David Mellor

The proliferation of digital tools has brought more opportunities than ever to document and open up the research process. At the same time, research cultures have been shifting from the 'publish or perish' paradigm towards openness and transparency. In particular, the ability to reproduce results to confirm their reliability is evolving to become a more established part of the research process: there is agreement that reproducible research practices can enable scientific development and enhance trust in science. We will share stories from academics, librarians, infrastructure providers and publishers to discuss practices and barriers around research reproducibility. Our session will address a variety of research objects relevant across disciplines –for example, methodologies, research data, and code, plus their role in enhancing trust in the published record. By providing insights at the policy and operational levels, we will help all stakeholders involved advance their understanding and practical involvement in reproducible publication practices.

The value of accurate, timely, and effective science communication to the public is undisputed, especially considering the devastation caused by misinformation during the pandemic. The entire scientific process is now under ever greater public scrutiny, and science communication professionals find themselves walking a tightrope to retain or gain back public trust. As science media and scholarly publishing organizations worldwide refine their efforts to communicate science to lay audiences, ethical considerations are bound to arise. These go beyond the given issues of accuracy and impartiality, and include cryptic questions around preprints for clinical trials, the timing of clinical study disclosure to mainstream media, and how to display confidence in research findings while stating caveats. In this session, publishing and science communication specialists will share different strategies they use to ensure ethical research communication, with the ultimate goal of helping viewers audit and refine their own organization's communication policies and practices.

Peer review continues to be an essential part of the formal publication process; however, scholarly research is in a constant state of development. In the last few years, there has been a wave of innovation in peer review research, platforms, discussions, tools, and services, coupled with the ongoing and parallel evolution of scholarly communication as it potentially adjusts to various “open science” initiatives. Check out this interactive session as we explore badging as transparency indicators, the impact of peer-reviewing preprints, and utilizing communities to separate process from the publication workflow.