Talk:WikiJournal of Science

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WikiJSci year summary

WikiJSci poster

Thank you to everyone for this year at WikiJSci. The editorial board is growing to cover a range of expertise. There have been very useful discussions on our guidelines and possible publication formats, and we have put in place official bylaws. Funding for 2018 has been secured (including a small social media advertising budget).

Proposed priorities for next year

WikiJMed found that there was a positive feedback loop of having a portfolio of high-quality published articles that leads to submission of other. Therefore here are my priority suggestions for discussion:

1. Putting out our first issue should be our first priority
   • Solicit further article submissions by invitation
   • Move current submissions through peer review pipeline
2. Advertising our existence more broadly
   • Posters to put up in departments and institutes (e.g. poster link)
   • Contact additional scientific societies (e.g. ISEV)
   • Soliciting endorsement scientific and open-access groups
   • Outreach via FB and Twitter
3. Signing up to COPE (ethics draft)
4. Signing up to DOAJ and other indexing services

Article pipeline

I hope that we will put out the first issue of peer reviewed articles in the first half 2018. Although we will eventually do continuous publishing, I think that it would be best to simultaneously publish our first set of 4-10 articles together. In addition to the articles currently having their peer review organised, there are at least two submissions expected in January, as well as further tentative expressions of interest.

Looking forward to 2018. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 12:58, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Manuscript: A card game for Bell's theorem and its loopholes

A card game for Bell's theorem and its loopholes currently resides on Miraheze. I have two suggestions that need to be cleared by my co-author before we can proceed. I think he will approve (when I catch him while he is not busy.)

1. Move the manuscript into WikiJournal Preprints as an unsubmitted draft. Josh had no objection to placing it on Miraheze, where it was declared as "copyrighted for submission to a journal". I see no reason why he would object placing it on WV provided we don't actually submit to WJS.
2. This request is more complicated:

Joah and I are at opposite ends of our career. I plan to soon devote 100% of my time to OER, using my pension to help fund this effort. I turn 66 in April and don't need a refereed publication. Josh has taken the bold step of offering to publish in WJS, provided he can be convinced that the manuscript was properly refereed. Josh is not making the more stringent demand that WJS be established in the academic community as a refereed journal (which will probably take years.) When I talk to colleagues on our campus about the WJS, many support the concept but remain skeptical about our chances of success. Josh is willing to gamble on success. He also wants to focus his career on teaching and doesn't need a refereed pub at the moment. Josh agrees with me that a large portion of teaching should be done online, and one of his primary interests is applying concepts of game theory to this effort (which explains his interest in the manuscript). Pending approval from Joah, I will make the following offer:

I have two reviews from a rejection by the American Journal of Physics that I will make available to WJS upon request. Neither referee challenged the mathematical accuracy of the article. They did quibble with my sloppy use of the terms "loophole" and "superdeterminism". I tried to make it clear that I was using these words loosely, and am willing to work with an expert who actually knows what they mean.

Long ago I published an article on Bell's theorem in the Philosophical Quarterly, and it was reprinted in a collection of essays edited by Theodore Shick.^ref I am certain that this paper is a much better explanation, and reasonably confident that it is mathematically correct.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 16:48, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

That certainly is a beautifully turned-out piece of work, and to my mind would make a fine WJS article. How do you envision the journal could make use of these existing reviews - supply them as extra material to further reviewers, or use them as actual reviews for this submission? It hadn't occurred to me before to recycle reviews between journals, as it were, but on the face of it there's no reason why not... --Florian (Elmidae) (talk · contribs) 19:51, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

At some point in this process, you would need the consent of the "primary" journal because you have no proof except my word that these are actual AJP reviews. --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 20:10, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

WikiJSci could definitely use the peer reviews organised by other journals with the following requirements:

• Original journal would need to be contacted in order for editors to find out reviewer identities
• Reviewers would have to be contacted to ask permission to post peer review comments publicly (even if anonymous)

Worst case scenario, the peer review could be reorganised from scratch (potentially with the authors nominating the same peer reviewers as they did to the previous journal). Either way, the article would be thoroughly peer reviewed. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 21:13, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Someone should draft a carefully worded letter to AJP about "recycling" those reviews of the Bell's theorem paper.--21:27, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

I shall aim to do so in the next week. I shall cc in the two authors of the paper to show the journal that the authors consent to transferring the peer reviews (see Wiley guidelines as example). T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 22:01, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

A third (late) review arrived at AJP and the editor forwarded it to me. Like the other two, it found fault with the language used to explain the analysis, but not with its mathematical validity. This review can be seen at https://wikiversity.miraheze.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page#AJP_Late_report:_Reject_publication_in_present_form --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 00:02, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

That appears to be admin-protected, can you move it? --Florian (Elmidae) (talk · contribs) 12:27, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

@Elmidae: I will send you an email with instructions for entering the wiki.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 13:45, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

I mentioned WJS in a message I left on a Wikipedia talk page

Perhaps you should be informed whenever I make an attempt to foster collaboration between WJS and an organization. I will of course inform you of any developments. See w:Talk:Del_in_cylindrical_and_spherical_coordinates#I_agree_with_the_above_and_would_like_to_respond --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 16:27, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

I also linked to WJS on the Miraheze page when I moved the draft into Wikiversity draftspace. Let me know if you want me to do anything differently regarding Draft:A card game for Bell's theorem and its loopholes. I plan to submit the copyright release as soon as the coauthor the Author consent form. He is now on board with officially submitting it to WJS, which should get us out of 0 phase.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 22:45, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

@Guy vandegrift: Thank you for the notice. I've added the {{article info}} header template for tracking and formatting. I look forward to the submission form. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 04:49, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Not knowing the proper venue for author responses to referee comments, I created a subpage

• See Draft:A card game for Bell's theorem and its loopholes/Guy vandegrift--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 16:35, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Typically, the authors respond on the same page as the reviewers, however that is usually for the 'final version' of a response, as would be submitted to a journal during peer review. This can either be point-by point, or as a new section below the reviewer comments (example). Having reviewer comments and author responses collated together on one page can make them easier to track. However you're certainly welcome to use a subpage to draft unstructured / in-progress thoughts. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 01:39, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Yes, this is perfect. I will compose my response in a public place and post it on the talk page. I need to communicate with my coauthor and see what he wants to do. It should not take long.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 02:09, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Email now working

The contact email is now working, see WikiJournal of Science/Contact. I've emailed the board to discuss which people should have access and be responsible for checking emails to this address. Mikael Häggström discuss • contribs) 12:17, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I guess the email is not working yet. I am trying to contact somebody because my paper is without review since the submission (july, 2021). The editor do not answer my contact, and the editor in cheff too. Is anyone there? Bruno Braga 21 November 2022.

Review article ideas

Looking around for review articles that would be good for transition to en wiki, I think trying to request w:Relaxed selection might be a good candidate. It currently redirects to w:Evolutionary pressure which doesn't even mention it. I found a recent (2009) review of relaxed selection in the wild but could use an update and also a more general treatment (although it also does go over artificial relaxed selection to some extent). Does anyone have any ideas on who to request this from?

Mvolz (discuss • contribs) 12:48, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Maximum editorial board size

It's just been brought to my attention that I overlooked a point in the WikiJSci Bylaws that states that "the number of Editorial Board Members of Wiki.J.Sci. should be kept at a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20"

The WikiJSci board has just expanded to 25, with two more recent applications still open. It is my error for having overlooked the item, so I apologise for that.

