Scientific publication management and assessment at Lisbon University School of Medicine (FMUL) : a multidisciplinary approach

• Autor(a) principal: Henriques, Susana Oliveira
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Barrosa, Sónia
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/44993
• topic: Indicadores de produção científica; Ética na publicação científica; Afiliação institucional; Autoria e coautoria na publicação científica; Gestão da qualidade; Melhoria de qualidade; Comunicação académica; Publicações científicas e técnicas; Publicações de divulgação científica; Sistemas de avaliação das publicações; Publicação periódica

Introduction In 2017, Lisbon University (ULisboa) started to consider scientific publication outputs as a criterion for budgetary allocation of schools. Only articles correctly affiliated and published in WoS or Scopus indexed journals were considered. With FMUL’s 2014–2017 Scientific Publication Report, some gaps were identified: wrong affiliation, authorship ambiguity, publication in not indexed journals (including predatory ones) and low adherence to the Institutional Repository. Thus the need of a Scientific Publication Policy for FMUL was highlighted. To support the future definition of a FMUL’s Scientific Publication Policy, a multidisciplinary team began to work with two main objectives: develop a Study Plan and Strategic Intervention about FMUL’s Scientific Publication and implement a Scientific Information Management System. Together with the Strategic and Quality Planning Office the Library coordinates the project. Librarians, quality management specialists, professors and researchers are working together as key partners. When necessary, specialized external consulting is requested. This project is part of the FMUL’s Internal Quality Assurance System1 (SIGQ-FMUL) and it’s one of the major priorities of the Improvement Action Plan, based on the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) methodology. Methods In 2017 we were focused on preparing a better response to the requirements of ULisboa, and minimize the negative impact in the budget allocation. To ensure that affiliation rules were met, the FMUL’s Affiliation Policy Guide2 was published based on the ULisboa Author’s Affiliation Rules3;4. Briefing sessions with the research groups about affiliation, authorship, journal selection and repository auto-archive were organized. To measure the impact of this first intervention, in 2018 the evolution of the occurrence of affiliation errors between 2013/2017 was analyzed. To better fulfill researcher’s specific needs the Library IL training program was restructured and a new Teaching and Research Support Unit was implemented. A protocol was established with FCT – the Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology, for the development of the Institutions Area in the new national CIÊNCIAVITAE platform, which seems to be a good solution as a Scientific Information Management System. Results As this is an ongoing project to develop until de end of 2020, by this moment only preliminary results can be presented. From 2013 to 2018 there was a significant increase in the number of publications in WoS or Scopus indexed journals correctly affiliated: 58,9% in 2013 vs 73% in 2018. From 2017 to 2018, auto-archive in the institutional repository increased 31%. Since 2017 eight new topics were added to the IL training program for researchers support. As we are now working on the 2019 report, more detailed data will be available soon. Discussion Although we question the criteria applied by ULisboa to assess the scientific outputs of schools, it gave us the opportunity to promote a more responsible behavior of our academic community, concerning scientific publication. From the preliminary results, we believe that this multidisciplinary approach is a good strategy to overcome the identified gaps. At the end of 2020, we aim to give a positive contribute for the definition of FMUL’s Scientific Publication Policy and reinforce our role as a transversal support team. More time is needed to conclude the project, evaluate the impact of it and define future directions.