Chris Leonard
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hoohar.bsky.social
Chris Leonard
@hoohar.bsky.social
350 followers 480 following 77 posts
Academic publishing, peer review, AI, NLP, deSci & other niche interests (MFC). Subscribe to Scalene newsletter here: https://scalene-peer-review.beehiiv.com
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Reposted by Chris Leonard
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
acampbelteacher.bsky.social
The importance of scientific sleuthing (although, why was this paper published at all?)

Apple Cider Vinegar For Weight Loss - A Study That May Never Have Happened At All open.substack.com/pub/gidmk/p/...
Apple Cider Vinegar For Weight Loss - A Study That May Never Have Happened At All
Some fascinating insights into the world of scientific integrity.
open.substack.com
October 29, 2025 at 5:53 AM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
easeeditors.bsky.social
EASE have contributed to an @editageinsights.bsky.social article for #OpenAccessWeek

Read comments from @ivagaeditor.bsky.social, @dnjournals.bsky.social @roohighosh.bsky.social @rachinams.bsky.social and @hoohar.bsky.social on the meanings of community impact

www.editage.com/insights/ope...
Shared Knowledge, Shared Impact: A New Era for Research Evaluation | Editage Insights
This Open Access Week, experts explore how the research community can move beyond journal impact factors to measure real-world, community-driven impact through openness and equity.
www.editage.com
October 27, 2025 at 11:41 AM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
sungkim.bsky.social
Mathematical discovery in the age of artificial intelligence

They consider how artificial intelligence tools are reshaping the way mathematical research is conducted and discuss how future developments of this technology will transform mathematical practice.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Mathematical discovery in the age of artificial intelligence - Nature Physics
In this comment, we consider how artificial intelligence tools are reshaping the way mathematical research is conducted and discuss how future developments of this technology will transform mathematical practice.
www.nature.com
October 6, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
hormiga.bsky.social
Y'all. I just got ChatGPT to do everything in R for this manuscript. I mean EVERYTHING. And it's all legit and reproducible. I'm shook.

How are we mentoring our trainees in statistics now? Who needs to learn coding in R line by line, and who doesn't?

scienceforeveryone.science/statistics-i...
Statistics in the era of AI
How do we mentor, teach, and do stats when AI can do so much of the work?
scienceforeveryone.science
October 9, 2025 at 2:23 AM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
emollick.bsky.social
My co-author Lennart Meincke had GPT-5 Pro look over a paper before we submitted it to a journal. It caught a tiny error in the citations that we missed (apparently it estimated the volume)

A big difference from constant hallucinations, especially GPT5 Pro; though not error-free.
October 3, 2025 at 12:40 AM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
scientificdiscovery.dev
In general I think it's hard to combat scientific misinformation when some of the best research is locked behind an academic paywall, while lots of nonsense gets published free for everyone to read in predatory journals.
September 28, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
gracekind.net
This is why I say patience is key when working with language models. If the output is directionally correct, or even just wrong in an interesting way, let it keep iterating and see where it goes!

scottaaronson.blog?p=9183
September 28, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
We need new rules for publishing AI-generated research. The teams developing automated AI scientists have customarily submitted their papers to standard refereed venues (journals and conferences) and to arXiv. Often, acceptance has been treated as the dependent variable. 1/
September 14, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
doctorzen.net
#PredatoryJournals just look different.

But the biggest difference in #GraphicDesign was that PDFs from legitimate journals were much more likely to be made with Adobe apps.

PDFs from predatory journals much more likely to be made with Microsoft Office.

doi.org/10.1007/s111...
Evaluating the visual design of science publications—a quantitative approach comparing legitimate and predatory journal papers - Scientometrics
The rise of predatory publishing poses a significant challenge to the integrity of scientific research, potentially undermining the credibility of scholarly communications. As parts of the academic co...
doi.org
September 10, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
alttexthalloffame.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy
Everyone wins!

#alttext #accessibility
A variation of the "Epic Handshake" meme from the 1987 sci-fi movie Predator, showing a close-up of four men (instead of the original 2) greeting each other with an arm-wrestle handshake. Each arm is labeled with the following text: - Blind and vision-impaired people - People with temporarily impaired vision - People with slow internet connection - People wondering WTF they're looking at The words "alt text" are shown in the center where all four hands meet.
September 7, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
cactusglobal.bsky.social
Partnership Alert!

Cactus Communications has partnered with CSIRO Publishing, Australia’s leading science publisher, to support authors with access to expert language and writing services through our flagship brand, Editage.