We should discuss the options and begin the process of amendment (or alternatively close further board additions and let the number fall back to 20 over time). I think that an upper limit of 20 is to small for the journal, but I would be interested in the opinions of others on what the size limits (inf any) should be. My opinion is that the a larger board provides:

• A greater scope of knowledge (scientific, publishing and other)
• A greater professional network to call upon for invited submissions
• A greater group to spread editorial workload over

As always, these are only my opinions and I am happy to implement the consensus. Apologies again for the oversight! T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 12:16, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Here are my thoughts...as an inactive member. (Thoughts later stricken--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 16:02, 23 April 2018 (UTC))

1. A minimum number needs to exist. One reason for limiting the membership involves the rare occurrence of an serious and consequential controversy. If it is a difficult decision, then both sides have a valid point. But ultimately the decision comes down to a vote, and those on losing side needs to decide whether to break off and form a new journal or stay. Either decision is justifiable and reasonable. But when the vote is made, only those who are either currently active or highly qualified should participate.
2. Create two organizations One would roughly parallel the open wiki-communities we see on talk pages, perhaps with a structured voting procedure. The other would have an oversight role and make the final decisions. As a person who is neither very active nor highly qualified, I would be happy to join that second organization. In fact, I hate making tough decisions.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 15:23, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

As noted on the email list, there seems to be little downside to a larger-than-expected board size, assuming sufficient discretion is exercised in admitting new members; and more bodies to spread the editorial work over is good. I would suggest that if possible, we amend the statutes to allow for greater board size, and then keep to that limit. --Florian (Elmidae) (talk · contribs) 13:58, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

I like Elmidae's suggestion. With no difficult or divisive controversies on the horizon, we could allow the membership to grow a bit engaging in the difficult task of creating some sort an executive committee. Our highest priority is recruitment of people who can "sell" the idea of a wikijournal to colleagues, and "demoting" members this early seems counterproductive. Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs). 16:02, 23 April 2018‎ (UTC)

Additional note: Discussion on the board mailing list also currently favours an increased or uncapped size of board. A key note is that editorial board members gain access to confidential material (e.g. anon reviewer identities) and so applicant vetting must remain stringent. An additional suggestion was that there could be a yearly confirmation from each board member to confirm that they wish to extend their term. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 23:42, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

I approve of this proposal by T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo). We need to be sure everybody is vetted. The yearly confirmation will help things a bit. Above all, we need to grow in number so this WikiJournal survives and thrives. If our numbers grow too much, we can always diversify our roles. I, for example, would rather be a writer than an editor. For now, we should retain ourselves as a single unit (the WJS editorial board). --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 01:12, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

I do not see the point of having a fixed limit on the board size. A few considerations that could nevertheless limit the board size:

1. It should be proportionate to the number of submitted articles.
2. Quality should be as high as possible, i.e. we would like to be in the position of choosing board members among many qualified applicants.
3. There should be room for actively recruited board members, in addition to people who apply spontaneously.

Sylvain Ribault (discuss • contribs) 20:15, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

FYI: Evidence that the world needs this journal

This edit appeared on my Wikipedia watch list this morning. Advanced physics students can't function without a list of these mathematical identities. The edit shows that Wikipedia's list will never be functional until they find a mechanism to do exactly what the WJS is designed to fix.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 11:34, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Draft:A card game for Bell's theorem and its loopholes

I am working hard on this rewrite to make the summer goal for the first edition. If you count the AJP reviews, this is the most thoroughly reviewed paper I ever wrote. Many of the issues raised by reviewers #1 and #2 are discussed in this supplement. The ability to publish supplementary material in a wiki side-by-side with the article is a good selling point for WJS. Does the WJS community want such material to be released into WV namespace? Or do you wish to reserve space under WJS for such material?

Also, reviewer #3 was extremely meticulous. I have finished responding to their comments on the Abstract and A simple Bell's theorem experiment. I hope to finish in a week or so.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 12:41, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

We can easily publish supplementary material along with the main manuscript (as a Journal/Article/Subpage). We can do any necessary page renames/moves upon publication. I think the only previous time has been a editorial in WikiJMed that had a supplementary table (here). It'll be a good way to include the additional detail that is too in-depth for the main text. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 23:36, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

That sounds good to me.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 02:22, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

I think "maybe" we are done with this. I want to add template:Under construction to the subpage "Conceptual" and also add a comment to "Tube entanglement" explaining why I felt it was necessary. Then I really might be Y Done--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 03:07, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Vote: Editorial board size

Although 10 days have now passed (see discussion above), [amendment] also requires that a formal vote is held about the editorial board size. So, we'll hereby hold a vote here. The result will be the choice with most votes among editorial board members. The main alternatives are:

• Keep the current limit of a maximum of 20 editorial board members
• Increase the limit of editorial board members. Please also suggest what limit you'd prefer. Even if this becomes the majority choice, a high discrepancy among suggestions may still show disagreement in the matter.
• Remove the limit

Let's have until Sunday, May 13 before reaching a decision.

---

• Remove the limit is my own choice, in conjunction with more restrictive access to passwords and confidential works, so that access is only given to a smaller group of editorial board members and those who are in need of it at the moment. My concern with a large editorial board was mainly a lack of control in these matters, but I now think we can handle it even with a very large board. Mikael Häggström (discuss • contribs) 15:56, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• Remove the limit in conjunction with some compartmentalization, as per Mikael above. Markus Pössel (discuss • contribs) 16:08, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• Remove the limit as per above. At some point we may also test out an open source manuscript management system (e.g. Ambra, manuscriptlink or PKP). T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 23:24, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
• Remove the limit, we need the energy but must pay attention to quality and security. Chiswick Chap (discuss • contribs) 06:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• remove the limit(not certain if on editorial board questions I can vote, please strike if not, thank you)--Ozzie10aaaa (discuss • contribs) 11:57, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• Remove the limit but keep open options for subdivision of members into access and/or responsibility groups. --Florian (Elmidae) (talk · contribs) 12:18, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• Remove the limit - Do not hinder the journal's growth. --Felipe (discuss • contribs) 13:40, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• Remove the limit - should help the journal grow! --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 13:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• Remove the limit--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 16:59, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• Remove the limit, but introduce stricter rules for accepting new members. (Yes votes minus no votes should be larger than half the size of the board?) And remove inactive members after some time. Sylvain Ribault (discuss • contribs) 19:14, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Result: Limit removed [1]. I can soon look into ways to subdivide access to sensitive material. Mikael Häggström (discuss • contribs) 20:23, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Some comments and questions from a university discussion

A recent discussion on a WikiProject prompted an editor to give a presentation about WJS at his university, and he has forwarded to me some comments and questions. I thought it best to throw these open to the group, mostly because I myself am a little foggy about some points (e.g. post-publication editing). I hope the editor will join us here.

“ I just gave a presentation about the WikiJournal in our local lab meeting [...]. We had a very intense discussion afterwards, and I thought that might be of interest.

First, people (including the professor) are welcoming this the journal as an opportunity to publish OR open access articles for free (open access is considered very important, but the high publication fees of, e.g., PlosOne, can often not be paid). [...] Regarding the publication of OR articles, there were some questions which I could not fully answer as the information provided in the wiki is not that clear:

1) Post publication editing. This hits a nerve, and people argue that they will not be able to regularly track changes made to the article by themselves. According to the guidelines, only authors and editors will be able to do minor changes (which is considered OK), but published articles in the Medicine Journal do not appear to be protected. Based on the discussion, I think that protection of the published pages would be a key feature the journal should offer to gain acceptance, and to underline its determination to be a academic journal. Furthermore, the two different versions (wikitext, PDF), where one can be edited and the other cannot (creating two slightly differing versions) creates confusion.

