer review will result in an improved peer review process for the participating journals.’
CLA deal with NHS ‘simplifies access to material’
The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) has announced a deal with the Department of Health (DoH) that will simplify access to content for all staff of the NHS in England as well as employees in other bodies.
The partnership includes access to DRM-free articles from the British Library, one of the largest document collections in the world. It covers every aspect of scientific, technical, healthcare and human knowledge, in many languages and holds journals, books, conference documents, reports, patents and theses, as well as official publications and images. CLA has also granted
permission for staff of the NHS in England to share information with other organisations that hold a CLA licence, allowing
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the effective transfer of ideas and content.
Mat Pfleger, managing director of CLA, commented: ‘We consulted with the NHS to better understand their needs and worked with them and the British Library to establish a licence package that supports
their digital strategy. This project contains many “firsts” and these unique features have all been developed with the NHS’ unique requirements in mind. This agreement demonstrates our ability to provide innovative solutions to meet our clients’ needs.’
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