The Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE) and Research Councils UK (RCUK) – which includes the Medical Research Council – recently put out a joint statement reinforcing their open access commitments (here). This announcement came in a speech by David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, showing the extent to which the principles of open access are […]
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Data available for BMJ Open article on medical device recalls
Great news! The full data set for the recently published article, ‘Medical-device recalls in the UK and the device-regulation process: retrospective review of safety notices and alerts’ has been deposited by the authors with DryadUK. The data files can be accessed online here: dx.doi.org./10.5061/dryad.585t4 Data set should be cited as: doi:10.5061/dryad.585t4 […]
Medical device recalls paper prompts concern in parliament and further coverage
The BMJ Open and BMJ articles (see previous post) and the Channel 4 Dispatches episode on the regulation and recall of medical devices has been covered in various newspapers and even prompted a question in Parliament. MPs Paul Flynn and Peter Bottomley tabled Early Day Motion 1819 noting the findings of the research and calling […]
BMJ Open and BMJ articles on device recalls
Yesterday BMJ Open published ‘Medical-device recalls in the UK and the device-regulation process: retrospective review of safety notices and alerts‘. This paper sits with features, analysis and commentary in the BMJ and the latest edition of Dispatches, ‘The truth about going under the knife’, on Channel 4 (tonight, 16 May, 8 pm). The full list […]
Open roads and closed sessions
A recent report on the next steps for increasing open access to UK research concluded that Green OA infrastructure (i.e. repositories) should be encouraged while an economically sustainable transition to Gold OA is worked through. ‘Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications’ by CEPA and Mark Ware Consulting, […]
Locked-in syndrome article coverage
A month after launch, some of our first papers are still being picked up in the media (see today’s Irish Medical Times for coverage of our paper on delays in recording diagnoses of ovarian cancer). The paper by Bruno et al. on self-assessed well-being of locked-in syndrome patients received considerable coverage, including this interview on BBC […]
BMJ Open and UK PMC
Confirmation that BMJ Open satisfies the open access criteria for the Wellcome Trust and other UK PMC funders (including Arthritis Research UK, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, NIHR and MRC) can be found here, at the UK PMC blog. BMJ Open will automatically deposit published articles with PMC on authors’ behalf without embargo. […]
BMJ Open publishes first papers; coverage on BBC’s Today, Washington Post …
BMJ Open has published its first papers. You can visit the site here. If you are looking for the paper by Bruno et al. on locked-in syndrome, as covered by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the BBC News website, the Washington Post, Times of India, etc., you can find it here. […]
BMJ joins the ‘open’ debate
BMJ Open is the first BMJ Group journal to use fully open peer review Revealing to authors who has peer reviewed their article has helped to make the process fairer and increase the credit for reviewers, according to a recent editorial published by the BMJ. BMJ Deputy Editor, Trish Groves presents her perspectives on the […]
BMJ Open in PubMed Central
This week BMJ Open received confirmation the journal has been accepted for inclusion in the NLM collection and so may deposit articles in PubMed Central (PMC). This means that by publishing in BMJ Open authors will meet the requirements of major funders such as the Wellcome Trust by making their articles open access and ensuring their deposition in PMC. Another reason […]