2) Publication process. One issue is the translation of the manuscript (e.g., word file) to wikitext. Can an author request help with this formatting? When the "confidential" option is chosen, can one submit an ordinary word file, and translate it to wiki text after per review? Even then, the article would need to undergo a short time as a public preprint to complete formatting, so it is not advisable to submit important papers to this journal which need to stay confidential until formal publication?

3) Will it get an Impact Factor in the future?

The discussion about the "encyclopedic review papers" was more heated, with the professor disagreeing that this is a good idea. He is of the opinion that Wikipedia and Academia best stay completely separate, as both are completely different things that cannot be combined. Encyclopedic articles are post-academic, and not written for academics but for the general audience. Academic reviews are written by authorities, while encyclopedic reviews are not. Encyclopedic articles are therefore not academic. The Wikipedia approach of constantly evolving articles with many contributors without a single authority behind it has its merits, and is the better way to generate encyclopedic content, the academic journal approach is not suited.

”

I'll keep off point #1.

As regards #2: it is my understanding that we will definitely be able and willing to assist with the wiki formatting. However, I don't think we can handle confidential material in the way described, as public peer review is a central mechanism here. --Florian (Elmidae) (talk · contribs) 07:39, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

1) The challenge is to get good contributions, rather than to prevent bad contributions. Allowing anyone to contribute can be useful: any reader can correct a typo. The stable PDF version is here to provide some insurance against unwanted changes, but I would expect the dynamic Wiki version to be better in most cases.

3) One reason why WikiJournals exist is for Wikipedia articles to count as traditional publications. This means DOI, CrossRef, etc, but I am not sure whether we should go as far as to get an impact factor, a metric that is widely abused and denounced. An impact factor would be particularly meaningless for a multidisciplinary journal.

4) Combining Wikipedia and Academia is the whole point of WikiJournals. It is good that people who disagree with this point still find that such journals can be useful by providing gratis open access. Sylvain Ribault (discuss • contribs) 22:15, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

My opinions on these topics:

1) I expect that we'll likely eventually protect published papers, but still allow anyone to suggest corrections (similar to w:template:Edit semi-protected). Currently there is no push to do so because we've never had any questionable edits, but that may change with greater exposure. However I'm certainly keen to retain some mechanism to correct any errors that pass through the review process.

2) One possibility would be for confidential articles to be fully handled off-wiki, and only converted into wikitext once accepted, with peer reviewer comments also being published at that point. Realistically, the process of converting references in a word file to wikitext is actually the most limiting part.

3) Impact factors are calculated by Web of Science. They have two indices: Emerging Sources Citation Index (does not assign IF) and Science Citation Index Expanded (and assigns IF). Being added to either requires "steady publication over 9-month window". Being indexed by WoS is certainly important (along with Scopus and Pubmed). As for IF, although it's a flawed metric, I'd support having it calculated, since it is a draw for authors. However I think the journal will promote itself more on its alternative metrics, like viewership of materiel integrated into Wikipedia, and AltMetric scores.

4) I actually surprised that encyclopedic reviews would be so controversial. There are plenty of existing examples of review-articles written by academics in such a style. Academic books are often just a bound collection of broad review articles (e.g. one of my own). Indeed there are plenty of niche academic-written encyclopedias that achieve some limited circulation (e.g. Encyclopedia of genetics; note the cost per article). I think that WikiJournals will only ever be a minority entry route for content into Wikipedia, but they certainly compare favourably with the w:WP:AFC process.

I'll be interested to hear the thoughts of others. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 23:43, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Additional note on confidential submissions: I just checked with the Stewards on MetaWiki (here) and they pointed out that there are several private-access wikis hosted by the WMF for specialised functions, e.g. arbitration committee discussion (list). Conceivably, we could some day set up a 'WikiJournal Confidential Submissions' wiki in the same manner. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 00:07, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Regarding 4); there is also Scholarpedia publishing peer-reviewed encyclopedic review articles, which is widely cited and accepted. The major difference of the WikiJournals appears to be that its review articles tend not to be written by established experts of the field. Therefore I do see the point that the WikiJournal-approach is quite revolutionary, and that reluctance especially from the more conservative scientists can be expected. Maybe this is more of a problem for very specialized review articles than of broader, interdisciplinary ones. To attempt to erase initial reservations, it might be a good idea to discuss these differences and provide some justification on the journal's wiki pages or in the editorial. --Jens Lallensack (discuss • contribs) 17:36, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

I think this might be a good idea - either in editorial or home page content form. It may be more of an issue in the eyes of traditionally publishing academics than we realize. As a further illustration, one of the reviewers for the Baryonyx article wrote back to me with a request for more information before he committed to a review, stating I want to understand your journal though before providing a full review, as I don’t understand what the manuscript adds to the literature (most reviews papers add insight or opinion) and your journal seems to just be almost a copy of the data already on the Wikipedia page (including the figures). (I did my best to expand on it in reply but I fear it wasn't great. He did do the review though :) --Florian (Elmidae) (talk · contribs) 07:34, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

"add insight or opinion", wow! I'd say, "Spaces in math" contains 10% of insight and 1% of opinion, which is on the wedge of Wikipedia's tolerance. I (like every expert, I guess) would be glad to add more insight or/and opinion, which is why I seek something attached to Wikipedia rather than included into Wikipedia. Boris Tsirelson (discuss • contribs) 08:07, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

One thing that we can do for insight and opinion is to have a section at the end of a paper dedicated to that. For example the introduction and discussion sections of WikiJournal_of_Medicine/Eukaryotic_and_prokaryotic_gene_structure were omitted from the Wikipedia page, Gene_structure. So long as the opinion/perspectives/insights is contained within a specific section of the journal version, it's easy to excise from the Wikipedia version. I just noticed that we completely forgot to mention it anywhere in the author instructions! T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 13:03, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

References don't show on hoverover

It seems like we lack the reference tooltip feature where if you put your mouse cursor on a reference number, the footnote reference is shown without clicking on the number itself. Not sure if this is because Wikiversity is running on an older version of MediaWiki or because the feature hasn't been rolled out across all projects. Since many major publishers such as Elseiver are implementing similar feature, I think this feature should be enabled pronto. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:28, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree that it'd be a particularly useful feature. I've asked over at MediaWiki how to activate it here. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 03:34, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Now activated (thanks to the ever-helpful Dave Braunschweig). I've tested it out and it seems to be working well on references and footnotes. Not working when used in author affiliations, but that's not really as important. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 01:59, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Indexing by Informit

I've submitted an application to Informit for indexing (same as WikiJMed). They have been very helpful in speeding up how quickly G-scholar founds WikiJMed articles. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 11:53, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

WikiJSci is now indexed in Informit. Currently only Issue 1 appears, so I will check whether they only start indexing an issue when it's complete, or if then can index continuously. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 11:01, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Application to DOAJ

Application submitted to DOAJ with details largely similar to the WikiJMed entry. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 13:12, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

• great example--Ozzie10aaaa (discuss • contribs) 18:40, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I checked on progress with DOAJ and their policy is "We will not reply to emails requesting a status update for applications which are less than 6 months old", so I'll email them again in December If we don't hear something sooner. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 12:33, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

I've now sent a request for update to DOAJ. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 00:39, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

I've sent another request for an update to DOAJ since I've still not heard from them. They were doing some reorganizing at the end of last year, but I'm keen on ensuring that our application didn't get lost in their filing system. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 10:36, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

DOAJ got back to me, letting me know that the journal's ISSN was provisional at the time of application, so the application was dropped. I've therefore resubmitted the application. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 01:38, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

WikiJSci is now listed in DOAJ. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 11:59, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

WJoS in Wikidata

You may wish to add some or all of these links, to the right hand infobox panel on the front page:

• Wikidata query for articles published by WJoS
• Wikidata item about the WJoS
• WJoS on Scholia (visualsation of Wikidata data related to WJoS)

-- Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:37, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: I'd like to add Wikidata links (especially Scolia), but there are articles currently missing (example). Do you know how often crossref is scraped to update Wikidata or are they typically added manually?. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 04:48, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

As a relevant note: the sourcemd tool which adds crossref metadata to wikidata based on a list of dois. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 03:15, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

WJoS articles in Wikidata

I have made some changes to the Wikidata item about WikiJournal of Science/Spaces in mathematics.

