in sum: it's cool to see how a meta-scientific self-evaluation system keeps effectively adapting to the world around it, is epistemically based on multiple types & sources of knowledge (incl actual research), and does its best to serve the scientific community and its funder (society)
as a solution to more clearly assessing MDPI, frontiers etc for levels O/1 we now have a solid list of features to consult (use translate again) -- visibly, this is basically a list of things that MDPI/frontiers need to change if they want to return to 1 🔥🔥🔥
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Tarkistuslista: Tieteellisten lehtien laadunarviointikäytäntöjen puutteet
Tarkistuslista: Tieteellisten lehtien laadunarviointikäytäntöjen puutteet Kutsut Tutkijoita lähestytään toistuvasti sähköpostitse kirjoittajiksi, arvioijiksi tai toimittajiksi ilman heidän omaa aloite...
docs.google.com
then some truly sensible discussion about MDPI & frontiers, as usual -- you should first read @jpolonen.bsky.social 's highly informative post about how/why things have moved, use translate if you don't read FI
blogs.helsinki.fi/thinkopen/vu...
blogs.helsinki.fi/thinkopen/vu...
Suurin osa MDPI:n ja Frontiersin lehdistä Jufon nollatasolle – miten arviointia tehdään ja miten lehdissä julkaisseet näkevät tilanteen?
Kaikkiaan 271 MDPI- ja Frontiers-kustantajien lehteä pudotettiin vuoden 2025 alusta Julkaisufoorumin tasoluokkaan 0 osana harmaalla alueella toimivien lehtien arviointia. Voidaanko yksittäisen lehden ...
blogs.helsinki.fi
there's also a plan to provide a bonus for universities publishing in diamond journals -- not sure how this will play out but could be very welcome if it's implemented in the right way (i've personally always called for open/published review bonuses but they're not mentioned)
another fun update is to block closed society journals from level 2 if membership is required for some submissions -- not sure who it'll be interpreted but likely (hopefully) it means that journals like PNAS go down to basic level 1 too
starting 2026 the ranking will go from 0-1-2-3 to O-1-2 where O=unranked 1=basic 2=good journals, and to be a good journal it must offer *immediate* OA -- hence, eg all nature portfolio journals seem to go down to basic 1 (!)
The meeting notes of this autumn's JUFO board meeting are out & can say these are the most interesting meta-science published every time they come out (highlights🧵)
julkaisufoorumi.fi/sites/defaul...
julkaisufoorumi.fi/sites/defaul...
https://julkaisufoorumi.fi/sites/default/files/2025-10/Julkaisufoorumin_f_ohjausryhmän%20pöytäkirja_08092025.pdf
this is also something to keep in mind for all revolutionary new publication formats: never end up in a situation where the majority serves a single institution/org but seek ways to ensure sustainable diversity
one might think "sure that's a problem" but personally i'd say that's rather the solution: when critical decisions need to be made (think of pubpeer criticism etc), if the entire board serves a traded stock price, this isn't a good basis for scientific decision making
by Veli‐Matti Karhulahti — Reposted by Matti Vuorre
a nice consequence of this rule is that nature journals like the new "nature cities" is classified to level 0 with predatory journals, as the entire board comes from springer nature
www.nature.com/natcities/
www.nature.com/natcities/
Nature Cities
Nature Cities features timely and impactful cutting-edge research, opinion, and ideas relevant to urbanisation and understanding the role of cities in our ...
www.nature.com
this is actually quite sensible: you don't want closed circles to make publication/reject decisions -- and while there are many types of circles for sure, this isn't the worst way to prevent circle-forming
Been this year in the JUFO panel evaluating journals & learned some interesting things, such as: the criterion that a journal to qualify for any formal recognition it needs a board with ppl representing diverse institutions /3
Finally, someone has solved a real problem with AI! No more having to take a paper in the format for a journal that rejected you, and reformat it for a new journal. Well done!! formatmypaper.com
this would be a core RQ for whoever work on new meta-infrastructures, I don't think it's impossible but it needs some dedicated work at some point!
Yep, that's where everyone agrees i think; the BS needs to go & we need to build better system(s)-- that's also the difficult part: how to distribute knowledge in some efficient + reasonable way, knowing that knowledge won't distribute itself well
of course agreeing 99% & having already spent way too many hours of this short life to make some change to better, but as always, need to reserve that 1% for some pushback
bsky.app/profile/mkar...
bsky.app/profile/mkar...
Didn't read all but seems v ambitious eg "Ministry of Education and Culture will convene a strategic group to develop an internationally competitive operational environment for responsible openness in research through the vision for higher education and research [&] permanent operational structures"
this is technically a health journal i guess but if anyone is curious what the discourse looks like, the below debate paper generated several commentaries
doi.org/10.1111/camh...
doi.org/10.1111/camh...
<em>Child and Adolescent Mental Health</em> | ACAMH Journal | Wiley Online Library
Should academics collaborate with social media and gaming companies to identify and reduce mental health impacts on children and young people? While opinions on this question sharply diverge within t....
doi.org
in this mess, in the end, the antidote is ofc active reflexivity (for everyone: authors, editors, readers) but that's hard and comes only by slow culture evolution & change
at the same time when ppl don't know how & what COIs to report (if it's allowed) the COI -- extremely rare -- is also a huge red flag for readers who, in turn, don't know to read COIs either (and who does anyway)
on the other hand, 99% of related research has zero market impact-- typically works address curiosities of player behaviour, cultural trends, and all sorts analysis simply interested in how the world works; the logical standard for journals is to not even offer COI sections
example: scientific games research is often done in game design departments, the existence of which depends on industry success & most students are for industry careers-- essentially, all tenured researchers there have chronic COIs
How COIs operate in social science & humanities is a huge topic that few talk about, not least as it's damn difficult grasp the tons of variation in RQs, epistemologies, and histories of fields --
by Sebastian Karcher — Reposted by Veli‐Matti Karhulahti
There are very little norms about this in social science IME. At least in my areas of it, industry funding is, comparatively, so rare, that it doesn't figure prominently in training or guidance, so people literally don't know whether to disclose affiliation or funding source twice.
the latter, ie order things by true deadlines and importance! (sadly, these days many things with deadlines & importance tend to be below 30min tho..)
I'd distinguish between general statistical effects (they're everywhere for sure) & those of psych like macbeth (which come with one-off narrative theories)-- there's nothing wrong with effects as long as we acknowledge their function isn't intrinsic but instrumental :)
"Subjectively, the surface of human behavior is phenomenology; objectively it is meaning. Commitment to phenomenology and meaning, despite their scientific impenetrability, is the indelible mark of a human science."
Priority list helps me a lot-- what matters (for diverse reasons) goes on top regardless of task size & makes easier to push the rest aside
it's likely possible to find individual cases from any field but personally wouldn't think psych is comparable to medicine and certainly cannot see anthropology via this lens at all -- but I guess any comparison is an empirical question in the end!
looking at psych and related fields that have evolved from abstract theorising & qualitative work to experiments, the strong need to identify as 'science' and active distancing from the past likely keeps them stuck with the status quo for a long while still