Read the full announcement here: cactusglobal.com/media-center...
September 3, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
scholarlypub.bsky.social
Guest Post – Code Plagiarism and AI Create New Challenges for Publishing Integrity - The Scholarly Kitchen
Guest Post – Code Plagiarism and AI Create New Challenges for Publishing Integrity - The Scholarly Kitchen
This post explores author, reviewer, and publisher ethics and responsibilities related to the use of AI in coding and publishing research software.
scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org
August 29, 2025 at 7:37 PM
hoohar.bsky.social
I'm going to be in Chicago the first week of September - come and find me and talk peer review, the ethics & implementation of AI, and turning submission backlogs into $$$.
cactusglobal.bsky.social Cactus Communications @cactusglobal.bsky.social · Aug 22
Christopher Leonard and Chirag Jay Patel are heading to the International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication 2025 in Chicago this September.

Meet them at Booth 4 as they connect with peers on strengthening peer review, editorial workflows and research integrity.
August 22, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
mikemorrison.bsky.social
💯 This is exactly what I've been trying to say in like 100 workshops and videos on research posters.

State a conclusion, then defend it.

Versus working up to it over 500 words that people won't spend the time to read.
shinyblackshoe.bsky.social ShinyBlackShoe (Calum Polwart) @shinyblackshoe.bsky.social · Aug 10
Interesting article suggesting we turn all of what we are taught in academia about how to write stuff on its head...

I think this is exactly the sort of thing @mikemorrison.bsky.social et al have been saying with posters. While there is "logic" to how we learn to do it, if your audience hasn't...
August 18, 2025 at 4:48 AM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
katiecorker.bsky.social
My conclusion from this is that preprint servers (and journals!) are entering a new phase of cat and mouse trying to contain AI slop (n.b., not mundane AI use, but nonsense generation). Peer review as a filter scarcely does better to ID this stuff. We need new & better tools to ID trustworthy works.
richvn.bsky.social Richard Van Noorden @richvn.bsky.social · Aug 12
Preprint servers are strugging with an influx of AI content. "How do you do quality assurance while keeping things relatively light touch so the system doesn’t collapse on itself?"
by Traci Watson | @nature.com

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
AI content is tainting preprints: how moderators are fighting back
Preprint servers are seeing a rise in submissions seemingly produced by paper mills or with help from AI tools.
www.nature.com
August 12, 2025 at 5:34 PM
hoohar.bsky.social
Can anyone recommend a book which acts as a lay persons guide to anaesthesia? My understanding is that large parts of it work, but we don’t know why and I’d love to find out more. Thx
July 24, 2025 at 8:14 AM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
nature.com
Could hidden AI prompts game peer review?
July 16, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social
This kind of smart, walkable, mixed-use development is illegal to build these days.
johnbrooks.bsky.social John Brooks @johnbrooks.bsky.social · Jul 11
Never change, England
A street sign in Upton, England reading "Play Area and Cholera Burial Ground"
July 12, 2025 at 9:03 AM
hoohar.bsky.social
@camsell59.bsky.social congrats on the success of your book. 13 million sales is quite something.
July 10, 2025 at 10:50 AM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
jamesheathers.bsky.social
I always felt my (mainly irritating mostly Quixotic) quest to get peer reviewers paid was correct. And the more I see scientists struggle financially, the more distasteful I find external demands to access their time for free.

But that’s one part. There is another and it’s getting worse.
July 8, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
paulguinnessy.bsky.social
"Book publishers, especially those of nonfiction and textbooks, also told me they anticipate a massive decrease in sales, as chatbots can both summarize their books and give detailed explanations of their contents."
The End of Publishing as We Know It
Inside Silicon Valley’s assault on the media
www.theatlantic.com
June 26, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
cactusglobal.bsky.social
📢 Webinar Alert!

AI is reshaping the future of scholarly publishing, but how do you implement it responsibly and effectively?

Secure your spot now: www.airmeet.com/e/9fc043b0-4...
June 25, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Chris Leonard
johnbull.wtf
If you send me a "hi john" on Teams without a follow up of what you're needing...

I'm not responding... the conversation will stay at "hi john" for eternity.

Please stop doing this people
June 20, 2025 at 3:57 PM
hoohar.bsky.social
It’s that time of year again to cross reference DORA signatories with press releases about impact factors (*sigh*)
June 20, 2025 at 11:27 AM