The item is Q55120290 and the changes are in this diff.

The most significant change is the addition of the "interwiki" link!

Suggestions for further improvements to the data model welcome. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:48, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Thank you! I think the item structure seems sensible. Is there an automated way to annotate Wikidata from the {{article info}} template parameters at the top of each article? E.g. a statement on the peer review url, or when multiple linterwiki links are relevant (|w1=,|w2= etc.). T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 05:45, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

No, and for the relatively small number involved, I doubt one would be developed. However, it would be possible to make the template display the values stored in Wikidata, so that they only need to be crated once; there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:12, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

As a note on this thread for future reference, the SourceMD tool can be used to batch-create wikidata items for articles and authors from a list of their DOIs and ORCIDs respectively. I've also made a note in the editorial guidelines. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 10:46, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

ORCID

I am Wikimedian in Residence at ORCID; please let me know if I can be of assistance, in that capacity.

Don't forget that the template {{User ORCID}} exists on this wiki (You can see it in use on my user page). Also, en:Wikipedia:ORCID may be of interest. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:59, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: Good idea having the identifiers linked where possible. Is there any particular difference between the {{User ORCID}} and {{Authority control}} templates? It looks like Authority control could be a bit more versatile. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 11:34, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

@Evolution and evolvability: Late answer, sorry: No, either can be used. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:35, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

DOI numbers

Coming from Wikipedia, I noticed that the Wikijournal's DOI numbers redirect to the current publicly-editable version of the article instead of the citeable peer-reviewed PDF. For example, https://doi.org/10.15347/wjs/2018.006 links to Radiocarbon dating which has been edited after peer review and could potentially be edited by any member of the public. Shouldn't the DOI link to either the PDF or the specific revision that was accepted? Dlthewave (discuss • contribs) 01:24, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

A good point. I think that pointing directly to the PDF is not ideal, since various useful metadata is contained on the webpage. However, the plan is to use CrossMark to have dois for versions of an article if significant changes are made. At the time, it was considered that the formatting and correction changes were sufficiently minor to not make an official correction through CrossMark, however we could reconsider that. The only difficulty is the additional work involved in submitting an update notice to crossmark. In other journals, I've observed that crossmark doi updates are rarely used for reference corrections, orcid additions, spelling/punctuation. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 05:54, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

A mechanism is needed for editors to transition to referees

I believe this is going to be a difficult discussion, not because I expect strong disagreement, but because it is a nearly intractable problem. Let me begin on a personal note and leave it to others to move this conversation forward. As coordinator of the Wikipedia:Surface Tension I felt frustrated by my inability to recruit referees for the manuscript. I believe the broad pedagogical nature of this article is not only source of this difficulty, but also related to my proposed solution: Wikipedia articles are not intended for experts, and for that reason it is not necessary for experts to referee it. I am already sufficiently educated in physics to referee more than half of it, and with a bit of research into measurement technologies, I could probably referee all of it. The same could be said for many Wikipedia articles that the WJS might publish: Any professor of physics, biology, ect., with a broadly based publication record could probably referee most Wikipedia submissions in that field (and if a Wikipedia article cannot be refereed by a PHD with a broad publication record it probably shouldn't be a Wikipedia article!). At the same time, I am having trouble convincing experts in the field that they should serve as referees.

My first thought was for me to referee Wikipedia:Surface tension, but after some email discussions with members of this board, I think we all agree that this is going to be a difficult matter. There are a number of mechanisms by which the WJS could fail, but one of them is that we develop a reputation for accepting articles without proper peer review. My initial opinion that we erred in establishing a rule that editors may not referee has morphed into an understanding that we need to be very careful about how an editor can make that transition. A number of questions need to be carefully discussed:

1. Should there be a transition period between when an editor resigns as editor and begins to serve as a referee?
2. Should we establish a rule that editors who transition into referee status are prohibited from refereeing anonymously?
3. At the very least, shouldn't it be disclosed that the refereeing service was performed by someone who was previously an editor?

I'm sure there are other questions that need to be posed, and I will wait for others to take over this discussion, especially since it is my intention to make that transition from editor to referee.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 17:16, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Per "should we accord the same "sign-off authority" to self-appointed reviewers as to invited ones? It's not a combination I have seen before, so I don't know what precedents exist." This is interesting! When deciding which journal to submit an ms to, I usually scrutinized the Editorial board because that was where many of the anonymous reviews came from! Other invited reviews also occurred. With the change to open reviewing, it's a much more refreshing environment, I believe.

Regarding self-appointed reviewers, my comment above describes earlier Editorial boards. In the beginnings of the WikiJournal of Science most reviews were performed by the Editorial board, as I recall. I only review where I have some applicable expertise. One point added to the Editorial board guidelines is that board members do not perform reviews but only invite outside peer reviewers. The "Lead" ms arrived on 22 November 2017. Courtesy requires a review within a month. We could not do that so I began "Editorial comments" on 7 December 2017.

The submission WikiJournal Preprints/Surface tension was received on 20 June 2018 and editorial comments and changes began on 24 July 2018, which was good! The first outside peer review was received on 9 August 2018, excellent!

I have applicable expertise regarding surfaces of solids before and during sputtering where surface tension enters in and was happy to read in our first outside open peer review "surface tension is not limited to fluids but is found in solids as well." --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 00:59, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

My answers to Guy vandegrift's three questions:

1. No transition, no need to resign either.
2. Very good idea: editors who act as referees should not be anonymous, and should explicitly declare that they are editors. COIs are not necessarily avoidable or even bad in themselves, it is undisclosed COIs that should be avoided. (Still, I do not see the COI in this case.)
3. As above.

Sylvain Ribault (discuss • contribs) 12:31, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

I looked at the one referee report on "Lead" and it seems very sophisticated (so high-level that I cannot immediately judge it). So for now, the is no immediate need to resign and become a referee (instead I can try and sort out what the referee said.) Regarding Sylvain Ribault's suggestion that editors can act as referees, I am personally inclined to agree with them. But I do not consider that personal inclination to be adequate. This a new journal, and we need to careful with our reputation. If in the future we do change the rules to allow editors to referee, it must be after a long and deliberate discussion, and only if we can establish a need for this change. Fortunately, the referee who stepped up to do "Lead" may have given much need time to carefully deliberate the referee/editor question. I do think the WJS role as a "referee" for broadly-based Wikipedia articles might justify a slightly different policy in this regard.

