Learn more about the new ICMJE recommendations, Highly Cited Researchers from Clarivate, and Public Domain Day.
ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals
The ICMJE updated the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals as of January 2025. An annotated PDF version with the new changes is here. One of the new recommendations for authors is:
- Authors are responsible for citing references accurately and should be able to attest that the references cited support the associated statement. References should be verified using a bibliographic source such as PubMed or original sources.
The recommendations also note that using AI-generated material as a primary source is not acceptable.
In addition, the ICMJE published a separate editorial highlighting the dangers posed by predatory and pseudo-journals, “Predatory Journals: What Can We Do to Protect Their Prey?“
The Highly Cited Researchers™ list for 2024 from Clarivate™
The Highly Cited Researchers list for 2024 from Clarivate was released in November 2024. The list identifies authors who have demonstrated significant influence through publication of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% for field and publication year over an 11-year period, 2013 to 2023. Of the approximately 6,636 authors identified for the list for 2024, nearly 50 are from Washington University. Some authors were noted for exceptional performance in several fields.
- Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers list Evaluation and Selection
Public Domain Day
January 1, 2025 was Public Domain day. Titles published in 1929 are now in the public domain in the United States, including more than 76,720 items in the HathiTrust collection. The digital library of 18+ million digitized items brings together the collections of more than 60 academic and research libraries from across North America and other countries.
Readings:
Ioannidis JP. Transparency, bias, and reproducibility across science: a meta-research view. J Clin Invest. 2024 Nov 15;134(22):e181923. doi: 10.1172/JCI181923. PMID: 39545412; PMCID: PMC11563668.
Retraction Watch. Exclusive: New hijacking scam targets Elsevier, Springer Nature, and other major publishers. November 25, 2024.
Elsevier Scopus. The importance of Scopus content certification. November 26, 2024. Learn about Scopus’ decision to remove eLife from indexing as a journal: “eLife will be taken out of the Scopus journal collection and will no longer be included in journal metrics and rankings.” To read eLife’s response to the decision, see: Changes to eLife’s indexing status in Web of Science and Scopus. December 10, 2024.
Joelving F. Shoddy commentaries—a quick and dirty route to higher impact numbers—are on the rise. ScienceInsider. December 17, 2024.
Soliman A. ‘Precocious’ early-career scientists with high citation counts proliferate. Nature News. January 3, 2025.
The PREreview Open Reviewers Toolkit has been updated. The toolkit has three components:
- Reviewer Guide – provides a framework for reviewing a manuscript and writing a review.
- Bias Reflection Guide – helps reviewers assess their own biases before beginning a review of a manuscript.
- Review Assessment Rubric – helps reviewers self-evaluate their reviews.
Palmer K. FDA’s new guidance on AI in drug development centers the risk introduced by the technology. STAT News. January 6, 2025.
Chawla DS. ‘WithdrarXiv’ database of 14,000 retracted preprints launches. Nature News. January 6, 2025