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Researchers want a ‘nutrition label’ for academic-paper facts

An ‘at a glance’ approach to publication details, such as journal acceptance rates and the number of peer reviewers, would promote transparency, scientists say.
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  1. Dalmeet Singh Chawla

    1. Dalmeet Singh Chawla is a freelance science journalist based in London.

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Close up view of a person checking the nutrition labels of a box of cereal.

Researchers hope to apply insights from the initiative to display nutrition-facts labels on food packaging to academic publishing. Credit: Spauln/Getty

Inspired by the nutrition-facts labels that have been displayed on US food packaging since the 1990s, John Willinsky wants to see academic publishing take a similar approach to help to inform readers on how strictly a paper meets scholarly standards.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01135-z

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

References

  1. Willinsky, J. & Pimentel, D. Learn. Publ. 37, 139–146 (2024).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Kessler, D. A., Mande, J. R., Scarbrough, F. E., Schapiro, R. & Feiden, K. Harv. Health Policy Rev. 4, 13–24 (2003).

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