For now, our number one goal is to recruit scholars to actively support this new journal.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 00:04, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

As a note for external readers, there are a few examples of where editors have provided peer review comments (clearly marked as from editor):

• Example 1 (Radiocarbon dating) - detailed feedback from specialist editor
• Example 2 (Lead) - detailed feedback from specialist editor
• Example 3 (Spaces in mathematics) - clarity recommendations from non-specialist editor
• Example 4 (WikiJMed PfEMP1 protein) - minor recommendations from several editors

However in each of these cases, there were also at least two other external peer reviewers. An editorial board member may organise external reviewers for a great many articles, whereas external reviewers very rarely review more than one article. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 12:21, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

I think the policy of requiring two referees is approximately correct. There is certainly no need to tinker with it in the near future--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 03:29, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Anticipating an article without using Wikipedia content

I appreciate the (re-)publication and modification of Wikipedia articles. However, I also anticipate an article that doesn't copy or rely too much on Wikipedia. I'll put this another way: when will I see an article that is researched and written in an original way and not copied from Wikipedia? --George Ho (discuss • contribs) 22:01, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

If the WJS gets sufficient quality and quantity in the non-Wikipedia category the WJS should consider focusing on non-Wikipedia articles on the grounds that another wiki-journal could be created that specializes in Wikipedia articles. For that reason, we certainly welcome non-Wikipedia articles. At least, that is how I look at it.--Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 22:59, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

We have a few examples so far. Both the Lysine and ShK toxin were not adapted from existing Wikipedia content, but instead written from scratch. Both were improvements over the previous Wikipedia pages so were used to subsequently overhaul them. The Bell's Theorem card game article is different in that it was not intended to replace a Wikipedia page, but to supplement it as a teaching tool. Over in WikiJMed, there are also examples of case studies (again, with a teaching focus), original metaanalyses, and topics that were previously absent from Wikipedia. My strong hope is that as the journals grow, they will attract more and more non-wikipedians to contribute, as a supplement to the traditional wikipedian editor core. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 02:13, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Maybe after a time I'll try "Can each number be specified by a finite text?" (unfinished draft for now). Boris Tsirelson (discuss • contribs) 04:58, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Declined articles: what happens to reviews if the draft is deleted?

If a submission from Wikipedia is declined after receiving substantial reviews, the editorial guidelines recommend that a notice be put on the Wikipedia talk page pointing to the reviews. However, the authors have the option of requesting that the draft be deleted: what happens to the reviews then, and to the link from the Wikipedia talk page?

It makes little sense to delete the draft and keep the reviews, as the reviews are less understandable without the draft, even if the draft differs very little from the Wikipedia article. (WikiJSci drafts have figure numbers, for example.)

I propose that drafts that have been peer reviewed can never be deleted. An additional benefit would be that the draft could more easily be amended and resubmitted later. Sylvain Ribault (discuss • contribs) 19:49, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

I tend to agree. In the early days of the journal we received these submissions: Demostration of the No Relativity of Time and Irrefutable Truths of Life which have been deleted but I can restore them if there is consensus. Draft talk:Demonstration of the No Relativity of Time and Talk:Life/Life and Love! still exist. It is unlikely that the author could more easily amend and resubmit later as he was blocked by Braunschweig but others might. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 20:32, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Although it initially struck me as counter-intuitive, I think you're probably right that it'd be best to keep declined drafts online. Preprint servers like arXiv and bioarXiv do something very similar and I think it's sensible to default to the precedent unless we have strong reasons to do something different (arXiv guidelines). If there is consensus I can edit the {{Article info}} template accordingly. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 00:48, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

In general I support keeping reviewed drafts. The only exception that occurs to me is if a draft is frankly absurd or is being used as a vehicle for something forbidden, such as libel, a political campaign, advertising, or hate speech. I doubt if any such thing would normally get as far as being formally reviewed, but I suppose a Trojan horse style attack (exposing itself only at a late stage) is possible; such a thing would then have to be deleted. Chiswick Chap (discuss • contribs) 07:07, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Marshallsumter raises a good point about the retroactivity of the new rule if it is adopted. I find it strange that talk pages have been kept while drafts have been deleted: the former makes little sense without the latter. In the two cited examples the talk pages could be deleted as well, as there was apparently no formal external peer review, and the submissions were not serious.

If we keep declined submissions they should be listed somewhere, possibly in Preprints. If their number increases the issues of numbering, searching, indexing, etc, might arise. Sylvain Ribault (discuss • contribs) 20:53, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

One compromise between keeping or deleting certain articles might be Draft space --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 01:51, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Good point. I propose that we add on step to the editorial process, where the editors decide whether the submission deserves to be sent to external peer reviewers. In the case of preprints that are not submitted to the journal, we could also do a basic sanity check analogous to arXiv's. Submissions that fail at this stage can be kept in Draft space. Submissions that pass can be treated as preprints, permanently kept, and listed somewhere. Sylvain Ribault (discuss • contribs) 19:23, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

I have found this: Draft:Demonstration of the No Relativity of Time which has a deletion tag on it. Apparently, submissions that may not deserve to be sent to external peer reviewers that end up in Draft: ns can be deleted. But, should they be? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 00:44, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

It seems that we have consensus. I have changed the {{Article info}} template, removing the suggestion that authors can request deletion of declined articles. As far as I can see there is no text (in the ethics statement or elsewhere) that commits us to offering this option to authors, and the CC-BY license probably allows us to keep submitted articles. Sylvain Ribault (discuss • contribs) 19:19, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

The Template:WikiJPre declined contains an option for the author(s) to request deletion. From the above it appears this option should be removed. Agreed? --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 01:25, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Very much agreed, I just did it. Thanks for pointing it out. Sylvain Ribault (discuss • contribs) 19:10, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Good work on this. Another example of precedent is that rejected PLOS Topic Pages are also retained on their website in perpetuity. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 12:12, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Discussions such as this should occur at Wikiversity:Deletions or a community wide review. These issues require wider consensus than merely from participants in a WV subproject. The request to undelete these pages is declined. --mikeu ^talk 14:17, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

(Thanks mikeu for centralising the discussion back here. I accidentally forked over to a separate talkpage). T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 04:35, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to follow up on the rationale for the statements that I made here. On an open wiki where anyone can edit it is likely that we are going to get frivolous or even malicious (vandalism) "submissions." I'm using w:scare quotes here as I don't consider the act of merely saving a page to the journal to be a true act of submission. There should be a first level of vetting before a page is considered to be a legitimate submission. Otherwise you are just going to permanently preserve My Pet Theory That Einstein Was Wrong (at best) or worse People Of The Foo Race Are Intellectually Inferior. Hand-wringing about the sanctity of pre-print submissions is all fine and well, but you must admit that there are likely numerous submissions to print journals that wind up in the paper shredder with no record left of there existence? In any case deleting vandalism or contributions by an indef blocked user go beyond the scope of any particular project and are subject to community wide decision making. --mikeu ^talk 16:37, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Since this topic has re-surfaced via a recent article, I wanted to put some more general thought in order.

• In all cases, I'd be very keen to at least keep the metadata + abstract (+ reviews) for transparency of the record.
• By default, I'd also be keen to keep the content of the article up for both reviewed and unreviewed preprints (this is the norm for other preprint servers like the arXivs, OSF, and preprints.org).
  • The exception is if there are obvious reasons to delete (copyvio, defamation, hatespeech etc).
  • The difficulty is when the author prefers deletion. So far I don't think there's evidence that disallowing deletion would discourage submissions, but it's a possibility.
• I can imagine authors requesting contact info or name to be redacted. Although I don't know of particular precedent for that), but it's not a million miles from the double-blind ethos in many humanities & soc sciences journals.

T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 13:05, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I've had some preprints of my submissions accidentally published without my consent at another journal. That popped up in another journal who used it as a basis to decline my work. Bottom-line: I think authors should have a right to have their submission deleted upon request. Otherwise we keep it up. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:27, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Dedicated email address for submissions?

