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Re: CrossRef vs FundRef -- does anyone understand why FundRef?
Subject:Re: CrossRef vs FundRef -- does anyone understand why FundRef? From:Lois Patterson <loisrpatterson -at- gmail -dot- com> To:Debbie Hemstreet <D_Hemstreet -at- rambam -dot- health -dot- gov -dot- il>, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:23:49 -0700
I am not in your field, and I'm not an academic, but here is my brief
understanding as a layperson.
FundRef seems to have the purpose of listing who funds research. Among
other purposes, people reading the research can consider whether there
might be a bias. For example, if a phamaceutical company PharmaZ funds a
study that indicates drug X is a cure for Y disease, and PharmaZ produces
drug X, then readers might be suspicious.
With FundRef, this funding information is put in a standard format, so that
it can readily be data-mined. Everyone then refers to PharmaZ in the same
way, so it's easier to find out all the studies that PharmaZ is funding. If
it is sometimes referred to as Pharma_Z (or ZPharma, or whatever) then it
is much harder to track total funding.
With finance, there is a slightly related problem. Suppose that an
institution is involved in numerous financial derivatives trades, but it is
identified in inconsistent ways. To simplify, InvestmentBankQ and
InvestmentBank_Q might be the same institution, but the lack of consistency
makes it much harder to track. Thus certain Dodd-Frank requirements re
Legal Entity Identifers that are currently underway - see, for example: http://www.pwc.com/us/en/financial-services/regulatory-services/publications/dodd-frank-closer-look/legal-entity-identifier.jhtml
Lois
On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 1:17 AM, Debbie Hemstreet <
D_Hemstreet -at- rambam -dot- health -dot- gov -dot- il> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I'm hoping that someone out there deals with academic/scientific
> publications and can answer this question.
>
> First the background: I am the Editorial Assistant for a scientific
> publication, Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal. The journal is listed in
> CrossRef and is an open access peer reviewed publication.
>
> We regularly receive updates about CrossRef, how it works, and changes to
> how to register our information etc.
>
> We received an email announcing a new way for "publishers and funders to
> track scholarly output via "FundRef"
>
> Our editor wrote to me and sent the announcement, and asked how this
> impacts us. I have absolutely no idea. According to the FundRef website (
>http://www.crossref.org/fundref/):
>
> WHO DOES FUNDREF BENEFIT?
> - Funding organizations, which will be able to better track the results of
> their funding policies.
> - Authors, in simplifying their submission process
> - Research institutions, which will be able to track the productivity of
> their employees
> - Publishers, which will be able to analyze the sources of funding for
> their published content, and
> - Readers and the public, by providing greater transparency into the
> results of R&D funding.
>
> THE QUESTION: What the heck does funding have to do with publications in a
> journal? And why would anyone care? In my understanding of things, I
> provide the funding information and publications info in reports to donors
> (personal or foundations) and let them know what's been published as a
> result of their funding. To now have this in a database like this seems to
> me like overkill.
>
> Does anyone understand what FundRef is, why it really is important, and
> what we, as a scholarly publication should consider with relation to this?
>
> Thanks in advance for your help.
>
> Deborah
>
>
>
>
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