The Editorial guidelines state that 'the corresponding author may write the article online or email it to Submissions@WikiJMed.org'. Should we just delete this, or create an analogous email address for WikiJSci? Sylvain Ribault (discuss • contribs) 19:25, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

I think we can just use Contact@WikiJSci.org for this purpose. For now, there's no real difference between a general submission and contact email (indeed, the contact address has had only four spontaneous presubmission inquiries since its creation, so is not heavily trafficked yet). T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 09:38, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

OK, sounds good. Who reads the emails to Contact@WikiJSci.org? Sylvain Ribault (discuss • contribs) 18:53, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Currently all emails to it are automatically forwarded to the EiC (me) and. All board members can check it via the log-in details here. It would be a good idea to have a set of board members who also volunteer to have its emails forwarded to them. I'll send an email around the board in the near future. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 23:37, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

OK. These logins and passwords appear to be publicly visible, is this a feature or a bug? Sylvain Ribault (discuss • contribs) 19:53, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

They should only be visible to those on the editorial board (ie. members of WJSboard@googlegroups.com) so that e.g. any board member can use the crossref login to mint new DOIs. For others (or when not logged in) it should display "You must be signed in as a member of this group to view and participate in it". T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 01:24, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

WJoS and Google Scholar

A quick learned that articles can be found in Google Scholar. But there is no item/link in the right column to the full text like Researchgate has/does. I guess people are more likely to click on a link in the right column to get to the full-text. Jacques Versteijnen 4 oct 2018

Yes, we've had problems with Google Scholar being able to correctly index articles. For some it finds the full text versions (example), but for others, it seems to only find the informit indexed abstract (example). I've contacted Google Scholar twice about this since June, however they've traditionally had a low contact response rate. I'll update this location if I hear back. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 00:04, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Transpose policy database

Having only just been made aware of the Transpose open database of journal policies, I have added URL links to them for WikiJSci, along with a note that they are the same for WikiJMed and WikiJHum. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 06:06, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

WikiJSci is now listed in the TRANSPOSE database. I shall check to see what the process is on adding the other journals. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 22:45, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

WJoS with Academic Libraries

WikiJSci poster in Asian Institute of Technology Library window

In an attempt to increase the visibility of WikiJournal of Science and to have more publishing contributions from Academic students and faculty, it is more important to connect academic libraries.

Asian Institute of Technology Library has shown consent in promoting WikiJournal of Science in its activities and encouraging Students and Faculty members towards WikiJournal of Science.

WikiJournal of Science Poster Display on - Academic Library Screens/outdoor signage(Image1, Image2 ). | --Gorlapraveen123 (discuss • contribs) 21:45, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you! They look particularly good on a screen like that. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 05:17, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

title typo?

The recent inclusion has a header of "VOLUME 1 (2019) ISSUE 1" Should that be vol. 2? --mikeu ^talk 13:54, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the note! The typo has been corrected. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 23:47, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

A recent 10-fold increase in page views. Does anybody know why?

I keep track of page views to one WJS article and noticed a sudden increase. It seems to be associated with a sudden increase traffic for the WJS. Does anybody know why? See
https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikiversity.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&range=latest-90&pages=WikiJournal_of_Science
It started on 3/18/2019. --Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 00:50, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I suspect it's the recent publication of the RIG-I like receptors article based on comparing the pageviews for it and for the main page. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 01:57, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

On the logarithmic scale the effect is visible also for less visited articles and even preprints.   :-)   Boris Tsirelson (discuss • contribs) 05:24, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Moved preprint for "Ice drilling"

I just moved the preprint for "Ice drilling" to "Ice drilling technology", based on feedback from one of the reviewers, but it appears to have broken some internal organization that I don't understand. Would someone be kind enough to fix things up? Thanks. Mike Christie (discuss • contribs) 21:22, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

You moved the talk page but not the article page. If you're sure you want to change the article title just move WikiJournal Preprints/Ice drilling to WikiJournal Preprints/Ice drilling technology. It's your call. Google books has "Ice drilling" in the title of 6,080 books, including "Ice drilling technology", but "Ice drilling technology" occurs in 6,410 books. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:17, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Also, on Google books: "Ice drilling" -technology, is about 3,550 results so ice drilling in some form appears more often than with "technology". --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 00:28, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I've moved it; thanks. I think the reviewer feedback made it clear to me that the article is really only about the technology, not about logistics, grants, or any of the related activities. Mike Christie (discuss • contribs) 21:56, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

WikiJSci SCOPUS application

accepted
Applied	June 2019
Rejected	December 2019
Re-applied	April 2021
Accepted	August 2021
Application tracker

SCOPUS application

In March 2017, the sister journal WikiJMed applied to SCOPUS. Although they noted that it is an interesting concept, it was rejected as not be yet fully worked through:

• Not clear whether it would attract original articles or whether it is just a variant of Wikipedia on medical and health topics
• The associate editors were self-nominated
• The "publishing ethics" statement was merely a link to the COPE website

I think that WikiJSci is actually at a logical point for applying itself, since it now hits the application requirements and a few articles have just come out over the last month. Whilst the WikiJMed application is drafted over at that discussion page, I suggest we draft the WikiJSci application below.

Specific requirements

Per application form:

1. Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement for this title
   • https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_of_Science/Ethics_statement
2. eISSN
   • 2470-6345
3. Type of serial publication
   • Journal
4. Primary Field
   • Multidisciplinary
5. Primary Publisher
   • WikiJournal User Group
6. Country/Territory of publisher:
   • United States
7. Most recent articles (x9 PDF upload) or most recent issues (x3 PDF upload)
   • ...
8. Table of contents for a complete issue (x1 PDF upload)
   • WikiJournal_of_Science/Volume_2_Issue_1 as PDF
9. Aims & scope
   • Adapted from WikiJournal_of_Science/About:
   • WikiJSci is an open access journal in STEM topics, published free of charge.
   • The journal aims to ensure accurate scientific information is published in a way that maximises its public good. The journal has a particularly strong outreach and public impact focus via it's 'Wikipedia-integration' features: Articles that pass peer-review are published as a citable, indexed PDF, and suitable text and images are integrated into Wikipedia and related projects (with a link to the indexed PDF). The vast readership of Wikipedia results in a high effective impact of included works. It therefore enables academic and research professionals to contribute expert knowledge to the Wikimedia movement in the academic publishing format that directly rewards them with citable publications. Peer reviews are published alongside articles for transparency and auditability.
   • The journal's scope is science, technology, engineering and mathematics, broadly construed. The journal publishes both review articles and original research in various formats. The journal targets a broad population spanning from advanced researchers and academics to students and laypersons, wherein the latter can get quick explanations of advanced terms by in-line links to Wikipedia.
10. Start year of current title
    • 2017
11. Has this title undergone any name changes, mergers or splits (prev. names and dates)
    • No (name change was before first publication)
12. Contact emails
13. Link to the publication ethics and publication malpractice statement
    • https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_of_Science/Ethics_statement
14. Frequency
    • Continuous
15. Average number of research articles and review articles published per year
    • 6 (5.75 rounded to nearest whole number; 23 over four years 2017-2020)
16. Are all articles published in English
    • Yes
17. Do all articles have English-language abstracts and article
    • Yes
18. Do the articles have references in Roman alphabet
    • Yes
19. Which type of peer review applies to this title (editor review / Open peer review / Single-blind peer review / Double-blind peer review)
    • Open Peer review
20. What is the publisher's business model?
    • Not-for-profit Diamond OA
21. What is the average manuscript turnaround time of the serial publication?
    • 9 months
22. What is the average manuscript acceptance rate?
    • 67%
23. Please provide a detailed description of the peer review process:
    • Peer review is coordinated by members of the editorial board and associate editors. Peer reviewers are given the option to be anonymous (only 20% choose anonymity). All articles must have 2 peer reviewers agree to its publication (average=3). https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_of_Science/Peer_reviewers
24. URL of editorial board
    • https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_of_Science/Editors
25. What is the geographic distribution of editors of the title
    • International - different continents (different continent / same continent / same country / same institution)
26. Please list some examples of countries of editors (if any countries predominate, please indicate)
    • Australia x2, Brazil, USA x7, Germany x2, UK x4, South Africa, Canada x2, Italy, France, India x2, Netherlands, Switzerland, Korea
27. What is the geographic distribution of authors publishing in this title:
    • International - different continents (different continent / same continent / same country / same institution)
28. Please list some examples of countries of authors (if any countries predominate, please indicate)
    • Australia x14, USA x12, Singapore x3, UK x2, Israel x2, Czechia, Nepal, Netherlands, Russia, China
29. Provide information about the main handling editor(s) of the title (x3) : Name, affiliation, country, online professional information
    • Thomas Shafee, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, https://scholars.latrobe.edu.au/display/tshafee
    • Melanie Stefan, University of Edinburgh, UK, http://melaniestefan.net/
    • Florian Weller, University of Cape Town, South Africa, http://www.eafsa.uct.ac.za/florian-weller-dr-0
30. Is the title (co-)published on behalf of a scientific society
    • No
31. Does the serial title have DOIs which are registered with CrossRef
    • Yes
32. Is the title already indexed in other bibliographic databases
    • Yes
33. Does this title offer open access to its full-text content (yes / no / yes+DOAJ)
    • Yes+DOAJ
34. Other comments / remarks
    • Our sister journal, WikiJournal of Medicine, applied to SCOPUS in March 2017. Since we share the same format, we would like to note how those concerns have been addressed in the past two years.
      • In addition to encyclopedic reviews, original research articles are published (typically with a focus on science teaching, e.g. doi:10.15347/wjm/2015.004) as well as an editorial to introduce our intentions for the journal, doi:10.15347/wjs/2018.001. We also accept submission of figure and gallery articles as published in WikiJMed here and here.
      • Associate editors now apply with their credentials, and are now only brought on board after a vote. The voting process for associate editor applications has now been broaght in line with the same process for editorial boards.
      • We have a fully-developed publication ethics statement also vetted by COPE (membership number JM13664). In particular, this also outlines the journal's position on some of the unique features of its publication format (e.g. author expectations of content ownership after it is copied to Wikipedia)
    • Additionally we have improved our bylaws with advice from the WMF to make them more robust, and improved our public editorial guidelines to further improve transparency of our processes.
    • Finally, since March 2017, we believe that we have further developed the journal structure in all aspects. The editorial board includes members from a diverse range of academic expertise, as well as backgrounds in science communication, publishing and open-access and wikimedia projects. The journals aim for impact in scholarly citations, Altmetrics, and wide general public readership via integrating content into Wikipedia. Given the very wide reach of the articles (current readership >2.5 million per annum via Wikipedia) we are particularly cautious in our quality control. All plagiarism checks, peer reviews and editorial recommendations are public alongside the article.

SCOPUS Content policy and selection criteria

https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scopus/how-scopus-works/content/content-policy-and-selection

criteria

Journal Policy Convincing editorial policy Type of peer review Diversity in geographical distribution of editors Diversity in geographical distribution of authors Content Academic contribution to the field Clarity of abstracts Quality of and conformity to the stated aims and scope of the journal Readability of articles Journal Standing Citedness of journal articles in Scopus Editor standing Publishing Regularity No delays or interruptions in the publication schedule Although vague, this is an area where WikiJournal processes can be improved. In general delays vary depending on the response rates of peer reviewers Online Availability Full journal content available online English language journal home page available Quality of journal home page

Discussion

Now that WikiJSci is listed in DOAJ, I have made the submission to SCOPUS via the Title Suggestion form. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 06:17, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

As an update on this, I just emailed SCOPUS to check, and they stated that assessments are currently taking 6-12 months, so I'll check back in with them again next June if we don't hear anything sooner. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 10:04, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Rejection (too early)

The Scopus Title Evaluation Support team has just emailed to say that we need a publication history of at least 2 years before application. That places re-submission of the application in June of 2020. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 06:51, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Reapplication

Resubmitted via Title Suggestion form. Progress at Tracking page with ID E099AEE44F8F181C. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 01:26, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Acceptance

The WikiJSci application for inclusion in Scopus has been assessed by their Content Selection & Advisory Board (CSAB). The decision was to accept, noting the following as informing their decision:

The journal's international Editorial Board composition as well as its international author contributions are noteworthy. While the journal takes a very innovative approach with its Wikipedia integration features these do not seem to be translating easily into citation impact - perhaps with time this will materialize, after all the title began as recently as 2018. The journal's average manuscript turnaround time (9 months), average acceptance rate (67%) and its indication of dates received and accepted for each article, all serve as indicators of rigor of peer review and quality management of published content. The articles themselves are very scientifically presented, and well ground in extensive literature which is consistently referenced. Layout and typesetting (including graphics presentation) are of a high standard.

• The journal includes articles that are academically sound and relevant to an international academic or professional audience in the field.
• The abstracts are in keeping with Scopus English Language requirements.
• In general, the content of the articles is consistent with the scope and aims of the journal.
• The journal has clear aims and scope/journal policies that are consistent with the journal’s content.
• Peer review type is clearly stated and is supported by appropriate reviewer guidelines.

T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 05:07, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

SHERPA/RoMEO

I've submitted to the details for WikiJSci to SHERPA/RoMEO via the journal submission form. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 12:50, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Some questions

Hi everyone here and congratulations on the idea of developing a journal. At Wikispecies where I am a Beurocrat and CheckUser I noticed a post about this site here. In anycase although I have no issue with developing that proposal I have a couple of questions about the journal.

A journal when publishing nomenclatural acts must comply with the ICZN code for Zoology. So this means publishing new species names, but also moving species to new genera, ie combinations, and any other act that effects the usage of names in zoology. If you have no plan to ever publish nomenclatural acts this should be in your authors guidelines. Otherwise your journal needs to meet the code if you ever do publish one. For example electronic journals must publicly state their archiving agency and further this must be stated in the Zoobank registration of the journal, which will include the LSID of this registration being published in the journal. The date of publication is the date upon which the paper meets all requirements of the code and at this point no further changes can be made. As in once published a nomenclatural paper cannot be altered, or it becomes unavailable. I also am interested in how you would get a nomenclatural paper reviewed if you ever receive one.

Anyway I am happy to help with the journal if possible, I can be found on Wikispecies if needed. Am also now watching this page. Cheers Faendalimas (discuss • contribs) 15:58, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Welcome to the WikiJournal of Science! While the need to comply with the ICZN code for Zoology is not immediate, having edited Wikispecies occasionally and read a small number of articles regarding nomenclatural acts, I can foresee the likelihood of such a submission perhaps from Wikispecies contributor(s). We also have several biologists and zoologists who may be interested in finding qualified reviewers on our editorial board. Our EiC is awesome at bringing our journal inline with various publishing standards and may be interested in this. Thank you for bringing this to our attention! If such acts are within your areas of expertise, please consider applying to the board. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:24, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

I would be happy to apply to the editorial board if you think that would help. Yes nomenclatural taxonomy is an area of my expertise and I have published on this fairly extensively. I am also an editor of Zoobank so can help with the registration process if its ever needed. I am also happy to be a reviewer if needed. My editorial eperience in Wikimedia is largely on WP and Wikispecies. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 15:12, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@Faendalimas: I absolutely agree with putting together some guidelines for nomenclature articles. The relevant parts of the ICZN publication requirements look as though they should be implementable. I'd be very interested in your perspectives on this, since I'm keen to avoid any possibility of the journal being used for taxonomic vandalism. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 23:38, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Sure thing, I can discuss these things here or we can get on IRC or something up to you all. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 00:16, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

As part of addressing this and expanding the guidelines in general (per comment 102 on this page), I've created a draft page here: WikiJournal User Group/Guidelines/Draft. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 02:14, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

@Faendalimas: A first draft of improved author guidelines is ready. Would you be interested in helping write 50 word ICZN code summary for that page and a longer set of ICZN guidelines in a separate page that can be linked to? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 05:14, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

problematic promises and potential conflict of interests

In the orientation for authors there is currently the following line:

Articles that pass peer-review are published as a citeable, indexed PDF, and suitable text and images are integrated into Wikipedia and related projects (with a link to the indexed PDF). The vast readership of Wikipedia results in a high effective impact of included works.

I think in this form that "promise" is rather problematic.

First of all whether content from a WikiJournal article is included into WP articles or whether it gets linked there is not up to WikiJournal (its editors or authors) but it is up to the the WP community in general and in particular up to the editors of the concerned WP articles and the WP projects maintaining them. Secondly it is not really clear to me why WikiJournal articles should receive preferential treatment over other Open-Access journals or other other reputable external sources in general.

I think that formulation should be modified to to make clear that texts and images may be used in WP (at the discretion of WP editors).--Kmhkmh (discuss • contribs) 01:06, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree with what you are stating! The key word in the orientation is "suitable", so far this has been decided by the WP editors involved with the Wikipedia GA, FA, or developing article submitted for possible publication in the WikiJournals and I believe also involves WP WikiProject participants. Neither the WikiJournal Editorial Boards nor the professional reviewers are focused on Wikipedia, but are focused on the professional standing of the WikiJournals, which also publish original research that can be included in a submission after import of the Wikipedia article. Of course the OR does not go into the WP article, for example. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 16:49, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

If I a understanding this correctly, no journal should ever be receiving what could be perceived as preferential treatment. This goes against the principal of academic freedom. You want people to utilise the journal, of course, but you want this to be because they wish to use it because of the science presented. Not for any other reason. If a journal strives for quality it will be used. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 17:08, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@Kmhkmh: I agree that the journals shouldn't aim for any kind of override of community consensus on any Wikipedia article (and should definitely avoid any edit war). . The intention is to write something that is also clear to non-wikipedian potential contributors, whilst also being accurate (We also have a note about this in the ethics statement). Aiming for specificity as well as concision, perhaps "...integrated into Wikipedia (and related projects) by consensus of the editor community" or "...in discussion and with consent the editor community". Although we've not had any problems so far, it's good to think ahead. I'd also want to avoid someone having false expectations of e.g. submitting a review of RNA interference and expecting that it would definitely wholly replace the current Wikipedia page. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 02:30, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I've added a note at this point here and here for now. More to follow as part of updating the General guidelines. I'd be interested in suggestions for improved wording. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 12:50, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Original research

The text in the box for “original research” refers to Such papers follow the standard Introduction, Results, Discussion, Methods format,… but other style docs refers to IMRaD as the more common list of sections, that is Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion format. Jeblad (discuss • contribs) 15:22, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Unable to post in the wjsboard Google group

I would like to reply to this thread in the wjsboard Google group about the paper Speciation_by_reinforcement for which I'm the assigned editor (Emanuele Natale), but I get the message You do not have permission to post to this group. Perhaps my account was not properly added to the group? --Natematic (discuss • contribs) 17:37, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

@Natematic: I've gone in to check the settings and I think I've found the issue. Could you try again now? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 22:54, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

@T.Shafee thanks, you resolved the issue: I confirm that now I'm able to reply. Natematic (discuss • contribs) 08:57, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Special Issue on Open Science Fellows Program

I was wondering if the WikiJournal of Science has a procedure to handle special issues?

In the context of the Open Science Fellows Program, we are planning a special issue that reflects the program. I think the WikiJournal publishing concept would be best suited for the spirit of this program among all publishing concepts I am aware of.

Any feedback / response would be highly appreciated. @Daniel Mietchen: @Evolution and evolvability: Physikerwelt (discuss • contribs) 06:45, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Back in October 2021, we were discussing with an Ukrainian editor for a possible special issue from Ukrainian community. It is now on pause due to the ongoing war. I think special issue can be explored further. Happy to discuss more. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:23, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

@Physikerwelt: Now that we have cleared most of our backlog, we can resume the consideration of special issues. What kind of publications do you have in mind? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:23, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Recruiting technical editors

We are hiring new technical editors for the journals. Please see this job posting for details. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:23, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

How to become a member of the editorial board or reviewer.

I want to become a member of the editorial board or reviewer. HariSinghw (discuss • contribs) 04:05, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

@HariSinghw: There are links to apply at Talk:WikiJournal of Science/Editors. Essentially it involves 100-200 words to describe your previous relevant professional, editorial, and open access experience. Alternatively, you can do the same thing via a google form here. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 01:26, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to introduce "Inactivity removal policy" to the bylaws

There is an ongoing discussion to propose introducing an inactivity removal policy for editorial board members. Full details can be viewed here. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:24, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Editor in Chief position

Since I’m taking on the Exec Director role for the WikiJournal User Group, I’ll be stepping down from the Editor in Chief position to maintain separation between editorial and executive decision-making. I’ll of course keep helping out supporting WikiJSci, but making space for others to take leadership over the journal! It’s been great being the EiC and I look forward to continuing to support the journal.

Process

The relevant section of the bylaws states that:

The Editor-in-chief is appointed by consensus in the Editorial Board.

So, I recommend that anyone with an interest in the position reply below before to 21^st of April with a paragraph or so on what they’d bring to the role. We can then establish consensus over the following week and formally hand over the role at the end of that. Technically only the consensus of current board members is considered, but those not on the board are welcome to comment/discuss. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 06:41, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I would like to put my name forward for consideration for the editor-in-chief position. I have been the managing editor for WikiJournal of Science for over a year, responsible for vetting submissions and arranging peer reviews for publications. Through these submissions, I have demonstrated my ability to consider different opinions of editorial board members and make a decision on publishing or declining a submission. I have also assisted in the recruiting and onboarding of new technical editors and associate editors, including those from Medicine and Humanities, by giving orientation presentations and answering their questions. In the monthly editorial board meetings, I frequently contributed to the discussion agenda and offered my thoughts on the subject matter. I believe I have the experience to further advance the work of WikiJournal of Science. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:47, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Since Andrew's Expression of Interest is uncontested and I've complete confidence in his suitability for the position, I have gone through and implemented the change. Congratulations Andrew!

I'm very happy to announce that I'm handing over the role of Editor in Chief over to Andrew Leung. He's been a huge asset to WikiJSci ever since he joined the journal in 2018. He's very skilled at working across the broad range of topics that the journal covers (in addition, of course, to his own speciality of climatology & atmospheric science). His deep experience in Wikipedia's inner workings and norms is also invaluable, given the WikiJournals' interactions with both the site and its community. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 12:17, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Lint error on drafts

Lint errors never bother me. Moreover, I don't know that they bother anybody on Wikiversity. But I got into the habit of checking for lint errors and found one that appears any time a new preprint draft is created. See WikiJournal Preprints/Test page. This is strictly FYI. I am not asking or requesting anybody to fix this problem. Guy vandegrift (discuss • contribs) 07:36, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't see this error. Can you point out which section showed the lint error? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:25, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Using the new extension for inline comments

What about using this for peer review? https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:JayanthVikash/GSoC/InlineComments-Draft

Moreover, you may be interested in c:Category:Public peer review such as this open source repo (demo website may be up at another time). I wondered why one can't provide peer review feedback on preprints on the major preprint publishing websites like arxiv – have you looked into integrating with these so that for example one could provide feedback here on these preprints rather than making this only about publishing of papers here? Prototyperspective (discuss • contribs) 17:59, 20 August 2024 (UTC)